The general Othello (Orson Welles) wins the love of the young Desdemona. However, the relationship is a thorn in the side of her father Brabantio, a Venetian aristocrat. Out of a desire for revenge, the scheming ensign Iago frames the beautiful Desdemona for having a secret relationship with Cassio because Othello has appointed the educated Florentine lieutenant instead of the deeply disappointed Iago. Othello is unable to resist Iago's whispers and begins to believe his supposed evidence of Desdemona's infidelity, which leads to a fateful decision... 40 years after the painstaking completion of the film by master director Orson Welles (“Citizen Kane”) in 1952, the restoration of the tracked-down version of an old nitrate negative was undertaken in the USA. The result of the work presented in 1991 was not a completely new film. The restorers' approach was also not without controversy - but the new look of “Othello” is undeniably impressive: What a great Shakespeare adaptation, bursting with directorial ideas and exquisite camerawork! “Welles condenses the story into an expressionist interplay of light and shadow centered on the age-old struggle between good and evil, with the atmospheric intensity and baroque richness of his directorial touches proving particularly captivating. — A must-see” (Lexikon des Internationalen Films) Note: A much-discussed aspect of Orson Welles’ film adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Othello” is Welles’s portrayal of the title character using so-called blackface. Since the role of Othello is traditionally conceived as that of a black Moorish prince, Welles wore dark makeup for the film to mimic the character’s skin color. This practice was common in classical theater and early cinema for a long time. From today’s perspective, blackface is considered problematic, as it is linked to a history of racist stereotyping and the exclusion of Black actors from major roles.