Summoning the Spirits | |
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Directed by | Georges Méliès |
Starring | Georges Méliès |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Country | France |
Language | Silent |
Summoning the Spirits (French: Évocation spirite) is an 1899 French short silent film by Georges Méliès.
Plot
A magician hangs a wreath in the air and makes a grotesque face appear inside it. He then replaces it with a woman's face, and finally with a copy of his own face.
Release and survival
Méliès himself plays the magician in the film.[1][2] Summoning the Spirits was sold by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 205 in its catalogues, where it was advertised as a scène à transformations.[2]
Méliès burned all the surviving original camera negatives of his films toward the end of his life, and about three-fifths of his output is presumed lost. Summoning the Spirits was among the lost films until 2007, when a copy was identified and restored by the Filmoteca de Catalunya.[1]