To celebrate the 120th anniversary of Slovenian film, the Slovenian Cinematheque, in cooperation with the Slovenian Film Centre and the Slovenian Film Archive at the Slovenian Film Archive, has prepared digitally restored versions of two key films of Slovenian film heritage: Kekec (Jože Gale, 1951) and Srečno, Kekec (Jože Gale, 1963). Here we present the course of the challenging restoration process that gave these precious film titles a new lease of life
Kekec – digital restoration process
The film’s image negative was kept for many years in the Yugoslav Cinematheque in Belgrade. After its return to the Slovenian Film Archive in 2023, the Slovenian Film Centre decided to digitally restore the film on the basis of the acquired material.
The negative was in poor condition and difficult to work with – the very identification of the type of material was difficult, and parts of the intermediate were embedded in it. The digitised material showed problems with micro-organisms and image stabilisation, but nevertheless allowed for high-quality colour correction and detailed manual restoration.
A reference print, selected from seven 35 mm positive prints, was used for the work. The sound was digitised from the optical recording of the 35 mm positive.
The project was led by: director of photography Rado Likon (supervisor), Alja Lucian (image), Julij Zornik (sound), with the participation of Enea Ahmedhodžić, Nerina T. Kocjančič and Roman Marinko. The digitisation of the image was carried out by Iridium Film and the sound by L’Immagine Ritrovata.
Srečno, Kekec – digital restoration process
The digital restoration of Srečno, Kekec began in 2022 as part of the National Programme for the Financing of Urgent Cultural Projects.
The image negative from the Slovenian Film Archive and the tone negative from the Yugoslav Cinematheque were digitised. The work took place in 2023 and 2024 at the L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna.
As this is the first Slovenian colour feature film, special attention was paid to colour reproduction. The perfectly preserved reference print from the Slovenian Film Archive was key to this.
The project was initially led by Nadja Šičarov, then by Marko Turkuš. Darko Štrukelj, Bojana Živec, Ivan Nedoh and Alja Lucian also participated. The director of photography Radovan Čok (picture) and Julij Zornik (sound) were consultants.
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