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The 7th International Silent Film Festival: Countries andFilms
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| From mubi.com |
Germany
“I Don’t Want to Be a Man” (
Director: Ernst Lubitsch, b/w, 45 min., 1918
Ossi, a spoiled teenager, lives in Berlin with her rich uncle
and enjoys life to the full. She plays poker, smokes and flirts with young men.
Her governess can only look on helplessly. When Ossi’s uncle leaves for a long
business trip, he takes on a stricter tutor and guardian to supervise her.
But Ossi knows how to elude him – she buys an evening suit
and dives into the Berlin nightlife dressed as a man. Her experiences,
including being forced to give up her seat for a lady on the underground, show
her that men do not have it easy either. When she bumps into her guardian at
the “Mäusepalast” ballroom, he does not recognize her and she decides to try
and steal his girlfriend. In doing so, she becomes closer to him and their
spurious male friendship unexpectedly develops into a love affair, which, after
a bumpy ride, arrives at a happy end. Ossi’s guardian has not brought her under
control; on the contrary, she has made him submit to her.
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"La Grazia"
Soundtrack performed by Sinosikat, Kat Agarrado
Director: Aldo De Benedetti, 90 min., 1929
One of the best films produced in Italy in the late
twenties, La Grazia is based on the short story Di notte ( At night ) written
in 1894 by Nobel Prize for Literature Grazia Deledda. The movie is also an
adaptation from the libretto of an opera written by Deledda with Claudio
Guastalla and Vincenzo Michetti and performed in Rome in 1923.
Directed by Aldo De Benedetti, and recently restored, it is
about a dramatic love story that takes place in a small village in the heart of
Sardinia, Grazia Deledda’s homeland, where the ancient traditions and the
strict honor code of the shepherds meet with the unpredictable laws of passion
and love.
A handsome stranger (Giorgio Bianchi) comes to a mountain
village in Sardinia to inspect lands he has inherited, and promises to marry a
beautiful shepherdess (Carmen Boni), who he has fallen in love with. The
shepherdess gives birth to a child and is forced to tell the male members of
her family, who set out to exact their revenge. Will the harsh laws of
vengeance triumph or will the family be reunited around the baby?
Japan
“Keisatsukan” (Policeman)
Director: Tomu Uchida, 121 min., 1933
At a roadblock, a young police officer Itami, meets his old
high school friend Tetsuo, as he makes his way back into Tokyo after a day’s
golf. As they rekindle their friendship, Itami finds it odd that Tetsuo is so
reluctant to talk about his personal life.
One night, Sergeant Miyabe, Itami’s mentor, is seriously
wounded in a bank heist. The thieves flee into the night, but one of them is
injured and leaves his fingerprints on Miyabe’s sword. One of the criminals is
arrested, but remains silent until he commits suicide in prison.
Miyabe breathes his last. Itami finds out the fingerprints
on Tetsuo’s cigarette lighter matches those on Miyabe’s sword. After the night
assault on the criminals’ hideout, Tetsuo succumbed to Itami’s strong sense of
mission as a police officer.
Philippines
“Kamera Obskura”
Director: Raymond Red, 67 min., 2012
"Kamera Obskura" is about a group of film
historians finding a rare Filipino silent film of mysterious unknown origins.
Even the director and producers are unknown. What makes this find even more
extraordinary is the fact that the film seems to bear highly unusual influences
from expressionist cinema of the era, something unfamiliar in Filipino cinema
history.
"Kamera Obskura" is a film within a film, and it
challenges the viewers to travel back in time and re-imagine the lost silent
cinema heritage in the Philippines
Spain“El abuelo”
Director: José Buchs, 125 min., 1925
When Conde de Albrit's son dies, the old noble man reads in
a letter written by his son that one of his beloved granddaughters doesn't
belong to the Albrit stock. Since the girl is the result of the dissipated life
of his daughter-in-love, from that moment on, Conde de Albrit will only have
one aim - to find out which one of his two granddaughters is the real
descendent of Albrit.
"El Abuelo" was an adaptation of a play of a
reputed Spanish writer, Benito Pérez
Galdós.
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U.S.A.
“The Phantom of the Opera”
Director: Rupert Julian, 93 min., 1925
Long before Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical became a Broadway
hit (that was adapted for the screen in 2004) movie legend Lon Chaney starred
in one of the most memorable horror films of all time. The Phantom of the Opera
is the story of a mad, disfigured composer in love with a beautiful opera
singer.
He haunts the young woman and terrorizes the Paris Opera
House in his quest to make her a star. The film has thrilled, horrified, and
entranced moviegoers for almost 90 years. The screenplay was written by Gaston
Leroux, author of the popular novel of the same title. The director is
officially listed as Rupert Julian, but many scenes were re-shot by Edward
Sedgwick (director of Buster Keaton’s “The Cameraman”) and extensive editing
re-shaped the final version that has shocked audiences since its release.
The 1925 classic is the most remembered role of Chaney’s
distinguished career, and remains famous for the horrific make-up he designed,
which was kept a studio secret until the film's premiere.
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