I have wanted to attend the Pordenone Silent Film Festival since I first heard word of it at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival when I attended in grad school. An entire week of silent films from 9am until midnight? Yes, please! Fortunately this year the stars finally aligned in my favor and I was able to attend the 35th Annual Pordenone Silent Film Festival – also known as Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto. It’s unlike any festival I’ve ever attended.
For one, it’s not just marquee players. This is not a festival filled with well known performers like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton (although there were a few Keaton shorts). And while there were films featuring Greta Garbo and the great profile himself John Barrymore, they weren’t their most well known films. The most high profile film shown at the festival was a new restoration of THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (’24) starring Douglas Fairbanks. Funny enough, I’ve now seen that film on the big screen three times at three different and equally wonderful film festivals. Fairbanks’ grin is timeless.
Most of the screenings take place in one theater – the Teatro Verdi – so the festival feels very intimate. The audience is a mixture of film aficionados, bloggers, collectors, archivists, historians, students, and more. You might have a PhD student from London on one side of you and an archivist from the Library of Congress on the other. It’s really quite wonderful. I met so many people from so many aspects of the film world and we all had one thing in common: a love for silent cinema.
I learned really early on that you simply couldn’t watch everything that is programmed at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. Films are programmed in 2 to 3 hour chunks and while there are adequate breaks for lunch and dinner, sometimes your brain (and body!) just needs a rest. To give you an idea of just how many films are screened during the week, I saw 181 silent shorts, fragments, and feature films! And I skipped a few things! The films featured ranged from epics like of THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (’24) to German chromolithographic loops to short geographical documentaries to one and two reel shorts to serials and more. I really had no idea what I was getting into with this festival and I’m so glad because I was able to just experience everything as it came to me.
Along with a handy pocket calendar, festival goers also receive a 265 page festival catalogue with historical information about the programming, as well as the restorations, preservation efforts and more. There are also lectures throughout the festival as part of the Collegium, a program aimed at younger silent film fans and emerging academics, and a master class on silent film accompaniment.
Really, this festival is silent film paradise.
I can’t possibly touch on everything about this festival that I discovered and fell in love with, but I’m going to touch on few highlights that left me changed for the better.
Throughout the fest there were many short films produced by Al Christie, whose work – like many of the filmmakers I discovered during the week – I was not familiar with. Some of the shorts were based on popular comic characters from the era like Mutt and Jeff. My favorite discoveries from the Christie programs were actress Babe London, whose comic timing is amazing, and a great little cross-dressing short film starring Kathleen Clifford called GRANDPA’S GIRL (’24). It was so wonderfully queer!
Throughout the week a handful of short animated film from Japan were shown featuring Momotaro the Peach Boy. What I found the most fascinating about these shorts were how they were more similar to what you expect from Disney animation of the era rather than the anime we now associate with Japan. Also, who doesn’t want to see a hero born from a peach fight bad guys with a team comprised of a dog, a monkey, and a pheasant?!
There was also a series dedicated to the work of William Cameron Menzies, including a lecture by Menzies scholar James Curtis. I learned so much about how Menzies’ work contributed to the language of cinema. Films programmed featuring his work included TEMPEST (’28), THE GARDEN OF EDEN (’28), THE DOVE (’27), and closing night film THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (’24). During the lecture Curtis shared some of Menzies’ production sketches and I was blown away with his use of detail. Some of his work looks like it would have made a great graphic novel!
Which brings me to my two favorite discoveries from the festival. I’ve been saving the best for last!
Every day of the festival started with a 9am screening of a two reel short from a Pathé serial called WHO’S GUILTY (’16) starring Anna Q. Nilsson and Tom Moore. In each episode the two played a different set of star-crossed lovers. Much like an episode of LAW AND ORDER, you knew exactly what the formula was going to be, but boy could you not wait to see what was going to happen to them this time. Each episode commented on some facet of American society and as the tragedy unfolded, it asked you the audience who was guilty. Themes explored included labor rights, women’s rights, divorce rights, justice system inequality and more. I so hope this series gets a DVD release someday. Shout out to Federico Striuli who rediscovered this serial (originally released in America, but these prints came from a collection in Russia) and programmed it for this year’s fest.
Lastly, I discovered a new favorite actress: Viola Dana. Dana, who’s real name was Virginia Flugrath, made several films with director John H. Collins. Collins first worked with Edison and after the two partnered – and got married – they began working with producer B.A. Rolfe and his company Rolphe Photoplays. Unfortunately, Collins died young during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Programmed during the festival were several shorts Collins made with Edison, as well as four films he made with wife Dana for Rolphe Photoplays: THE COSSACK WHIP (’16), THE GIRL WITHOUT A SOUL (’17), BLUE JEANS (’17), and RIDERS OF THE NIGHT (’18). Collins and Dana were basically the John Cassavetes/Gena Rowlands of the 1910s. While BLUE JEANS (’17) is probably their most well know collaboration (there’s a scene where Dana saves her leading man from a sawmill blade – this scene, which is also in the stage play on which the film is based – is where that cliché comes from!), my favorite of these four films was THE GIRL WITHOUT A SOUL (’17). In it Dana plays twin sisters, one who is artistically talented and the other who is not, and thus is treated like the “bad” daughter. As the film progresses, we realize that people are far more complicated than they seem. Dana gives two compelling, complex, and soul-stirring performances. I hope I can find more films by her to watch, because I’m hooked!
Obviously, since I saw 181 shorts, fragments, and feature films, these highlights only touch on a fraction of the amazing programming at this festival and I am still overwhelmed by how much I saw, how much I learned, and how much more I want to learn after attending this festival.
You can find out more about the Pordenone Silent Film Festival here on there website.
P.S. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Gelateria Al Verdi, my favorite gelato place in the entire world.
