Director Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Die Nibelungen was restored at PresTech Film Laboratories, London for the German institute, FW Murnau Stiftung, in a painstaking work lasting 4 years. The epic silent film was premiered in Berlin on Tuesday 27 April 2010 at Deutsche Oper opera theatre Berlin. Gottfried Huppertz’ original score was performed by the HR-Sinfonie Orchester conducted by Frank Strobel. Duration of the program: 6 hours including 1 hour interval between the 2 episodes.

About Die Nibelungen

One of the most elaborate and expensive feature film productions of its time, its innovative cinematography and lighting effects give an astonishingly beautiful image quality. The film is rightfully considered a super-production and has its deservedly prestigious place in film history.

Die Nibelungen, based on the epic poem Nibelungenlied, consists of two episodes: Siegfried (released 14 February 1924) and Kriemhild's Revenge (released 26 April 1924). The films were produced by Erich Pommer, written by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, with cinematography by Carl Hoffmann.


PresTech’s restoration

The film was a UFA blockbuster which achieved world-wide success. As was usual in its time, sets of negatives in different versions for German, European and American distribution were made. Probably thousands of prints were distributed world-wide. Some camera negatives and prints survived in different states of deterioration to the present day. This was the source material.

After analysing these sources and extensively testing, it was decided to stay as closely as possible to the technology of the time, including the original tinting finishing process, to preserve the tonal range of the black and white image while at the same time reproducing the picture quality and colour of the 1920s.


FW Murnau Stiftung’s reconstruction editing list was followed. A duplicate negative that would be the matrix for the generation of new prints was produced. The process chosen for this was to reproduce the full dynamic range possessed by the original camera negatives. Contact printing, the same process as used in the 1920s was chosen for the image restoration, combined with liquid gate printing to eliminate optically the reproduction of physical scratches from the original during printing. Digital technology was used for cleaning and stabilising the intertitles.

Shrinkage, brittleness and physical damage of the sources were the main problems faced which meant this process of restoration took four years to be completed.