01 · 02 · 18

Versión restaurada de Santo contra Cerebro del Mal se estrenará en la Berlinale 2018

Viviana García Besne

En una función especial del 15° Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia (FICM), Viviana García Besne, directora del archivo fílmico Permanencia Voluntaria, presentó la versión restaurada de Santo contra hombres infernales. Recientemente, García Besne nos compartió con gran emoción que Santo contra Cerebro del Mal, película hermana de Santo contra hombres infernales, se estrenará restaurada en la sección Forum de la Berlinale, como parte de las funciones especiales de Forum. Esta sección es un espacio que desde 1971 ha buscado destacar una visión alternativa de la historia del cine.

Las funciones especiales de Forum 2018 están dedicado al cine de África, películas documentales y experimentales, películas "anti-cine", películas serie B y películas "sucias". Christoph Terhechte, director de Forum, fue jurado de la Sección de Largometraje Mexicano en el 15° FICM; en el 13° FICM fue ponente en Locarno Industry Academy International; y fue invitado del 12° FICM.

Para destacar la importancia de la presencia de El Santo en la Berlinale y el trabajo que implicó la restauración de ambas películas, Vivana García Besne escribió para el FICM el texto que presentamos a continuación.

El Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia (FICM) ha sido, desde los inicios del archivo Permanencia Voluntaria, un aliado importantísimo para conseguir apoyo y para darle difusión al trabajo que realizamos de salvar el cine popular mexicano. Durante la 15ª edición del festival, se estrenó en una función especial al aire libre Santo contra hombres infernales, la primera de las dos películas filmadas en Cuba durante la revolución, en las que El Santo hizo su debut. Fue una función espectacular con lleno total, en la que la audiencia era de lo más variada que uno se pueda imaginar. Fue un ejemplo extraordinario de la fascinación que El Santo sigue generando a mexicanos y extranjeros.

The Permanencia Voluntaria Film Archive has a very fragile structure, which was severely damaged by the September 19 earthquake. That's why we depend on allies to support our work. We are the only independent film archive in Mexico that specializes in the collection and preservation of popular Mexican cinema movies, as well as other unique materials such as posters, documents and promotional items.

The FICM has been a visionary festival. It has had always great respect for the audience of Mexican popular cinema and has supported us by offering us a place in its programme. The screening of Santo contra hombres infernales in the festival was a huge help to achieve something incredible—take El Santo to the Berlinale.

The Restoration Key Pieces

Santo contra hombres infernales and Santo contra Cerebro del Mal are the first restorations of the genre of luchadores made in 4k. It is a great pride to the Permanencia Voluntaria archive to have worked in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science (AMPAS), Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, Peter Conheim of the Cinema Preservation Alliance, and Ross Lipman, former Senior Preservationist at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, who oversaw the many hours of color correction and digital repairs of the project. The result is the impressive digital restorations of Santo contra hombres infernales, which had its world restoration premiere at the 15th FICM; and of Santo contra Cerebro del Mal, which is to premiere on February 22, 2018, in the Berlinale’s Forum section.

This is the first time that a film in which our national hero and science fiction converge, reaches an international festival of such prestige.

Both of these two films, which represent the very first time that the famous El Santo character appeared on the big screen, have not been available in any acceptable quality prints since initial release. In 2017, the Permanencia Voluntaria archive, working in collaboration with Nicolas Winding Refn and the Academy Film Archive, set out to completely restore the films from their rapidly-deteriorating original camera negatives. Indeed, the ravages of time and poor storage had taken a toll on the 35mm materials, requiring a great deal of careful repair and cleaning before scanning, at Illuminate Studios and Post-Production in Studio City, California.

The Story Behind Santo contra hombres infernales and Santo contra Cerebro del Mal

Santo contra hombres infernales is the first of two Mexico-Cuba co-productions released—but the second to be completed—after Castro came to power in Cuba. At that moment, the filmmakers were forced to flee the country prematurely, with the unprocessed 35mm negative being smuggled out inside a coffin. As with its companion film, Santo contra El Cerebro del Mal, it wasn’t released to theaters until two years after initial production, and the aborted shooting schedule meant that sequences had to be “lifted” from each film to fill holes in the other, by necessity. This is particularly evident here with Santo contra hombres infernales, where a subplot pops up involving some suspicious characters, a chase scene and a fight, seemingly out of nowhere. It’s a shot-for-shot repeat from Santo contra Cerebro del Mal. This duplication also afforded a chance for the film’s producer, Jorgé Garcia Besne, to make a cameo appearance as a gangster, twice.