Saint Josemaria "Remastered"

In the last years of his life, the founder of Opus Dei met with large groups of people throughout Spain and Latin America. Many of those encounters were filmed and now, fifty years later, they have been remastered and can be viewed with a much higher visual and audio quality.

In the early 70’s, during Saint Josemaria’s three years of catechesis throughout Spain and Latin America, dozens of get-togethers were filmed with people from a wide variety of backgrounds, who with great naturalness asked him questions about their Christian life, their family, their friends and work colleagues… These encounters were filmed thanks to the efforts of Blessed Alvaro del Portillo, who realized the great interest they would have for future generations, who would be able to see and hear the founder himself explaining the spirit of Opus Dei.

Blessed Alvaro overcame the founder’s initial reluctance, and organized a team of experts to carry it out. Without much practical experience, the technical challenges at first were quite daunting: choosing the right cameras, film emulsion, lighting, non-stop filming for over an hour, traveling to different countries.…

After filming the first get-togethers, sometimes with thousands of people present, 16 mm copies of the films were produced and sent to various countries around the world, so that the people of the Work and many others would have the opportunity to see the founder. Over the years, lesser quality copies of these films were produced in VHS and DVD format that were easier to distribute and screen.

Beta Films, which has the rights to the films made in the 70s, has preserved the originals in accord with the best standards of film libraries, in cold rooms at a constant temperature and humidity.

Despite this effort, it is inevitable that over time celluloid will degrade and lose its original properties. Therefore these images have been digitized into other more modern formats for their preservation in computer files.

Besides the work of preservation, the images have been remastered to restore their original appearance. This technical process requires specific computer programs along with careful craftsmanship, to ensure that the final product is of the highest possible quality.

A Remastered Film: Saint Josemaria in Brafa

Use this link to see a remastered recording of a get-together with Saint Josemaria at the Brafa Sports School during his stay in Barcelona in 1972, with English subtitles (click on "cc" in bottom right corner to activate them).

The auditorium is filled mainly with people taking part in Opus Dei's apostolic activities in that city.