Roughly 2,000 Berliners braved the cold at the Brandenburg Gate to view the restored original version of German director Fritz Lang's 1927 masterpiece, Metropolis.

Using an original copy of the film that had languished for decades in an Argentinian museum and was discovered in 2008, film archeologists painstakingly filled in the gaps in a previous restoration of the futuristic silent picture.

While some of the re-discovered material still looks very damaged, the new, 147-minute version is probably the closest anyone will ever come to replicating what Lang’s first audience saw.

An epic tale set in a sprawling futuristic dystopia featuring expressionist camera work, cutting edge special effects and ambitious set design, Metropolis has since become an acclaimed example of early German cinema.

For a film which is now so highly esteemed, Metropolis was not a success when it was first released. Shot at the famous Babelsberg film studios over a period of 17 months the film at the time was the most expensive German movie ever made.

German cinema was especially buoyant in the Twenties with movies such as Nosferatu, The Cabinet and Dr. Mabuse all appearing throughout the decade, putting German film and filmmakers on the map.

Production company UFA opted to screen Metropolis in only one Berlin cinema for a disappointing four-week run. American exhibitors edited the film themselves ahead of the US release to cut what they saw as extraneous material and to reduce the weighty running time to something more palatable.

Party atmosphere as Berlinale begins

The sudden unexpected discovery of the film in South America ties in nicely with the party atmosphere already taking place at this year's Berlin film festival, the Berlinale.

The festival is celebrating its 60th birthday, a milestone anniversary for one of Europe's key film meets.
For an event dedicated to promoting the best new talent the world has to offer, it seems fitting to roll back the clock and give a classic from the early days of cinema pride of place within the program.

And the Berlinale pulled out all the stops. Metropolis premiered in the opulent Friedrichstadtpalast with the original score performed live by the Berlin Symphony orchestra, conducted by Frank Strobel.

Berlinale Festival Director Dieter Kosslick sees this year's screening of Metropolis as something different. "You could say it's a birthday present. It's really the kind of film we want to have for such a celebration."



Deutsche Welle/agencies/germerica