by Roland Cosandey. Basel-Frankfurt: Stadtkino/Stroemfeld Verlag, 1993 (KINtop Schriften Series #1); 216 p., ill., ISBN 3-87877-761-2.

The story of the Joseph Joye Collection, built in Switzerland earlier this century and now held by the National Film and Television Archive in London, is one of the most fascinating adventures in the preservation of the early film heritage. After a long research on the origins, development and survival of this outstanding corpus of short films, Vevey-based historian Roland Cosandey has brought back their glory in a book - written in German, yet aptly subtitled in English as Welcome Home, Joye! - and a retrospective held in Basle, Lausanne and Zurich in the fall of 1993, including several representative items (the difficult and time-consuming restoration work by NFTVA isn't finished yet). In doing so, the author has provided the first full-length discussion of a group of films whose relevance goes far beyond the rarity and interest of the individual titles, reaching the crucial issue of the historical and cultural identity of a collection of moving images, and the need to preserve and study it as a coherent group of artefacts. Accompanied by a series of excellent frame enlargements, some of which in color, the book is organized as a thematic repertoire where each film is given a detailed analysis with filmographic and archival information, list of intertitles (where they do exist), a brief discussion and a bibliography. An ideal counterpoint (in terms of aims, method, and insight) to the Pathé 1900 project by André Gaudreault, which has resulted in the publication of a book by the Université Laval and the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris in 1993, this brilliant labour of love and scholarship demonstrates the potential value of a cooperation between film archives and bona fide researchers. One strongly hopes that such an outstanding overview of the Joye Collection will eventually result in the publication of its complete catalogue. (Paolo Cherchi Usai)