El Pañuelo de Clarita

This project will focus on the study and digital restoration of El Pañuelo de Clarita, a film shot in Argentina in 1919 under the direction of Emilia Saleny (Argentina, 1894-1978) and produced and screenwritten by Bautista Amé (Italia, 1889 − Argentina, 1973). Considered the first Argentinian film directed by a woman, the work survives only in a single material: a 35 mm screening copy, nitrate, with the original   tints and editing of the time. Hence, it is particularly rare, considering the limited survival of documents from the silent era in their original format (in Argentina, it is estimated that some 90% of silent films have been lost), and rarer still to find films made by women at that time.

The film is preserved at Amé Archive, a family archive dedicated to the photographic legacy of Bautista Amé and his family, located in the small town of Ingeniero Luiggi, in La Pampa, Argentina. The archive contains more than 50,000 documents related to the commercial production of Foto Amé –a business established in 1914 and which still operates today–, including glass and acetate photographs of all sizes, as well as the film copy and other paper documentation related to El Pañuelo de Clarita (original script and intertitles, administrative documents, posters and photographs). Despite the importance of the archive for Argentinian cultural heritage, its collections are not stored in appropriate conditions, nor are they catalogued, and there are no actions to preserve them apart from their safeguarding by their natural custodian, Ofelia Amé (Ingeniero Luiggi, 1938), the daughter of Bautista Amé. 

The project will include undertaking the necessary tasks for preserving the copy (transfer of the material, critical study, digitisation, restoration), together with an analysis of the work in the context of its production. It will be important to study the primary sources –both in the Amé Archive and in other documentary collections– and to review previous research on the topic to construct a critical approximation to Emilia Saleny’s career as a founder of one of the first film academies in Argentina and as a “professional” film director contracted by Bautista Amé, based on her autobiography. The project will also involve the design of access proposals for presenting and circulating the film (incorporating aspects such as rights and interinstitutional agreements) and for the curatorial findings of the research.

The project on El Pañuelo de Clarita will be carried out in collaboration with the Archivo Amé project, which has funding from the Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP) of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for the planning and project digitisation phases.

Lead Researcher: Carolina Cappa
Associated researcher: Julieta Sepich
Associated institutions: Amé Archive, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Timeframe: New creation