Tamburino sardo, Il Sardinian Drummer Boy (1911) Production: Cines, Roma –
Original lenght: 220 m –
Lenght: 211m –
Intertitles: Italian –
Censorship certificate: n. 4046, 01/12/1914 –
Availability date: 12/1911
The film:
"The film Il Tamburino sardo tells a day of the Italian Risorgimento. On the 24th of July 1848, about sixty soldiers of the ground troops sent on a mountain in order to occupy an isolated house were suddenly assaulted by two Austrian companies. They just had the time to take refuge in the house and bar the doors.
The sixty soldiers were commanded by two officials and a captain, a tall and austere old man, with white hair and moustaches.
Among them, there was the Sardinian drummer, a 14 year old young boy looking younger, with an olive-coloured face and deep black eyes."
«It’s the Edmondo De Amici’s short story of January, filled with strong and gentle emotions. In this tale, the great Italian writer generously gave one of the best pages of his intellect. The reading evokes such strong emotions in the public of each class that we think we made a highly instructive work, recreating the suggestive plot in a movie.»
[From the original reviews on Italian silent cinema: «La cinematografia italiana ed estera», y. IX, n. 5, 15 March 1915, p. 76
The restoration of Il tamburino sardo was conducted by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino and by the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia - Cineteca Nazionale of Rome, from a tinted and toned nitrate positive copy 194 meters long with Italian intertitles, conserved at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale in Rome. It is a re-release which followed the film’s initial release. The copy was completely preserved, except for the amendment of two obvious editing incongruities and the elimination of an intertitle belonging to another film made by Gloria Films in 1915. The colors were reproduced using Desmetcolor, except for the final frame, which was hand-painted in the nitrate copy and which was digitally restored. The gaps are indicated with 10 black frames.
The restoration was carried out at the laboratory L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna in 2011.
This restoration was part of a project promoted by the the Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino to safeguard and valorize the winning films of the Film Competition held on the occasion of Torino’s World Expo in 1911. The film Il tamburino sardo received first prize in the category of didactic films.
