This year’s festival runs from Saturday October 4th until Saturday 11th of October. The programme is now released. The bulk of the Festival will be screened in Pordenone’s Teatro Verdi.
The opening night we see a screening of Cirano di Bergerac (1922), an Italian movie directed by Augusto Genina. This is an adaptation of Edmund Rostand’s famous play which has received a number of film versions. The original film enjoyed Pathé stencil colouring process. Genina was a pioneer Italian film-maker who directed numerous films between 1913 until the 1950s. This event will enjoy an orchestral accompaniment by US composer Kurt Kuenne, performed by the Pordenone Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ben Palmer.
The closing night will feature Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality (1923), also with a special orchestral accompaniment by Slovenian composer Andrej Goričar, who conducts the Orchestra of the Imaginary of Ljubljana. Keaton’s The Cameraman (1928) will feature in a preceding Friday night screening at the Teatro Zancanaro in Sacile.
On the Wednesday evening there are two titles. First a World War I British documentary, The German Retreat and Battle of Arras (1917) from the Imperial War Museum. This will have an orchestral accompaniment by Lauri Rossi with a ten-piece ensemble and a choir. The second title is also from the Imperial War Museum but in this case about seventy World War I film clips from its archive have been restored and arranged with music. Palestine – a Revised Narrative is a multi-media work and involves the Lebanese composer Cynthia Raven and sound designer Rana Eid. It is happy programming that we will finally hear a Palestinian voice at the Festival.
There are a number of retrospectives that run through the week. From the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic there will be four children’s films
“characterized by lively comedies whose protagonists represented role models for new generations to be “educated” in communism.” (Giornate Press release).
There will a series dedicated to Charlie Chaplin looking at all forms of his popularity including imitators, cartoons, newsreel and even home movies. And there will be a screening of his Shoulder Arms (1918), drawing humour from the ongoing war and also publicising the US War Bonds.
The pioneer Max Fleischer will be represented by sixteen of the Koko the Clown series, made between 1920 and 1928. There is the start of a two-part retrospective of the Italian star Italia Almirante Manzini. There will be five features plus a fragment from a lost film directed by Augusto Genina, Femmina (1918). She was noted for her expressive and graceful performances. The features include new restorations.
As usual there are The Canon Revisited and Rediscoveries and Restorations. Among the features will be The Blood Ship (1927), a still from which graces the Festival lobby card. It is set at sea where a shanghaied crew are under the brutal rule of the captain and first mate. The final reel was lost until early in this century. And there are two classics, Fritz Lang’s Der müde Tod / Destiny (1921), and Eleuterio Rodolfi’s Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei / The Last Days of Pompeii (1913).
A treat for English-language cinephiles are two versions of Mrs Henry Wood’s classic and much filmed melodrama East Lynne. There is a restored version of an incomplete film, now with missing parts included, from 1913, directed by Alexander Butler. Some of us were fortunate to see this at the Kennington Bioscope Silent Weekend. Then there is a 1925 U.S. version plus a parody made by Max Sennett. There are early films made by Louis Feuillade: examples of the Belgium avant-garde: and Japanese films shot on matte paper in 1930. The last sounds an interesting technical curiosity.
As always the screenings will be accompanied by the experienced and accomplished musicians, both orchestral, ensemble or piano or duo.
For fans who cannot get to Pordenone there is a streaming programme available in the week of the Festival. These are all titles from the actual programmes in the Verdi.
They include The White Heather (1919), directed by Maurice Tourneur. This was a lost film until 2023 when a print was found and preserved by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The climax takes place underwater as rivals struggle over lost evidence. Also The Lady With a Mask / Die Dame mit der Maske (1928) directed by Wilhelm Thiele, a melodrama where a young noblewoman, impoverished by a financial collapse has to survive as an actress. And there is another British film from the same year, 1928, A Little Bit of Fluff, directed by Wheeler Dryden and Jess Robbins, a comedy with Syd Chaplin and Betty Balfour.
So, a whole week devoted to early cinema with a wide variety of movies and genres: and this year an amount of titles that will be new for many people. For the Festival stream see the Festival online in the Daily Schedule.
itp Global Film 