Luchino Visconti's 1954 film about the affair between an Italian countess (Alida Valli) with partisan sympathies and an Austrian officer from the occupying army (Farley Granger), set during Garibaldi's war of independence in the 1860s, is one of the greatest historical films ever made. Rarely have the dramas of history and romantic passion been so skillfully and compellingly intertwined. It also marks one of the medium's most creative uses of color. Visconti and his cinematographers Aldo Graziati (who tragically died during the shoot) and Robert Krasker fashioned a palette that was both delicate and vivid, rich in its historical associations and its evocations of landscape painting of the period. For that reason alone, Senso has been extremely difficult to restore, and the shrinkage and overall damage to its original three-strip Technicolor camera negatives have only increased the level of difficulty. Now, with the advent of digital techniques, StudioCanal, the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia/Cineteca Nazionale, and the Cineteca di Bologna have joined forces to restore this magnificent film to its original state.