REV25: ALICE IN THE CITIES

A German writer faces a writers block while residing in another country and decides to move back. His life takes a twist when he befriends a woman who entrusts him with the care of her daughter.

One of the main goals of the Wim Wenders Foundation focuses on the restoration of the director's body of work. The case for of ALICE IN THE CITIES is very special. It was shot on 16 mm black and white negative in the summer of 1973. For 15 years all copies in circulation worldwide were made from the original negative. When a 35 mm dupe negative was finally made in 1988, the original material was already damaged by countless scratches, vertical lines and cracks.

The digital restoration of the film was done in 2014 at ARRI Film & TV Services Berlin. For this purpose, the original negative was scanned in a resolution of 4K using the wetgate method and retouched and color-corrected in a resolution of 2K. Individual sequences that were too heavily damaged in the original 16 mm negative were replaced with sections from the 35 mm dupe negative.

Feature Narrative | 1974 | West Germany | German language with English subtitles