2023-05-10, 07:38 PM
(This post was last modified: 2023-05-23, 07:59 PM by stwd4nder2.)
Heimkehr is a German film originally released in 1941. After the war it was labeled as propaganda and banned across Europe. The film elements (along with other "banned films") currently reside in the German Federal Archives Vault. There's never been any wide release outside it's initial theatrical run and needless to say no home media release. If you wanted to watch it today this is what you're stuck with:
This is a very blown out old tape transfer from who knows when. You can easily find it on archive.org and if you search for a version of this film this is what you'll find. It looks and sounds terrible, and is also very poorly stabilized. Nothing from this transfer was used.
Searching further I was able to dig up this:
Searching further I was able to dig up this:
A significant improvement. Not perfect, it's still sourced from a tape, and the timer is baked into the transfer. The only version I was able to find has that watermark throughout. The video is still watchable and the audio isn't terrible, this is what most of my restoration is sourced from.
There's also this:
There's also this:
There is an HD master that exists (translated to English no less), however it is only brought out for very limited educational showings. The documentary "Forbidden Films" contains about 5 minutes worth of scenes from the HD master.
This is what I plan on doing:
This is what I plan on doing:
- Upscaling the tape transfer to get the best quality I can out of it
- Integrating as much video and audio from the HD version I can dig up if anyone knows of any sources out there please let me know
- Rendering it out at 24 FPS
- Translating the entire film into English (primarily using AI tools as I don't speak German) if anyone speaks German and wants to help edit/translate subs I could use the help