Workshop report: Filling the Gaps in an Incomplete Film - Überlegungen und Fragen zur Filmrekonstruktion von „Die Nacht gehört uns“

Using the example of the restoration of THE NIGHT BELONGS TO US (GER 1929), Lou Burkart discusses the challenges facing archivists when dealing with incomplete material. This early sound film, whose images could be recreated almost in their entirety thanks to a rediscovered camera negative, contains silent scenes where the soundtrack was missing. Burkart uses this to illustrate different restoration techniques ranging from discreet interventions to new creations. In one version, subtitles based on censorship documents were added.  In a second version, the text from the censorship report was extended to include dialogues, which were interpreted by professional lip readers and synchronised by actors. In the third version, the subtitles of the first version were added to a surround soundtrack created using modern sound databases. In a fourth version, several of these options were combined. This workshop report presents the results and underlines the need for such experiments.