The Rashomon Restoration Project

Alejandra Armendariz aarmher
Thu Aug 21 13:15:53 EDT 2008


The Rashomon Restoration Project


Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation
????????and
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences


It has been ten years since the legendary director Akira Kurosawa (23
March, 1910 - 6 September, 1998) passed away. Kadokawa Pictures has
begun the task of digitally restoring Kurosawa's Rashomon with The
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Considering Rashomon's
arts and cultural values, Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation, The
Academy Motion Pictures Arts and Science in the US, and The Film
Foundation decided to support the restoration project. Rashomon is the
first Japanese film to be restored by the Academy and the Film
Foundation. Also for this project, the digital restoration will be done
at 4K for the first trial in Japanese film history.

Released in Japan on August 26th, 1950 and exported soon thereafter,
Rashomon was immediately recognized as signal achievement in cinema.
The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1951 and
received an honorary Academy Award (Academy Award for Best Foreign
Language Film) in the following year. 

The project is supervised by Michael Pogorzelski, the director of the
Academy Film Archive and a renowned film archivist. From Japan, the
National Film Center joins the project to provide technical and
academic advice. 

The restored film will be shown on September 18th at the Samuel
Goldwin Theater as a special event of KUROSAWA retrospective "Akira
Kurosawa: Film Artist". 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

?Restoration Process: Scanning Rashomon at 4K to digitize the film
=>Restoring damaged film as digital data=>Recording out the
restored film at 4K on a new film stock (producing a new negative)

?The picture restoration is handled by Lowry Digital and YCM
laboratory. The audio restoration is done by DJ Audio and Audio
Mechanics (All the vendors are in Burbank, CA)

?Digitally restored Japanese feature films to date: Shin Heike
Monogatari (Kadokawa Pictures/Kenji Mizoguchi/1955), 24 Eyes
(Shochiku/Keisuke Kinoshita/1954), Vessel of Sand (Shochiku/Yoshitaro
Nomura/1974)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

?Kadokawa Pictures' Genban-hozon (Film Preservation) Project  

Kadokawa Pictures owns the combined libraries of Daiei, Kadokawa
Pictures, and Nippon Herald Films, a collection of more than 1600
feature motion pictures that includes many Japanese favorites and also
internationally renowned classics of cinema. 
Kadokawa believes that preservation of these precious cultural assets
is an obligation of the highest order. We believe that these films
represent an important facet of Japanese culture, and that there is
significant public benefit in their preservation. The restoration of
these films is motivated by cultural and educational imperatives. 
Kadokawa's negatives are conserved in the National Film Center's
temperature-controlled vault in Sagamihara City. This storage minimizes
deterioration and helps to preserve the integrity of the original
negatives. Unfortunately, like all celluloid, all of the film negatives
will eventually suffer chemical decomposition. Therefore, supported by
Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation, we began preservation and
restoration of our collection in 2004. We organized the "Genban Hozon
(Film Preservation) Project " to inspect, restore and duplicate the
fragile original negatives for archival purposes. 

Following Shin Heike monogatari, Rashomon is our second film to be digitally restored. 

---------------------------------------------------------------

?When inquiring about this project, please contact
Teni Melidonian
tmelidonian at oscars.org
+310.247.3090

(in Japan)Yuniko Amano or Miki Fujita
(License Management Group) 
sozai at kadokawa-pictures.co.jp 
TEL: 03-5213-0703 / FAX: 03-3556-4336 


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