April 28th, 29th, 30th, 2017
Denver Silent Film Festival 2020 Screening Schedule
Click here for Festival Passes
*festival passes include tickets to all showings
We’ve decided that we have to postpone the Denver Silent Film Festival. It’s both a hard choice and an obvious one. The health of every one of us comes first, and with all the expert advice to avoid crowds, we certainly do not want to endanger our audience or stage a festival which no one will be able attend. The hard part, of course, is that we’d put together a wonderful event, for a wonderful audience.
But we are already working with the staff of The Alamo Drafthouse to find new dates in the fall.
Please stay tuned and we will be in touch once we pick a new date.
Thank you for your continued support and understanding. We are all in this together.
Howie Movshovitz
Director,
The Denver Silent Film Festival
Friday April 3rd
7 pm
The Mark of Zorro (Fred Niblo, 1920, U.S., 107 minutes)
With Douglas Fairbanks
Accompanied by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Zorro is something of an early Batman – of course, without either a Batmobile or a Gotham City – but he does have a horse and a sword, and he does fight evil and corruption among the wealthy in Spanish-controlled California. And he also wears a mask to hide his own upper-class status. More than anything, though, Zorro has Denver-born Douglas Fairbanks, agile and magnetic, and that makes him unique.
Saturday April 4th
10 am
Clash of the Wolves (Noel Mason Smith, 1925, 74 minutes)
With Rin-Tin-Tin
Accompanied by The Doll House Thieves
In his ninth feature, French-born Rin-Tin-Tin plays a half-breed (half dog, half wolf) who leads a wolf pack that preys upon cattle after a forest fire has destroyed the wolves’ natural habitat. Then, his paw pierced by a thorn, Rinty is saved by a human being and his life is changed.
Saturday April 4th
12:15 pm
The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjöström,1921, Sweden, 100 minutes)
With Victor Sjöström, Hilda Borgström and Tore Svennberg.
Accompanied by Hank Troy
According to a legend acknowledged by three drunken men, the last person to die in a year must for the next year drive the carriage that collects the dead. And in this stunning, touching and profound film, that man reflects on the life that brought him to this point. Victor Sjöström directed and stars, and the film so affected Ingmar Bergman that he used Sjöström in his own film about an aging man re-considering his life, Wild Strawberries.
Saturday April 4th
4 pm
Lonesome (Paul Fejos, 1928, 69 minutes
With Barbara Kent, Glenn Tryon, Fay Holderness.
Accompanied by the College of Arts & Media’s New Electronics Orchestra, with Donald Sosin, Gregory Walker, and Joanna Seaton.
It’s Saturday at Coney Island. A girl and a boy meet; they spark, and then, by a quirk of fate they’re separated. The story may be old, but Fejos avant-gardish filmmaking is not, and the sights of New York in 1928 are fascinating.
Saturday April 4th
7 pm
So This Is Paris (Ernst Lubitsch, 1926, U.S., 80 minutes)
With Monte Blue and Patsy Ruth Miller
Accompanied by Ben Model
In 1926, The New York Times film critic Mordaunt Hall wrote, “No matter how brilliant may be the picture Mr. Lubitsch produces, he succeeds invariably in inserting a transcendental stroke.” Enough said. Two couples, all cheating in Lubitsch’s magnificent view of sex and silliness.
This screening is the premiere of Turner Classic Movies’ new restoration of the film – and of Ben Model’s new score.
Sunday April 5th
9:30 am
University of Colorado Denver Student Shorts (60 minutes)
Each year, DSFF presents a program of new silent shorts made by film students of the College of Arts & Media of the University of Colorado Denver, under the guidance of Jessica McGaugh, Andrew Bateman and Jim Phelan. 60 minutes.
Sunday April 5th
11:15 am
The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks/ Neobychainye priklyucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bolshevikov (Lev Kuleshov, 1924, USSR, 94 minutes)
With Porfiri Podobed and Boris Barnet
Accompanied by Hank Troy
Mr. West, a YMCA director in America, decides to civilize the presumed barbarians of the New Soviet Union. But because this this is a Soviet-made film, not American, director Lev Kuleshov decides to make fun of this American visitor. Kuleshov was a major figure in the Constructivist/Futurist movements in the USSR – and in fact is the one who “discovered” the “Kuleshov effect,” a fundamental principle of montage, or editing.
Sunday April 5th
2 pm
Mother/Mat (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1926, 89 minutes, USSR)
With Vera Baranovskaya and Nikolay Batalov
Accompanied by Billy Overton
Pavel is a guy with a lousy industrial job and – in this film from the heyday of Soviet revolutionary filmmaking – he has no political consciousness. Slowly that develops in him until finally, at a crisis, his mother also realizes the importance of revolt. The climax arrives with the first hint of spring, just as the ice breaks in the river – a sequence much influenced by D.W. Griffith and his film Way Down East.
Sunday April 5th
4:30 pm
The Manxman (Alfred Hitchcock, 1929, Great Britain, 110 minutes)
With Anny Ondra, Carl Brisson and Malcolm Keen
Accompanied by Hank Troy
In this late silent film from Alfred Hitchcock, two young men who are friends take separate directions – one becomes a lawyer, the other a fisherman. Yet they manage to fall in love with the same young woman. Hitchcock told Truffaut that The Manxman was “not a Hitchcock movie,” but it is in fact a fine moral drama.
Sunday April 5th
7:30 pm
The Scarlet Letter (Victor Sjöström, 1926, U.S.115 minutes)
With Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, and Henry B. Walthall
Accompanied by Donald Sosin (piano) and Joanna Seaton (vocals)
In the two films Lillian Gish made with Swedish director Victor Sjöström (the other is the1928 Wind), she showed what she could not with D.W. Griffith – her great ability to play mature, thoughtful women instead of Griffith’s infantilized virgins. Here, Gish plays the famed Hester Prynne, outcast and forced to wear that scarlet A for adultery in a fine adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s romance (he did not call it a novel).
TICKETS
The growing popularity of the Denver Silent Film Festival means that many of the screenings are likely to sell out.
For this reason, a purchased ticket or festival pass does not guarantee seating! Ticket holders must be seated 10 minutes prior to the listed showtime or that seat may be forfeited. For the festival, there is no reserved seating, just general admission.
For more information about rush tickets, see below.
Tickets may be purchased in person at the Alamo Draft House box office.
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Sloans Lake box office:
4255 W. Colfax Ave.
Denver, CO 80204
720-577-4720
Click here for Festival Passes
All tickets and festival passes are non-refundable! FESTIVAL PASSES A festival pass is available for patrons interested in attending all of the films. Festival Passes @ $110 per person.
INDIVIDUAL TICKETS $13.00 per Film, $8.00 for students with I.D.
RUSH TICKETS are available to fill any remaining seats ten minutes before the scheduled showtime.
Rush tickets are available in person only. The Alamo Draft House box office will distribute a number on a first come-first serve basis. If your number is called, you may purchase a ticket to the film. A number cannot guarantee a seat once the theater is at capacity. Rush ticket purchases are cash only.
Special note to Parents and Grandparents: Children under the age of 5 may be too young to enjoy the films presented at the festival. Therefore, they will not be admitted into the theater
Directions
Address: 4255 W. Colfax Ave. Denver, CO 80204
From the East: Take I-70 W to Exit 274 for Colorado Springs, keep left and take I-25 S to Exit 210A (US-40), turn right on Colfax, theater is on your right in less than a mile and a half
From the North: Take I-25 S to Exit 210A (US-40), turn right on Colfax, theater is on your right in less than a mile and a half
From the South: Head north on S. Santa Fe Dr. to I-25 N for Fort Collins, take Exit 210A (US-40), turn left on Colfax, theater is on your right in less than a mile and a half. If you don’t want to get on I-25, you can take S. Santa Fe Dr. north all the way to Colfax, then turn left onto Colfax. The theater will be on your right in about two miles.
From the West: Take US-6 E toward CO-95, take the CO-95/Sheridan Blvd Exit and turn right onto Colfax, theater is on your left in less than a quarter of a mile
Lightrail: A less than 10 minute walk from the W Line’s Perry Station
Bus: The Colfax & Tennyson Stop on the RTD 16 Broadway bus is one block away from the theater
Performers
Donald Sosin makes his sixth appearance at the Denver Silent Film Festival this year, and is delighted to be working with local student musicians for the fourth time. A New York native, he has played and composed silent film music for over forty years, appearing at festivals in New York, Telluride, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Germany, and China. Donald accompanies silent films at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of the Moving Image, the National Gallery, and on college campuses including Harvard and Yale, Berkeley and Emory. With his wife, singer Joanna Seaton, he has performed at
Donald Sosin
the National Gallery, in Berlin and Moscow, and Italy's annual film retrospectives in Bologna and Pordenone. They have scored dozens of silents for DVD release, and received commissions from the Chicago Symphony Chorus, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and the Colorado Children's Chorus. Donald has taught at Bard College at Simons Rock and at Maharishi University of Management in Iowa. He and Joanna teach songwriting and film music workshops at schools and colleges all over the US. They live in Connecticut and have two children. More information about Donald Sosin can be found at www.silent-film-music.com.
Hank Troy
Pianist Hank Troy began playing for silent movies in 1971 at the Denver Folklore Center. Since then he has accompanied over 1,000 films. For four years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Hank was the resident accompanist at the Denver Center Cinema. In 1985, he became the pianist for the silent film series at Colorado Chautauqua in Boulder. The series continues as a summer-long event, drawing nightly audiences of 300-500. Hank has performed for festivals in Denver, Breckenridge, Santa Fe,
Telluride, and Aspen. Other regional venues include the Rialto Theatre in Loveland, The Denver Art Museum, and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. He was pianist for two seasons of “Golden Silents”, a film-to-video project produced by KBDI Channel 12 and distributed to PBS stations nationally. His accompaniments have also been used in several television commercials. Hank plays an improvisational style, drawing on the 19th century Romantic tradition of classical music and from popular American tunes from the early 20th Century. Audiences enjoy a unique concert performance when they view a film accompanied by Hank Troy.
Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra is a five piece chamber ensemble that revives the lost art and repertoire of the movie theater orchestra. Since 1994, they have scored over 120 silent movies using historic orchestrations, recording over 30 film scores for video release and broadcast on Turner Classic Movies. The Mont Alto Orchestra are regulars at the Telluride Film Festival, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, the Silent Film Society of Chicago, and the Kansas Silent Film Festival, and have toured around the United States from the Brooklyn Academy of Music to the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.
Utsav Lal
Young Steinway Artist, Indian pianist /composer UTSAV LAL, known as the ‘Raga Pianist’ has set a precedent with his innovative handling of Indian Classical music. Recognized for his creative vision, the 26 year classical & jazz pianist has an impressive career which includes solo performances at global venues like Carnegie Hall-NYC, Southbank Centre-London, Kennedy Center-Washington DC and extensive collaborative work with Irish, Scottish and Indian musicians. With his distinctively unique raga repertoire, Utsav Lal has often been the first on the programming calendar of well- known Indian Classical, Jazz, Silent Film & World Music festivals. Debut album release ‘Piano Moods of Indian Ragas” by label Times Music(2008), Utsav has five subsequent records released including a solo recording of ragas on the world’s first ever 'Fluid Piano’, released by the Fluid Piano Tuning label ( 2016). Utsav’s unfailing clarity of technique and rhythmic virtuosity showcases itself in his rendition of ragas. Treading the careful line between an ancient tradition and the innate desire for innovation with utmost respect, Utsav Lal’s music has a powerful intensity that sweeps the audience into a transcendental journey and is known for its sincerity, simplicity and depth. Full artist details on www.utsavlal.com.
The Dollhouse Thieves
The Dollhouse Thieves is a multi-instrumental Denver project started by husband and wife team Niki and Luke Tredinnick that blends elements of neo-rock with indie-folk using jazz-influenced vocals and unconventional instruments such as accordion, clarinet, and trombone. The band members all hold music degrees in composition, education, and performance, and share over a decade of performing and writing music together in various settings across the country to make them an exceptional group. Their aptitude for singing and playing a multitude of string, percussion, woodwind, brass, and keyboard instruments within a wide array of styles evokes enchantment and delight in their audiences. For more information, visit their webpage at www.thedollhousethieves.com.