The first of twelve episodes from Feuillade’s legendary serials is shown here in its restored version in its world première screening: the sequel will be one of the events of Il Cinema Ritrovato 1999.

The Barrabas series is as astonishing and epic as much as the previous ones by Feuillade, Vampires and Judex. Until now it was also the only one not yet restored and therefore the least known. When the restoration work is completed, the entire series by Feuillade will be saved and ready to be screened.

“In Feuillade, the fantastic ‘created’, but drawn from life. It anticipates what would later be called the ‘everyday marvel’, a poetic notion recognising inherent qualities in objects and things, which are represented – in the case of a Realist such as Feuillade – by stripping the object of any contrivance, or – in the case of a Surrealist such as Buñuel – by transposing the object into an unusual place, where, thus ‘reconditioned’ it would retrieve its specific quality”.

(Georges Franju, Il était le cinéma…, in Francis Lacassin, Louis Feuillade, Ed. Seghers, Paris, 1964)

“Who will write the great film for Feuillade? The time has come to establish again true values… Here he is, the great avant-garde artist of his time, the man still believing in mystery, omens, tears and smiles, adventures, man, unknown and unforeseeable reality, much more than in the disguise found in Fantomas or in the devilish creations of Vampires”.

(Ado Kyrou, Le surréaliste au cinéma, ed. Le Terrain Vague, 1953 and 1963)