Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin will be lighting up the big screen in Piazza Maggiore in two cine-concerts at the upcoming festival. Released in 1928 within a few months of each other, The Cameraman and The Circus are the perfect expression of silent film’s last season and of an art that reached the height of its artistic power right before succumbing to the revolution of sound.
Tuesday 25 June will be the night of The Cameraman, perhaps the last of the Keatonian wonders and a brilliant depiction of the relationship between cinema and reality and of the fragility of the artist. A newly restored version of the film will be presented with a live performance by the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna of an original score composed by Timothy Brock, who will also be conducting.
On Thursday 27 June the whirlwind, tightrope-walking genius of Charlie Chaplin will light up the screen with The Circus, an amazing demonstration of a confident filmmaker using his creative powers to make a comedy about being funny, unintentionally. The dazzling new restored version will be accompanied by Chaplin’s original score, meticulously reconstructed by Timothy Brock using archive materials and also performed by the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

The Cameraman (1928) by Buster Keaton • The Circus (1928) by Charles Chaplin

Carbon arc projector screenings return to Piazzetta Pasolini re-creating the light and ambience of vintage films. One evening will be devoted to the legendary Musidora, with a ‘Ledecky print’ of Soleil et ombre and live music by Gabriel Thibaudeau. In honour of Enno Patalas (1929–2018) we will screen a masterpiece of silent cinema, Lupu Pick’s Sylvester, using a print from the National Film Archive of Japan’s Komiya Collection with live music by Frank Bockius. The third evening is dedicated to a programme entitled Short, Coloured, Criminal.

Soleil et ombre (1922) by Musidora • Sylvester (1923) by Lupu Pick