Coming up in March is the 1st INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE COLOUR IN FILM in London. It fosters the interaction between color film restoration and color science.
The Conference will open on March 2nd, 2016, 14.00 at BFI Southbank with specially selected colour film screenings contextualised by expert introductions, as well as an opening reception, and then continue with all-day presentations on March 3rd, 9.00-17.00 at Friends House near London Euston Station.
Colour in Film is a joint initiative of the Colour Group, the HTW – University of Applied Sciences Berlin and the British Film Institute. For further information, please contact Dr. Elza Tantcheva-Burdge, Secretary of the Colour Group, or Dr. Ulrich Ruedel, Professor for Conservation and Restoration of Modern Media at HTW Berlin.
Confirmed keynote speakers include Sarah Street (University of Bristol, Leverhulme Trust research project, Colour in the 1920s: Cinema and Its Intermedial Contexts), Barbara Flueckiger (University of Zurich, Timeline of Historical Film Colors) and Andrew Stockman (University College of London, Institute of Ophthalmology, Colour & Vision).
In her talk, Barbara Flueckiger will set a special focus on strategies to improve the scanning and rendition of film colors such as tinting and toning, Technicolor, Dufaycolor, Agfacolor, and faded chromogenic colours in general.
Additionally among other screenings from the British Film Institute, there will be screenings of recent restorations performed in the framework of the Swiss research project DIASTOR:
- Der Märchenwald, ein Schattenspiel (GER 1919)
A tinted live-action silhouette film from the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, restored at DIASTOR partner Cinegrell Postproduction in Zurich
Various vivid tints in the live-action silhouette film Der Märchenwald, ein Schattenspiel
- Parures (CHE 1939, Werner Dressler)
A Dufaycolor film from the Cinémathèque suisse, restored at DIASTOR partner Cinegrell Postproduction in Zurich
Comparison of differently focused versions of Dufaycolor scans
- Opfergang [The Great Sacrifice] (GER 1944, Veit Harlan)
One of the earliest Agfacolor and chromogenic color feature films worldwide, from the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation, restored at ARRI in Munich under the supervision of Anke Wilkening. An extract of the new restoration will be screened as a world première at the conference.
Opfergang (Germany 1944). Source: Agfacolor nitrate positive, Filmmuseum Düsseldorf. Copyright: Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, Wiesbaden. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger, DIASTOR
Furthermore, Barbara Flueckiger will give an outlook of her new research project ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors that aims at a systematic investigation of the relationship between the technology and aesthetics of film colors with recent advancements in digital humanities.
Please register for the conference early via this link! Admission is restricted.
DIASTOR Showreel.
Featured image: Im Land der Morgenstille (Germany/South Korea, 1925) courtesy of So Won Choi, HTW Berlin with kind permission of Benedictine St. Ottilien Archabbey, Landsberg, Germany.