Founded in 1982, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto is considered the world’s leading international silent-film festival, presented annually in the northern Italian town of Pordenone. Indiana University will be the host of an inaugural U.S. satellite festival, bringing U.S. premieres of some of the highlights from the October 2019 festival in Pordenone. Join IU Libraries Moving Image Archive, IU Cinema and the Music Scoring for Visual Media program in the Jacobs School of Music for three days of rare and new restorations of silent films with live musical accompaniment. One $40 festival pass will gain entry for all screenings, or single tickets can be purchased for $8 per screening.
This program is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Myerson Family Fund and the Office of the Bicentennial. Special thanks to Ed Myerson, Kaili Peng, and Kelly Kish.
Curated by Jay Weissberg, Rachael Stoeltje, Laura Horak, Maggie Hennefeld, and Jon Vickers.
Screening at the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive Screening Room:
Nasty Women Program 1: Tyranny at Home - October 31 @ 7pm
(https://libraries.indiana.edu/days-silent-cinema-le-giornate-del-cinema…)
(1906–12) Directed by Various Directors
Not rated – 2K DCP – 70 min
Location: IU Libraries Moving Image Archive Screening Room (Wells Library 048)
Silent film with piano accompaniment/Curators Maggie Hennefeld and Laura Horak are scheduled to be present. Embracing the much-debated term used in a recent Presidential campaign, Horak and Hennefeld—both responsible for challenging publications on gender and queer studies and early cinema—curated a tribute to what became a feminist rallying cry: “Nasty Women.” A century before “pussy hats” and late-night feminist satirists, silent comedienne characters and feminist activists spoke truth to patriarchal power with their disregard for gendered social norms and feminine corporeal decorum. These short European comedic films reveal Nasty Women seizing the reins of institutional power and exposing the absurdity of the system. Silent films with English intertitles. Contains mature content.
Beverly of Graustark - November 1 – 12 pm
(https://libraries.indiana.edu/days-silent-cinema-le-giornate-del-cinema…)
(1926) Directed by Sidney Franklin
Not rated – 2K DCP – 70 min
Location: IU Libraries Moving Image Archive Screening Room (Wells Library 048)
Silent film with piano accompaniment. Set in a fictional European monarchy, American Beverly Calhoun (Marion Davies) is asked by her cousin Oscar to impersonate him while he is recovering from a skiing injury. Oscar is the heir-apparent to Graustark, and Beverly is to claim his birthright. While in Graustark, Beverly falls in love with her bodyguard Dantan (Antonio Moreno), who also has secrets of his own. The film has a final sequence in stunning Technicolor, which survives. Silent film with English intertitles.
Joan the Woman - November 1 @ 2:00pm
(https://libraries.indiana.edu/days-silent-cinema-le-giornate-del-cinema…)
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Not rated – 2K DCP – 138 min
Location: IU Libraries Moving Image Archive Screening Room (Wells Library 048)
Silent film with piano accompaniment. Premiering Christmas Day, 1919, the film is Cecil B. DeMille’s first historical drama and great spectacle. A dream of the life of Joan of Arc (Geraldine Farrar) inspires a WWI British officer the night before he is set to embark on a dangerous mission from which he is unlikely to return. The elaborately filmed battle sequences, provocative images, and dramatic hand-colored final scenes set the stage for DeMille's later spectacles. Silent film with English intertitles. Contains mature content.
Sally, Irene and Mary - November 2 @ 2:00pm
(https://libraries.indiana.edu/days-silent-cinema-le-giornate-del-cinema…)
Directed by Edmund Goulding
Not rated – 2K DCP – 58 min
Location: IU Libraries Moving Image Archive Screening Room (Wells Library 048)
Silent film with piano accompaniment. Sally, Irene and Mary looks behind-the-scenes at the romantic lives of three chorus girls and the men who surround them. Sally is self-assured and looking for a sugar daddy. Irene (Joan Crawford, in one of her first credited roles) is a hopeless romantic easily deceived by con men. Whereas Mary, the heart of the story, seeks to leave show business behind to settle down. Silent film with English intertitles. Contains mature content.
Screening at the IU Cinema:
A Fool There Was (1915); Directed by Frank Powell; 35mm (https://cinema.indiana.edu/upcoming-films/screening/2019-fall-program-f…
Nasty Women Program 2: Discipline & Anarchy (1906–13); Directed by Various Directors; 2K DCP (https://cinema.indiana.edu/upcoming-films/screening/2019-fall-program-s… )
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927); Directed by Alfred Hitchcock; 2K DCP (https://cinema.indiana.edu/upcoming-films/screening/2019-fall-program-s… )
You can find additional information here: https://cinema.indiana.edu/upcoming-films/series/the-days-of-silent-cin…
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