It all begins in Piazza Maggiore, known all over the world as a cinephiles’ temple. Thursday 20 June, My Cousin (1918), the only surviving film featuring Enrico Caruso, who plays two roles, will be screened with a new score composed by Daniele Furlati and performed by a musical ensemble from Teatro Comunale di Modena, including a sequence where we will hear the voice of the great tenor. On Monday 24, Kote Mikaberidze’s Chemi bebia (My Grandmother, 1929) will be accompanied by the Finnish trio Cleaning Women and an explosive and overwhelming score!

On Thursday 27, we pay homage to Carl Davis, the composer and orchestra conductor who passed away last year. For half a century, he and his music contributed to cultivating a passion for silent cinema throughout the world. The first of the new restorations, curated by MoMA, Victor Sjöström’s masterpiece The Wind (1928) will be accompanied by its celebrated musical score, performed by the Conservatorio G.B. Martini di Bologna Orchestra, conducted by Timothy Brock. On 6 July, Maestro Brock will also conduct the Teatro Comunale di Bologna Orchestra in a performance of the famous score composed by Nino Rota for the Federico Fellini masterpiece Amarcord (I Remember, 1973), organized in collaboration with Sugar Music.
The Cinema Lumière will welcome the many musicians who are going to ensure a worthy accompaniment to all of the silent films. There will also be numerous events enriched by live concerts at Cinema Modernissimo which, following its restoration and reopening, will host festival screening for the first time, including a programme of avant-garde(ish) shorts, accompanied by the internationally-renowned drummer Valentina Magaletti (Saturday 22); Monday 24 will see an ensemble of Finnish musicians, together with a Foley artist, accompany Silent Trilogy (2012-2023), a trilogy of silent shorts by Juho Kuosmanen; on Tuesday 25 it will be the turn of an entirely Bolognese group (Valeria Sturba, Tiziano Popoli and Vincenzo Vasi); while on Friday 28 Victor Sjöström’s He Who Gets Slapped (1924) will be embellished by the sounds of an exceptional quartet (Laura Agnusdei, Simone Cavina, Antonio Raia and Stefano Pilia).
The magic returns to Piazzetta Pasolini, with two evenings illuminated by the 35mm carbon arc projector, while on the closing night of the festival a very rare 16mm carbon arc projector will make its debut, brought to Bologna for the occasion by our friends at Lichtspiel in Bern for the screening of a number of predecessors of the videoclip.