Work memories in super 8: the dawn of paper recycling in Brescia

This paper describes the digital acquisition and restoration of a documentary in Super 8 of the origins of citizen’s awareness on paper recycling in Brescia, a city of Lombardy, northern Italy. This short movie has been shot in 1980 by ASM the public company which used to provide all the city supply (gas, water, electricity, district heating) and city transport. Now this film is part of the Fondazione ASM archive and its acquisition is part of a larger project of preservation of industrial memories in Italy. Here we describe the tools used for the acquisition and the technical choices done, together with the restoration test made. As well, we discuss the problems that one must face in trying to preserve a visual document of this kind from the unavoidable damage of time.