Cabiria

The museum in Turin has a number of mementos from Italy’s most famous silent film, the 1914 epic by the Asti-born director Giovanni Pastrone, which was written by Gabriele D’Annunzio and set during the Punic Wars. They include an original poster, the High Priest’s costume, a copy of the statue of the god Moloch and most significantly the film reels, which have been restored and arranged into what we would now call the director’s cut. Parts that were cut by censors have been reintroduced, colour change and imbibition processes have been carried out and the intertitles have been reconstructed in the style of the time. It has all been done by hand rather than digitally, using a number of technical documents that were rediscovered, bought by the Piedmont regional authorities and are now kept at the museum. The same work has been done with the sound version from 1931, which Pastrone himself donated to the museum.