Vittorio Sella made this documentary on the Karakoram mountain range (Western Himalaya) during the expedition of Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, HRH the Duke of the Abruzzi, which took place in 1909 with the guides Joseph Petigax, Henri and Emile Brocherel.
The film describes the journey through its key stages: the arrival at Rawalpindi station, the filming of Dal Lake, the recruitment of porters, the journey on foot or on rafts to the Boorgi-La pass.
A mountaineering expedition that failed to achieve SAR's primary objective, the ascent of K2, but which did lead to the achievement of an altitude record: 7498 meters on Bride Peak. The undertaking cost around half a million francs and employed approximately 400 people.
The film was used to illustrate the lectures given by the Duke in Rome and Turin to recount the details of the enterprise. The film was officially released commercially at the Borsa Cinema in Turin on February 2, 1910.
The conservative restoration was carried out in 1995 by the National Cinema Museum of Turin, the Nederlands Filmmuseum of Amsterdam [EYE Film Institute Netherlands] and the Cultural Association Festival Internazionale Film della Montagna, starting from a tinted and toned nitrate print preserved by the Turin Museum, acquired in 1960 by the Sella family.
The video is the digitization of the restored print created as part of the DIGITALIZATION OF THE CINEMATOGRAPHIC AND AUDIOVISUAL HERITAGE PROJECT promoted by MIBACT for the year 2017: 35mm, triacetate, 676 m, 34', 18 fps, Italian subtitles, color, silent.
Thanks to the Sella Foundation (fondazionesella.org) for the kind permission to publish on Streeen
