Each silent film, presented digitally every month from April to August 2010, is a classic melodrama of the 1920s, having become timeless over the decades due to its high quality of production and ever-popular themes.

Tuesday, May 25 at 7pm
Short: The Mascot (1933) 26 minutes. Ladislaw Starewicz Fascinating short film by Polish master of animation, making a child’s toys come to life in a most charming and realistic way. A soft toy dog has amazing adventures on the streets and with other animated dolls and toys as he escapes a new owner and returns to his previous home. Silent: Nosferatu, (1922) 81 minutes with Mauro Colombis This German horror classic is the first movie based on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, and captures the original terrifying details, albeit in a different setting with other names due to copyright laws. Directed by one of Germany’s leading film directors, it is still considered a landmark film, and is as scary today as it was in 1922!

Tuesday, June 22 at 7pm
Short: Voice of the Nightingale (1923) 13 minutes. Ladislaw Starewicz
This unique and beautiful short film was made in the old-fashioned style of hand-coloured frames, making it look like a watercolour picture book for children with birds, fairies and butterflies, and incorporating a lesson for a child why she shouldn’t keep a nightingale as a pet or toy. Silent: The Bells, (1926) 68 minutes. David Bailey on organ Filmed in a beautiful, historic setting, this film is based on an Edgar Allen Poe poem with legendary actor, Lionel Barrymore in a fine performance as the murderer-innkeeper with a very guilty conscience. Boris Karloff co-stars as a mesmerist, provoking the innkeeper’s guilty conscience. Chilling and suspenseful entertainment!

Tuesday, July 27 at 7pm
Short: The Talion Punishment (1906) 4 minutes 13 seconds A delightful and surprising example of the creativity of early filmmakers in France who used hand-cut stencils to colour each frame of this unusual short film. Early cinema was based on theatrical performances of the day, involving dance, movement and colourful costumes, such as women dressed as butterflies.
Silent: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920) 70 minutes. David Bailey on organ.
This famous story has been filmed many times, but this silent version captures the Victorian atmosphere and struggle between good and evil realistically, while legendary actor, John Barrymore is unforgettable in the lead role. A true horror movie, this film is considered to be most faithful to the original book.

Tuesday, August 24 at 7pm
Sister Susan Connelly, Assistant Director of the Mary Mackillop East Timor Mission, will speak before the screenings.
Short: Men of Timor (1942) Damien Parer 8 minutes. Sound. NFSA.
Damien Parer was Australia’s leading war photographer who captured raw human emotions and unforgettable images with his camera right in the middle of the action. This famous newsreel sheds light on Australian soldiers behind enemy lines in Timor during World War II.
A Debt of Honour (2005 – Australia) Trailer
Duration: 5 minutes Short: Artheme Swallows His Clarinet ( 1912) 3 minutes 54 seconds
This charming example of early French comedy uses special effects sparingly but effectively, showing a clarinet player on the streets of Marseille in 1912, and his dilemma when an accident causes the clarinet to appear to be poking all the way out of the back of his head!
Silent: 7th Heaven, (1927) 113 minutes – Mauro Colombis: Winner of three Academy Awards! This beautiful romance was so enthusiastically received at last year’s Silent Film festival in Sydney, that it is being screened again, on the eve of the 2010 Silent Film Festival. Rich in Frank Borzage’s warm and sensitive sentimentality, it features two great stars of the era: Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, who play the devoted couple living in their own world on the seventh floor, and even when separated by war, they are still together in their own seventh heaven.