La spedizione Franchetti nella Dankalia etiopica is a technically remarkable expedition documentary, as well as a significant testimony to the colonial history of Fascist Italy. Baron Raimondo Franchetti, a descendant of one of the most illustrious families of the Italian aristocracy, was a figure as eclectic as he was controversial within the context of Italian colonial expansion. The expedition, which took place between November 1928 and June 1929, occurred during a particularly delicate phase in the relationship between the Italian government and the Ethiopian empire, just a few years before the Fascist invasion. The film documentation was carried out by Mario Craveri, a cameraman from the Istituto Luce. The film was first presented on 19 November 1929, in a version divided into four parts, intended for the Franchetti family and screenedat the Teatro Garibaldi in Treviso. The following day, 20 November, an alternative version – composed of six parts with different editing – was shown at the Teatro Augusteo in Rome, in the presence of members of the royal family. An additional screening took place on 26 November 1929, at the opening of the Cinema Odeon in Milan, where the film was accompanied by a performance of Gioachino Rossini’s Guglielmo Tell. The current restoration focuses on the six-part edition, reconstructed through critical work aimed at restoring the form of the film as it was presented during its most significant screening. This edition was likely prepared solely for that evening and subsequently adapted into the more widely distributed four-part version. The reconstruction was based on the analysis of negatives held at the Istituto Luce, archival sources and the complete list of intertitles from the original six-part edition. This process made it possible to confirm the original sequence of the sections and to reconstruct the intertitles, which are now presented as a faithful simulation based closely on the historical sources, without any editorial alterations. At Il Cinema Ritrovato several excerpts will be presented and discussed in the theater by the team that promoted and oversaw the film’s restoration.

Andrea Mariani