The NFSA’s digital restoration of Three Days to Live (1924) premiered at Arc Cinema, Canberra in February 2017 with a live piano accompaniment by Mauro Colombis. Once thought lost, Three Days to Live is one of the earliest known titles to include the work of Oscar-winning filmmaker Frank Capra (It Happened One Night, 1934).

The film is a mystery set across San Francisco’s share market and India, where a shadowy investor is forcing people into bankruptcy. When Grace (Ora Carew) realises her father is being targeted, she seeks police protection but takes events into her own hands. It also stars Helen Howell, who would later become Capra’s wife.

Capra is credited as Titles and Editor; according to biographer Jim McBride, he was also likely to have been assistant director.

Three Days to Live was first brought into Australia in 1925, with the earliest recorded screenings in Tasmania and South Australia at Port Pirie’s Alhambra Theatre. ‘From attempts to locate the film elsewhere it appears the NFSA holds the only identifiable copy of the film, so it is unique': NFSA Film Curator Sally Jackson.

The year-long restoration project secures an important piece of Australian and world cinema history.