Unpublished Chaplin Novella to Be Released

On Tuesday, the Cineteca di Bologna, an Italian film restoration institute, will release a previously unpublished novella by Charlie Chaplin, which inspired his 1952 film, “Limelight,” widely considered his last great film. The release begins a series of events for the Chaplin centennial, which marks 100 years after the actor and director first appeared on film.

Called “Footlights,” the 1948 novella was reconstructed by the Chaplin biographer David Robinson and researchers at the institute from multiple drafts found in the private Chaplin archive in Switzerland, which the Chaplin family authorized the Cineteca to begin digitizing in 2002. Now completed, the archives are accessible to the public from special terminals at the Cineteca in Bologna.

In 1998, the Cineteca’s restoration wing, L’Immagine Ritrovata, one of the world’s best restoration centers, was entrusted by the Chaplin family to begin restoring Chaplin’s oeuvre of more than 70 films. The Cineteca has finished restoring the films, but may re-restore some because the technology has improved during the intervening years....