COLOURS REFOUND: TEN FILMS 1896-1916

The 10 films that make up this programme come from different archives and have been restored in projects not connected to each other. It was only after they passed the selection for the festival individually that they clustered together to form a crash course about the techniques used in silent cinema to colour black-and-white positives.
In the latter years of the 19th century films were coloured by hand, in workshops that specialised in colouring photographs and slides for magic lanterns. The most famous of the Paris ateliers was run by Élisabeth Thuillier (do not miss the conference dedicated to her!), and Madame et Monsieur sont pressés (1901) is one of the rare Pathé films that we know for certain was coloured in the Thuillier workshop.
In early black-and-white productions by Pathé frères, the intertitles were usually tinted in orange-red to give structure and rhythm, as can be seen in Paris élégant: le Bois de Boulogne (1907). Soon, the exquisite polychrome stencil colouring became the pride of the company. The unrivalled Pathécolor, used for travelogues, féeries and costume dramas, can be admired in Phèdre (1910) and Le Port de Marseille (1912). The other companies mostly had to make do with simple tinting and/or toning.
None of the prints in this programme was rediscovered in its country of production, and all of them are foreign-language versions, which just illustrates how international cinema has always been.

Mariann Lewinsky 

P.S. My Little Baby is a fake short film; this fragment of a Francesca Bertini comedy turned up in Berlin and was added at the last moment to the programme.