Decaying prints impede showings in Italy

From the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, 19 June 2013:
"8½," perhaps the most famous Italian film in the world, is celebrating half a century of life, but in Italy it cannot be seen in movie theaters.
Federico Fellini's masterpiece, winner of two Oscars, for Best Foreign Film (the third Oscar for Fellini) and costumes, celebrates 50 years but those who wanted to celebrate this important anniversary could not find a "projectable" print. That's what the Film Library of Bologna learned from National Film Archive programmers looking for a copy to mark the film's half-century of life.
"We turned to the National Film Archive - explains Andrea Morini of the Film Library Foundation of Bologna - but they explained that their copy is not projectable because of the condition it's in. Finding films in the best possible condition is our job and it happens that neither in Rome nor elsewhere in Italy there exists a copy in good condition."
As everyone knows, film is a very perishable material, so much so that the printed copies, made after the last restoration done 10 years ago by Cinema Forever, the restoration program of Mediaset, have already deteriorated.
"The National Film Library has told us that the positive prints are no longer usable, - continues Morini - that a new start must be made from the negative, followed by a new restoration. A restoration that several studios are contemplating, but so far nothing has been done."
It's another insult to the memory of the great Fellini, after the failure in Rimini of the Foundation dedicated to him, in the very year that marks the twentieth anniversary of his death on Oct. 31, 1993. (Copyright La Repubblica, Italy.)