Italian film restoration company builds foothold in Asia

Italian film restoration company L'Immagine Ritrovata Friday announced that it has opened the company's first overseas office in Hong Kong, using the city as the base to extend its service to a growing Asian clientele.

L'Immagine Ritrovata is the only laboratory in the world exclusively focused on repairing and restoring movies on 35mm and 16mm film, and turning them into digital formats. Director Davide Pozzi said that Hong Kong presents a strategic location for the company to reach out to clients in this part of the world.

Pozzi said, "Developments of the new digitization technologies and the transition from film to digital in distribution mean there is a growing need of digitization of archival films. The active presence of L'Immagine Ritrovata in Asia for the past several years, as well as the lack of laboratories exclusively focused on film restoration, prompted us to start an operation in Hong Kong."

He added, "Asia has seen an emergence of growing restoration projects, not just in Hong Kong but also in Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and in Mainland China. Hong Kong is conveniently located within East Asia, which enables us to serve our Asian clients more effectively without long-distance logistics and significant time difference in communication. Clients from Hong Kong and Asia will save on the shipping costs while easily monitoring the progress of the work."

Jimmy Chiang, Hong Kong's associate director-general of investment promotion said, "Hong Kong's approach of allowing free creativity is one reason why our film and creative industry can grow in such a rapid pace. L'Immagine Ritrovata's arrival in Hong Kong is a strong vote of confidence in Hong Kong and will add more appeal to Hong Kong as an international film center." Endi