Great news for the Historical Archive of the ABC Cinema of Bari. Next Thursday, June 27, at 7.30 pm, the event will take place in the historic arthouse cinema of Bari as part of the project for the recovery, reorganization and valorisation of part of the Historical Archive of the ABC, created thanks to a total intervention of 154,400 euros co-financed by the Ministry of Culture (which recognized the ABC Film Library as historic), the Puglia Region (with the director of the Culture Department, Aldo Patruno, who implemented the Entertainment law n.6 of 2004) and Centro di Cultura Cinematografica ABC srl.
During the evening, which has free admission until all available seats are available, the public will be able to attend the screening of the first film shown at the ABC Cinema, Quant’è bello lu murire acciso by Ennio Lorenzini, from 1975 (in 1976 the director won a David di Donatello, a Nastro d’Argento and a Golden Globe. 10 restored minutes of the film Joan of Arc (1948), which took home three Statuettes, directed by Victor Fleming and starring, will also be shown. Ingrid Bergman. An exhibition with the restored posters will also be set up in the ABC room.
In November 2022, the Archival and Bibliographic Superintendence of Puglia – signed by Superintendent Marco Bascapè – recognized the ABC Archives as “of historical relevance”, underlining “the urgency of safeguarding its integrity”. Now the restoration is finally a reality and the first audiovisual and archival documentary materials that the Archive collects, dating from the early 1900s to 2003, have been sent to Rome, to the headquarters of the companies that will take care of its recovery. from the beginning, well inventoried under the far-sighted impulse of the founder, Prof. Mario Nuzzolese, but upon his death (2008) and over time, there have been successive movements and discards which have partially undermined its integrity.
In the ABC Film Library, which is located in the old Filmeria, adjacent to the current cinema, there are around 200 film reels, over 8,000 posters (for a total of 11 quintals, also the result of donations made over the years by the cinemas Apulian cinematographic and SAC), a specialized collection of around 750 volumes on the sector, original screenplays of famous films, 157 scripts of theatrical performances, a newspaper library and a film archive with 2,260 cards, a collection of 504 newsreels from 1975 to 1983 and 3 photo albums. Also part of the archive are historical equipment – the cinema projector used for the projection of 35mm films with the attached Dolby sound system, the film winder, the splicer and all the technical accessories for projection, which are currently located in the ABC Cinema -.
Browsing through the precious material, you will find real gems: such as the 35 mm reels ranging from 1918 (among these, “Pensaci Giacomino” by Gennaro Righelli) to 1981 with the film “SOB” directed by Blake Edwards. The many posters, among which the one of the first film shown in the ABC cinema stands out, “Quant’è bello lu murire acciso” by Ennio Lorenzini, from 1975.
This one-of-a-kind operation will allow us to rewrite the history of film libraries and arthouse cinema in Italy as it brings back into vogue one of the first Italian arthouse film archives and cinema clubs.
The first intervention on archive materials concerns the safety and cataloging of the preserved assets, providing for their suitable location for the conservation and recovery of some more urgent elements to be treated at the time of the intervention and which will then be digitized for use. The latter operations are designed and carried out by professional restorers of cultural heritage.
The Archive will also be made accessible through the organization of events, screenings, conferences – whose scientific direction is entrusted to Francesca Rossini, secretary of the Interregional Union Agis Puglia and Basilicata, and Oscar Iarussi, journalist, film critic and essayist -, and the start of content sharing with dedicated platforms or through the arthouse cinema circuit.
The Historical Archive of the ABC will be hosted in the spaces of the Bari Cineporto, thanks to the free loan agreement, lasting two years, recently signed by the Apulia Film Commission and ABC – Centro di Cultura Cinematografica srl .
The project is framed by a video, signed by the director from Bari Alessandro Piva, which recounts the phases of this project for the recovery and valorisation of the Archive.
For the restoration, conservation and technical management projects of the archive, the ABC avails itself of the collaboration of the company Librarti of Serena Dominijanni, restorer at the MIC (sectors 9 and 10), and of the film laboratory Movie and Sound Firenze srl, directed by Marco Pagni Fontebuoni, specialized in the restoration and long-term conservation of cinematographic films using photochemical and digital techniques.
Serena Dominijanni’s Librarti company, which has been operating in Rome since 2017, is qualified by the Ministry of Culture to carry out conservation, restoration and valorisation of cultural heritage interventions.
The Movie and Sound cinematographic laboratory, active since 1992, is taking care of the restoration of the reels, thanks to its vast fleet of specific machines for the development, printing, sound production, photochemical and digital restoration of cinematographic films and audiovisual materials.
The Aprile Organization of Bari is also collaborating on the project, founded in 1953 by Mario Aprile and managed today by his son Nunzio and the third generation made up of Mario and Terry, one of the most efficient outsourced archives in Italy and an innovative and digital reality.
Finally, the planning for the recovery and conservation of archival funds follows the most modern technologies for environmental protection and environmental sustainability.
