The
Audio-Visual Heritage Restoration Center at EMPC is considered one of the
largest specialized restoration centers in the Middle East. It was established
in 2018 to preserve the heritage and ancient
photographic treasures owned by Egypt before they are damaged or get old.
The center is also an important qualitative leap in this specialty
in Egypt, as it offers a wide range of services in the field of restoring
cinema heritage and films digital restoration. As Egypt owns the largest share
of movies in the Arab world, about three quarters of the number of movies
produced since 1930, and for fear that this huge and precious stock will be
damaged and worn out, EMPC has taken this step out of its cultural
responsibility to save this huge cinema heritage and preserve it for future
generations.
The center includes the latest
technologies in the field of digital film scanning, converting it to a digital
format with the highest quality 6K and digital restoration, That’s in addition
to a group of well-trained professionals in order to preserve the vision of the
original filmmakers for future generations and to reach the highest level of
efficiency to keep pace with the international standards specialized in this
regard.
Services provided by the
Restoration Center
1- Films Physical
restoration:
It is the first important stage to restore the film. This process is manual in
which the films are manually checked and all joints, holes, fractures and
ruptures of images are repaired and cleaned to remove dirt and dust accumulated
on the surface of the filmstrip.
2- Film scanning:
In order to recover film material from severely degraded filmstrips, the center
is equipped with a highly professional ARRISCAN XT scanner that is capable of
capturing as much detail as possible and delivering up to 6k resolution, paving
the way to reach back and restore the image to its original greatness.
The center also contains an
advanced device attached to the scanner, ARRISCAN WETGATE, which provides a
unique solution to hide dust and scratches and thus improve the quality of the
transmitted image.
3- Digital restoration:
● Digital Image Restoration: A
group of the most advanced digital recovery programs in the world is used,
whereby the missing information in the image is replaced by the images that
precede and follow it to re-create the parts of the missing or severely damaged
images while restoring the sharpness of colors and image stability.
● Sound restoration: the sound is
purified and corrected using Protools, in addition to sound recovery in an
advanced way using image to sound tools provided by ARRI, which is an effective
method for transmitting sound in a digital form by transcribing the sound in
the form of an image using the high-quality scanning device provided by
ARRISCAN XT.
* Restoration of the entire collection of the
Egyptian Film Newspaper (2389 issues) covering the time period from 1952 to
2015 for Egypt State Information Service.
* Restoration of 140 documentary films for Egypt
State Information Service.
* Restoration of the feature films “A Little
Love… Lots of Violence” 1995, “Watch Out for
Zuzu” 1972, and “Love in Karnak” 1967 for Red Sea
International Film Festival.
* Restoration of the feature films “Diary of a
Deputy in the Countryside” 1969 and “A Song on the Passage” 1972 for Cairo
International Film Festival.
