In honor of the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, Macedonia’s Cinematheque released a DVD with seven digitally remastered films – work of art of the prominent director, Stole Popov.This luxurious collection of Popov’s feature, documentary movies will be an attractive gift for all fans of Macedonian film art.The digital restoration of Stole Popov’s films is rather beneficial for the Macedonian culture, as it presents the work of an author that left visible trace in the national cinematography, one that has been famous both at home and abroad.
The Cinematheque of Macedonia has contributed continuously to promoting film culture and raising the awareness of how significant the protection of the audiovisual cultural heritage is, as an important segment in safeguarding Macedonia’s national identity and in promoting our country globally.
Cinematheque Director Mimi Gjorgoska-Ilieska said two DVDs were being released, one containing four feature ( Red Horse, Happy New ’49, Tattoo, Gipsy Magic ) and the other three documentary (Fire, Australia Australia and Dae ) movies.
To this end, in 2011, the year in which the Cinematheque celebrated its 35th anniversary, we implemented a project for digital restoration of Macedonian films for the first time. The project encompassed seven films directed by Stole Popov: his feature films THE RED HORSE, HAPPY NEW YEAR – 1949, TATTOO and GIPSY MAGIC, and his documentaries FIRE, AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIA and DAE.
Upon completing the entire administrative procedure, as well as the international tender competition, the digital restoration was carried out by the firm RESTART Production of Ljubljana, the Republic of Slovenia.
The image was first scanned in a 2K resolution and the sound from the magnetic tape was converted to a digital format. After the scanning, color correction of the image was made to every film separately, while the sound was cleaned of all the noise being a result of physical damage or the ravages of time. Once the color correction was over, the image was manually restored through a digital procedure, in the process of which all damage, cracks and scratches were removed. The restored image and sound were then blended and, upon making trial showings, all films were put on LTO4 tapes in order for them to be archived and also for making a new backup negative and new film copies
There is also an exclusive DG collection of all seven remastered films and a booklet with information on the movies and review of Popov’s work that can be found at Macedonia’s Cinematheque

 

Cover Design Ladislav Cvetkovski