beginnings and background

This festival was founded almost on a lark by the Harlock cultural association. Its aim is to present the public with a new sound version of films that belong to the silent era. In reality, silent films have never actually been silent because at the time of their screening there was always a live musician playing some, albeit small, amount of music.

Showing those films today without a soundtrack means mutilating and disfiguring them. Therefore, we asked authors to chose a film from the silent era and add a "new sound-track". We write this in quotation marks because the participating authors have complete and total freedom. Each of them can decide whether to use music (of their own or another's creation), sounds or noises etc., and whether to put a didactic or a desecrating slant on the project. In this way the authors find themselves having to face the challenge of modifying films that already have their own independent artistic dignity and a whole series of meanings, materials and emotions that today's twenty-first century audience has come to recognise.

Artistic Director: Tiziano Popoli

target group

Editors, silent film lovers and musicians.