V. WEIMARER STUMMFILM-RETROSPEKTIVE & LIVE-MUSIK

»LOB DEM LICHTSPIEL. FILME DER WEIMARER REPUBLIK IN DEN WEIMARER KINOS 1923«

For the fifth year in a row, the Weimar Silent Film Retrospective explores the local screen events of Weimar's movie theaters exactly 100 years ago. Together with internationally renowned silent film musicians and guests, it offers a unique look at one of the most influential periods in film history and is established as a fixed cultural program within the Kunstfest Weimar. This year's highlight of the retrospective is the screening of a milestone of Weimar cinema with orchestral accompaniment by the Thuringia Philharmonic Orchestra Gotha-Eisenach: "The Treasure," the directorial debut of Georg Wilhelm Pabst. 

"In Praise of Light Play" - under this motto, the Vth Weimar Silent Film Retrospective contextualizes the cinematic year 1923 between film highlights, economic conditions and state impositions. True to the screening practice of the time, all main films will be supplemented by documentary newsreels from the holdings of the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv.

After each event, the audience has the opportunity to chat and debate about the films with the organizers and experts in our "Cine-Corner" in the Lichthaus Kino.

CINESSAGE - Opening of the V. Weimar Silent Film Retrospective

At the Cinessage, the program of this year's silent film retrospective will be presented by: Dirk Heinje, Rolf C. Hemke, Dr. Katrin Richter, Richard Siedhoff.

"RIVALS" | "CHAPLIN ON A STROLL".

Everyone knew Harry Piel, he was the male idol of post-war Germany: charming, charismatic, adventurous, acrobatic and fearless. A ladies' man who took on wild beasts, solved riddles and rescued the downtrodden. In "RIVALEN" the daughter of an inventor is kidnapped. During the rescue, Harry has to deal with, among other things, one of the first robots in film history, but the use of submarines also contributes to the show value in the great chase. Piel was also an archivist of his films, which he desperately tried to save from the bombs during World War II. Unsuccessfully - almost all of his films went up in flames and are now considered lost.

The supporting film brings an early Chaplin film from the production of Mack Sennett, in which he shines in a duo with "Fatty" Arbuckle in his early parade role as a drunk.

"FRIEDRICH SCHILLER. A POET'S YOUTH" | "FATTY AS A STAGE HERO".

With his first own film production, the great comedy writer and actor Curt Goetz created a remarkable Schiller film that avoids pathos and melancholy and instead tells the rebellious youthful life of the poet hero in a thoroughly humorous way. Filmed on original locations in Stuttgart, Friedrich Schiller is seen as a student at the military academy. Instead of submitting to the discipline and order of the Charles School, however, he prefers to lose himself in literature, indulging in women and spending money. Schiller finally responds to the injustice of the absolutist duke with his play "The Robbers". He was forbidden to attend the premiere in Mannheim in 1782, was discovered and received a prison sentence in Stuttgart. Finally, he escapes to freedom with the musician Streicher.

As a supporting film, the silent film retrospective shows the young Buster Keaton in a short film grotesque by and with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, which takes aim at theater life on and backstage.

"MY BOY. THE EXPERIENCES OF A DEAR LITTLE BOY" | "'HE' AS A HAPPY HUSBAND"

Jackie Coogan was the first child star in movie history. He was discovered for film by none other than Charlie Chaplin. "My Boy" reunites him with one of Chaplin's closest collaborators: Albert Austin co-directs this tragicomedy "in 5 parts," about the young orphan boy Jackie, whom American immigration authorities want to send back to Europe. He manages to escape and ends up staying with an old impoverished captain. 

The supporting film features comedian Harold Lloyd, who became so popular in Germany in 1923 that it was only necessary to advertise him as "Er" and the original titles are often difficult to identify today. The film "I Do" was apparently also aptly distributed as "He as a twenty-fold family man" and shows the newlywed Harold as an involuntary guardian of his numerous nephews.

LIVE MUSIC Matthias Hirth (electronic sound composition)

"LUCREZIA BORGIA."

Richard Oswald, who had previously made more than a dozen films in a year, limited himself to five productions in 1922, of which his "LUCREZIA BORGIA" was the most elaborate. The epic does not spare mass scenes and large-scale buildings. The result is an exciting historical epic about revenge and jealousy in Italy around 1500. 

The film was restored to its original color scheme by the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv in 2011. While all previously available prints were truncated by nearly an hour, the film has now been restored to near its original length for the first time, as well as the original wording of the intertitles. The restored version will have its German premiere at the Kunstfest Weimar!

"THE EVIL SPIRIT LUMPACI-VAGABUNDUS" | "CHAPLIN ON THE ROLL"

For his film adaptation of the famous farce by Viennese playwright Johann Nestroy, director Carl Wilhelm took over the main actors from a production at the Berlin State Theater in 1921 and created an extremely imaginative film: the fairy king orders an end to the rampant goings-on that an evil spirit named Lumpaci-Vagabundus has spread through the fairy kingdom. The fairies Amorosa and Fortuna are to find a remedy. The supporting film also shows Charlie Chaplin as a vagabond. In this early tragicomedy, he goes from violinist to rescuer of a young woman from the clutches of a brutal gang leader of a "traveling people" (portrayed discriminatorily by today's standards). Yet the film remains a key work in film history.

LIVE MUSIC Eunice Martins (piano)

"BEATING WEATHER" | "THE GORGE OF DEATH"

Austrian-born Karl Grune shot this drama partly in the Ruhr area, partly in expressive mine backdrops. The film is about a miner's daughter, Marie, who, impregnated by her child's father, is taken in and married by a miner. When the former lover unexpectedly reappears and reclaims his supposed rights over Marie, a dramatic battle between the two men unfolds in the mine tunnel. Spreading mine gas ("firedamp") triggers an explosion in which the opponents are buried. 

Luciano Albertini was one of the great action stars of European silent cinema and even held a candle to Harry Piel at times. Without computer tricks, the star did a great job of tickling the nerves of audiences to this day: sensational stunts at dizzying heights, shot on the cliffs of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains or on huge railroad bridges. The tragic sensational film "The Gorge of Death" leads to a spectacular climbing, crashing and rescue action on the cliffs of the "Gorge of Death".

LIVE MUSIC 

Eunice Martins (piano)

"FEDERICUS REX, PART 4: TURN OF FATE" | "FATTY AS LIFTBOY

After World War I, numerous films about the victorious "Old Fritz" stroked the patriotically humiliated psyche of the German population. They found the embodiment of their conservative longing in Otto Gebühr, who portrayed the Prussian king in a total of twelve films until 1942. The silent film retrospective is limited to Part 4 of the 1922/23 tetralogy, which centers on the beginning of the Seven Years' War, in which Frederick II emerges victorious from the Battle of Leuthen in 1757 despite military inferiority.
As a pre-film, 100 years ago there was rarely anything thematically appropriate. Therefore, at this point you will see one of the most mature "Fatty"-Arbuckel comedies, in which the young Buster Keaton already left clear traces behind the camera.

LIVE MUSIC Tobias Rank (piano) & Izabela Kalduńska (violin)

"THE WHITE DESERT" | "LARRY SEMON REVIVES THE SMALL TRADE".

John Hagenbeck's Hamburg Zoo also attracted attention in the 1920s with a series of feature films spotlighting the zoo's "wild" animals. "The White Desert" is set in the pack ice of the polar regions. Björn and Sigurd find themselves on the seal-catching ship of the brutal Captain Gaustad. A tangle of intrigue and power games begins and ends in mutiny and shipwreck after love adventures and abuse.

In addition to impressive interiors on the ship, the film captivates with its picturesque landscape photography.
The supporting film brings a two-act play by and starring Larry Semon, a very popular American film comedian at the time. His comedies are characterized less by dramaturgy and logic, and more by fast-paced and action-packed slapstick.

"THE TREASURE" | "THE MARQUISE'S SECRET"

Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Fritz Lang's great antipode whose films plumbed the human and sexual depths, succeeded in creating a work of refined clarity with his film directorial debut. In expressionist settings reminiscent of Paul Wegener's "GOLEM" of 1920, medieval superstition meets new objectivity.

During the retreat of the Ottoman Turks from the Balkans in 1683, a treasure is said to have been buried in the old bell-founder's house. The youthful goldsmith Arno comes to the bellfounder's house and quickly wins the heart of the house's daughter. Much to the annoyance of the journeyman Svetelenz. The courtship of the daughter triggers a treasure hunt in which the divining rod succumbs to modern mathematics.

A symbolic battle, at the end of which everything old is buried under the rubble of the house.
For the world premiere of the film in Dresden, composer and early Schoenberg student Max Deutsch composed an opulent and sophisticated score for cinema orchestra in consultation with the director. For the restoration of the film in 1999, Frank Strobel reconstructed the score, which the composer titled "Film Symphony in 5 Acts," and which can be performed without the film.

The concert opens with a piece of advertising history: a Nivea commercial from 1921, staged on the animation table by animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger. The orchestral music for this was written by the Weimar silent film musician Richard Siedhoff 2021.

LIVE MUSIC Thuringia Philharmonic Orchestra Gotha-Eisenach

DIRECTOR Burkhardt Götze

ORIGINAL MUSIC Max Deutsch (1923)

CHAPLIN, LLOYD, FATTY & KEATON

CHILDREN'S AND YOUTH PROGRAM WITH THE MASTERS OF SLAPSTICK

Family and youth screenings were an integral part of cinema schedules 100 years ago. Alongside fairy tale films such as "THE LITTLE MUCK" and monumental works such as "CABIRIA", "THE EVIL SPIRIT LUMPAZI-VAGABUNDUS" was also on the program. At that time, slapstick comedies were still considered rather unsuitable for young viewers. Today, however, these films are particularly suitable for introducing people to the art of silent film.
The silent film retrospective presents the grand masters of slapstick in three fast-paced comedies. And since the films are silent,young audiences can comment, jeer and laugh to their hearts' content! After the event, there will be a look behind the scenes in the projection room of the cinema, including a real film clip to take home.

LIVE MUSIC Ekkehard Wölk (piano)

The silent movie musicians

Burkhard Götze 

Burkhard Götze is a conductor, arranger and trombonist. For several years he has specialized in conducting silent film music and founded the METROPOLIS ORCHESTER BERLIN, the first cinema orchestra on European soil.

Matthias Hirth

Matthias Hirth, a jazz pianist, composer and music educator from Dresden, has been accompanying silent films since 2002. His musically diverse repertoire ranges from jazz to electronic music, neoclassical to salsa and Latin. Internationally, he has made guest appearances at the Festival de Cine Alemán in Madrid, among others. He is curator of the Dresden Silent Film Festival.

Eunice Martins

Eunice Martins has been house pianist at Arsenal Kino, Berlin, since 2000. She holds teaching positions at numerous universities and colleges, gives workshops and is also at home in performative arts. She has a large repertoire of silent films to which she has already set music and makes guest appearances at the most important international silent film festivals.

Tobias Rank

Tobias Rank founded the traveling cinema together with Gunthard Stephan in 1999: With a vintage fire engine and old projectors, this mobile silent movie theater travels all over Europe. This year he performs together with Izabela Kałduńska. The studied musician and sound engineer runs the record label "Raumklang Music" and is a member of the ensemble "Montalbâne" specializing in medieval music.

Richard Siedhoff

Pianist and composer Richard Siedhoff is considered one of the most sought-after young talents among silent film musicians. Since 2008, he has accompanied far more than 300 silent films on the piano, makes regular guest appearances at international festivals, is represented on numerous DVD recordings and also writes orchestral scores and chamber music for silent films.

Mykyta Sierov

Mykyta Sierov was born in Kyiv, studied classical oboe at the local conservatory and at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar. He is a sought-after orchestral and solo musician, composes and is also at home in jazz. In addition to his musical activities, he works as a cameraman and filmmaker.

Gabriel Thibaudeau

Canadian composer, pianist and conductor Gabriel Thibaudeau is pianist with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, pianist at the Cinémathèque Québécoise for 30 years, and composer in residence at L'Octuor de France for over 20 years. Thibaudeau's work includes music for ballet, opera, chamber music, and several orchestral compositions for silent films.

Ekkehard Wölk

The sought-after jazz pianist Ekkehard Wölk won several awards as a composer and arranger, wrote music for radio and released seven CDs. With his jazz trio, he makes guest appearances at international festivals. He has also been a sought-after silent film pianist for 20 years and can be heard and seen on several DVDs.