The film:

A little classic, much noted and often cited, here in a shortened version reduced to its essentials. Cocotte, a deliveryman’s greedy horse, takes advantage of the absence of its owner – delivering a basket of laundry to the top floor of a building – and helps himself to a whole bag of oats on display outside a seed shop next door. This unplanned extra snack gives the horse the energy to launch into a frantic gallop along the streets of the city, throwing the deliveryman from his cart and overturning everything in its path. In the end, with half the town in hot pursuit, the horse returns quietly to its stable as if nothing had happened.

The digital process: 

On 1 November 1912 Pathé, one of the world’s biggest film companies, launched its first home cinema system – a parlour projector for a family audience, curiously resembling a Singer sewing machine. Its advertising slogan ran: “KOK: Cinema in your own home! Joy for grown-ups! Happiness for children!”. The 28mm Cinématographe de Salon KOK projector was the first successor to the magic lantern, which had long been popular among the rich bourgeoisie and aristocratic families.

A Runaway Horse was digitized in 2017 through a partnership involving the film archives of Turin, Toulouse, and Limoges, starting with the films from the 28mm collection in Turin. Repair work and scanning in 2K were carried out by the Cinémathèque de Nouvelle-Aquitaine, and image-enhancement and finalizing by the Cinémathèque de Toulouse. Our thanks go to the Gaumont Pathé Archives for their help in identifying the films.

Link Vimeo Cineteca MNC: https://vimeo.com/419832583

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