After more than a year of intensive restoration work, the full length edition of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, which featured groundbreaking special effects work that continues to influence filmmakers today, will premiere on February 12 2010 as part of the 60th Berlin International Film Festival, and at the Alte Oper house in Frankfurt on the same evening.

Originally poorly received at 153 minutes and with the subsequently cut footage long thought lost, a 16mm print of the complete 1927 film, a good half an hour longer than a 2001 restoration, was discovered in Buenos Aires. The Berlin Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra will accompany the gala screening with a version of the film’s music based on the original score by Gottfried Huppertz, and a Blu-ray is set for release later in 2010.