THE 1st OTTAWA INTERNATIONAL SILENT FILM FESTIVAL

LE 1er FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DU FILM MUET D'OTTAWA

The Canadian Film Institute is pleased to present the inaugural edition of the Ottawa International Silent Film Festival. Held on the weekend of September 27 and 28, the annual National Capital festival will present landmark silent feature films from Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States of America, as well as several rare short films, and a few surprises. And, of course, as the silent cinema experience was never actually silent, each screening will have live piano accompaniment by acclaimed Toronto pianist, William O'Meara.

L'Institut canadien du film a le plaisir de présenter l'édition inaugurale du Festival international du film muet d'Ottawa. Ce festival annuel de la Capitale nationale se tiendra la fin de semaine des 27 et 28 septembre et présentera des films de fiction muets marquants du Canada, du Royaume-Uni, d'Allemagne et des États-Unis d'Amérique, de même que plusieurs films courts rares et quelques surprises. Nous ferons aussi un hommage au pionnier et visionnaire français du cinéma, Georges Melies. Comme, bien sûr, l'expérience du film muet n'était jamais vraiment silencieuse, chaque projection comportera un accompagnement au piano en direct par le fameux pianiste torontois William O'Meara.

The Ottawa International Silent Film Festival is presented in collaboration with the Library and Archives of Canada and The Canada Council for the Arts.
Le Festival international du film muet d'Ottawa est présenté en collaboration avec la Bilbiothèque et Archives du Canada, l'Audio-Visual Preservation Trust et le Conseil des arts du Canada.

Sat./sam. Sept. 27 sept. 18:30 Note early start time!
BACK TO GOD’S COUNTRY
Canada 1919, 73 min. Director: David Hartford

A critical piece of Canadian cinema history, BACK TO GOD’S COUNTRY is a work of enormous proportions for the year it was produced, especially with its tiny $67,000 budget. A classic tale of villainy and lust that was based on a novel by James Oliver Curwood, the film stars Nell Shipman as the heroine Dolores LeBeau, a woman caught in a web love, murder and betrayal. After she marries Peter, a government surveyor, they move to the city after a brutish criminal, murders her father. Yearning to travel “back to God’s country,” Dolores and her husband board a ship destined for the Arctic Circle. She soon realizes that the captain is none other than the cold-blooded killer who did her father in. Backed into a corner, Dolores takes matters into her own hands. Surprisingly artful in terms of cinematic style, the film is an archetypal story of early adventurers and backwoods hi-jinks. Fully restored by the National Archives of Canada, we are proud to open our first silent festival with this beautiful print of BACK TO GOD’S COUNTRY, an absolute must-see in Canada’s film history.

Sat./sam. Sept. 27 sept., 20:15
THE LODGER
Great Britain 1927, 83 min. Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Thirty years before PSYCHO, REAR WINDOW and VERTIGO, Alfred Hitchcock was making a name for himself in Britain with several fascinating silent films. THE LODGER is one of them. Starring the popular matinee idol Ivor Novello as ‘the lodger’ Jonathan Drew, the film is loosely based on several works and real-life events, including the murders of Jack the Ripper. At the time, the idea of casting Novello as a brutal murderer was unheard of, so Hitchcock cleverly used the idea of the “McGuffin” – in which the subject concerns everyone in the story but ultimately does not matter to the audience except as something to propel the plot. In the famous interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock claimed THE LODGER was his first true film. It remains a classic, rarely-seen marvel of silent cinema from the master director.
British High Commission

Sat./sam. Sept. 27 sept., 22:00
COWARDS BEND THE KNEE
Canada 2003, 63 min. Director: Guy Maddin

Hockey. Headknocks. Hysteria. This murky silent-era influenced tale of Guy, hockey hero for the Manitoba Maroons, is quintessential Maddin: a roiling, sexy, twisted melodrama about love, loyalty, and revenge rendered in visuals worth of Murnau, Vigo, or early Bunuel. In Canadian with Canadian inter-titles. Don’t miss Canada’s most recent silent film!! Kino! Kino! Kino! Preceded by a new 35mm print of the Buster Keaton classic of kinetic silent screen comedy, , COPS (USA 1922, 18 min. Directors: Edward Cline, Buster Keaton), wherein a series of mishaps gets Buster chased by an entire city police force.

Sun./dim. Sept. 28 sept., 18:30
DOWNHILL
Great Britain 1927, 80 min. Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Hitchcock’s next collaboration with Ivor Novello was actually more than just as director-actor, as the film was based on a play by Novello and actress Constance Collier. The story involves a public school boy who is accused of stealing, subsequently getting expelled from school, disowned by his father and becoming a gigolo in Paris. Redemption comes only after his parents learn the truth about the accusations against the boy. DOWNHILL illustrates Hitchcock’s panache for complicated and assured shots as he experiments in super-impositions and other virtuoso camera movements. The result is a striking display of how the director very early on began to manipulate his audience, forcing them to focus on a specific plot point with his intelligent and sophisticated use of the camera. Says film scholar Peter Rist, “It’s Hitchcock’s finest silent film.”
British High Commission

Sun./dim. Sept. 28 sept. 20:00
North American Premiere of newly struck 35mm print!
NOSFERATU, SYMPHONY OF TERROR
Nosferatu, eine symphonie des grauens
Germany 1922, 94 min. Director: F. W. Murnau

“Nosferatu … the name alone can chill the blood!” A landmark of silent cinema and hugely influential on all horror films which followed it, NOSFERATU is a haunting cinematic rendering of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA. Critic Pauline Kael once observed: “this first important film of the vampire genre has more spectral atmosphere, more ingenuity, and more imaginative ghoulish ghastliness than any of its successors.” Beginning with the terrifying performance in the title role by Max Schreck, the film predates all of the parodies and clichés that would later consume the Dracula character through the next eighty years. As Roger Ebert describes: “…[it] haunts us. It shows not that vampires can jump out of shadows, but that evil can grow there, nourished on death.” One of the greatest silent movies ever made, NOSFERATU is not just a frightening classic but also a masterpiece of silent imagery and imagination. The Canadian Film Institute is proud to close its first silent film festival with a brand-new 35mm print of this sublime silent.

 

The Accompianist

William O’Meara has received critical acclaim for his improvised accompaniments on piano and organ for silent films. He has accompanied films for the National Gallery of Canada, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Goethe Institute, the Picolo Spoleto Festival (Charleston, S.C.), Toronto Film Society, Cobourg Vintage Film Festival, Pacific Cinematheque (Vancouver), the Elora Festival, the Toronto Theatre Organ Society, and for the world’s largest festival of silent films, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (Pordenone, Italy). Mr. O’Meara is also the piano accompanist for Ontario Cinématheque (Toronto) which regularly presents retrospective series of silent film directors such as Ernst Lubitsch, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Carl-Theodor Dreyer, Mauritz Stiller and others.

As well as accompanying silent films, Mr. O’Meara enjoys an international career as a concert organist, performing at festivals and concert series throughout North America, South America and Europe, including the Warsaw International Festival of Organ Music (Poland), the Sao Bento International Organ Festival (Sao Paulo, Brazil), the Turin International Organ Festival (Italy), the International Congress of Organists (Montreal), Fédération québécoise des amis de l’orgue (Québec) Jack Singer Hall (Calgary), and Roy Thomson Hall (Toronto).