Cardini’s early movies

In January 2020, after 4 years of research through 4 countries, I traveled to Poland and inspected 3 reels of Lumiere film stock from 1902. Together with Rafael Ayuso and Iga Harasimowicz of FINA we confirmed the identification: 

• A print of “Salida de obreros” 

• A negative of “Escenas Callejeras”

• A fragment of a print of “Escenas Callejeras”

First, I presented a poster in AMIA 2020 (video)

Then, I did a longer presentation in Spanish for X Encuentro Internacional de Investigación sobre Cine Chileno y Latinoamericano, the video is available on Facebook live (my presentation starts at 1:13:00).

There is also an article published in Vivomatografías and the full non-censured story is on Instagram live.

In June 2022 I did a presentation in Poland and Salida was screened on full frame after many many years.

In April 2024 I organized a retrospective of Cardini’s movies together with Museo del Cine - this is what happened.

Since then, Cardini’s family launched a project to reunite and preserve his collection and two other films appeared:

• San Giuliano e le saline de Trapani, a nitrate pochoir print that I identified. It was screened at Pordenone film festival

• A view of Lecco with the italian family of Cardini, ca 1897

I did the digital restoration of Salida in partnership with FINA and Pharos, this new version was also screened in Pordenone’s Giornate. A before-and-after video will soon be available, here below, a first sample.