Quo vadis?

“The most extraordinary film ever made” - this is how the American magazine “The Billboard” announced the premiere of “Quo vadis?” in the United States. It is difficult to consider these words an exaggeration. Enrico Guazzoni's film, made in 1912 based on the novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz and produced by the Italian label Cines, became an event on an international scale and permanently changed the language of cinema.

“Quo vadis?” set new standards for film spectacle. Enrico Guazzoni — director, screenwriter and experienced painter — used screen space in a way never seen before. Monumental scenographies ceased to be just a background for events and became an integral part of the action. Hundreds of extras moved according to precisely planned choreographic layouts, while the play of light and shadow, silhouette shots and varied camera angles built extraordinary depth and multiperspective of the image.

The film impressed with its grandeur, richness of scenery and scale of staging, but its significance went far beyond spectacularity. “Quo vadis?” fully shaped one of the most important genres of Italian cinema — peplum, that is, a spectacle set in the world of antiquity. The formal and stylistic solutions used by Guazzoni became a model for subsequent generations of creators.

The success of the film opened the way for Italian cinematography to world markets. In just a few years, other great historical and mythological productions hit the screens, including “Cajus Julius Caesar”, “Marcantonio e Cleopatra” — both directed by Guazzoni — as well as “Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei” and “Cabiria”. All of them were created between 1913 and 1914 and today are among the most important works in the history of silent cinema. (Giovanni Lasi)

In 2026, “Quo vadis?” was restored in 4K by Cineteca di Bologna in the laboratory of L'Immagine Ritrovata. The work was based on original 35 mm nitro copies made available by Eye Filmmuseum and CNC — Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée. The digital materials used in the reconstruction process were also made available by Cinémathèque suisse, the BFI National Archive and the Národní filmový archiv. The reconstruction of the current version was possible thanks to a copy of the film preserved in the Eye Filmmuseum and the research of Giovanni Lasi.

The presentation of the film takes place on the 180th anniversary of the birth and 110th anniversary of the death of Henryk Sienkiewicz.

The accompanying event takes place in cooperation with L'Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Cracovia

Michele Sganga: “In silent cinema, I do not try to accompany the images, I try to dialogue with them and sometimes even deny them. Only in this way does music cease to be commentary and becomes language again.”

Michele Sganga — Roman pianist and composer, graduate of the Santa Cecilia Conservatory and Sapienza University. He creates music for theater, film and silent cinema, combining classical education with the author's musical language. Sganga is also the author of theater, chamber and film music and several solo albums. In 2020, he founded Lumi Edizioni Musicali, of which he is artistic director. In his work, he combines classical musical education with an interest in contemporary artistic forms and the dialogue between music and image.