Among the films which, starting in 1912, heralded a new era for FAI, we find La giustizia dell’abisso, defined as a «Strong film drama of social issues». Indeed, it is the first film which seems to want to deal with the problems of the working class. Rosita has been fired and her colleague, is led by Valdati, decide to strike until the woman regains her job. The owner takes forceful action, and not only does he not give the woman her job back, but he also fires all the «instigators» of the strike. At first glance, the film seems to support the class struggle, but in reality things go quite differently, and the justice spoken of has nothing to do with that of the classes… The film enjoyed widespread distribution, and was furthermore appreciated for its use of the unparalleled Pathécolor. Restoration of the film, which dates back to 1996, began from the finding of an original, unassembled nitrate negative, held at the Cinémathèque Française. That copy was however incomplete. Out of 36 scenes, the following eleven were missing (including the ending in its entirety): 1, 2, 10, 14, 16, 24, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36. Fortunately the original script was found at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Arts du Spectacle, which allowed us both to identify the missing scenes and to reconstruct the intertitles and then translate them into Italian. During restoration it was decided to insert brief notes, indicated by a different graphic style than the intertitles, to aid in better understanding of the plot and film structure.

Alessia Navantier, Michele Canosa