James Harrison, director of South West Silents and Film Noir UK, discusses visiting Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto to discover the latest repertory finds in Italy. 

It’s always hard not to be excited on that first Saturday morning after registering your festival pass, collecting that festival tote bag, which is heavy with the festival’s schedule, programme catalogue and a whole load of other goodies (specifically for this year, a new book by Geoff Brown, a William S. Hart Blu-ray and a couple of other things) and sitting down in the café/bar.

That café/bar I speak of is right opposite the Verdi cinema in the heart of that Italian town of Pordenone, and that festival I speak of is Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto – now in it’s 44th year!

This is something I always try to do every year; sit down, usually in the sun, with the hustle and bustle of a Saturday morning in Pordenone (Saturday mornings are also market day) and dive into the festival’s catalogue to see what cinematic treats are waiting for me over the next week or so of viewing. As always with festivals, things change and there could be surprises or disappointments. But I’m happy to say that the following highlights below from this year’s Giornate was very much what I was expecting.

Expect some of these gems landing in the south west in connection with South West Silents and Cinema Rediscovered in 2025.

Sicilia Films

The nonfiction strands are always one of my favourite parts of the Giornate. It is more than likely you won’t be able to see these films anywhere else and here they are, on a massive screen with live music. So it shouldn’t come as much as a surprise that the selection of non-fiction showcasing the dramatic landscape of Sicily makes an appearance in this list.

In fact, this programme of films was a reaction after the 2022 screening of Jean Epstein’s forgotten/lost 30 minute film La Montagne Infidèle (1923) which was a highlight of mine in that year’s Giornate.

Expanding on the volcanic subject of Epstein’s passed film, these new films transported us to 1910-1920s Sicily. Cutting between the rugged landscapes of the rural countryside to certain coastal highlights including views of the volcanic island of Stromboli to the, very soon to be, tourist traps such as the town of Taormina. There was plenty to spot, especially with early footage of the pre restored ancient Greek theatre found in Taormina. The shots of the incredible theatre also showed a slight hint of Mount Etna smouldering in the background. All very volcanic and dramatic as you could imagine.

3 Bad Men

There seemed to be a bit of confusion from certain attendees of the Giornate this year when it came to John Ford’s 3 Bad Men (1926). A good handful were confusing this film with Ford’s 3 Godfather’s, which William Wellman had made as a silent film in 1929 as Hell’s Heroes, in which, the Giornate had screened in 2023.

While strong performances by all four male leads, George O’Brien (playing Dan O’Malley), J. Farrell MacDonald, Frank Campeau and Tom Santschi as the 3 Bad Men; it was Olive Borden as Lee Carlton shone the most. And while the film does feel to drag on a bit, the second half, involving a Land Rush is truly spellbinding. John Ford might hold back people; bit it really shouldn’t. This is such a fresh film to explore; so should this wild west silent epic be screened in the wild south west? Almost certainly!

Saxophone Suzi

Given the fact that the film is set in 1920s Berlin and comes with a title like, Saxophone Suzi, you kinda get the general idea how this film is going to go. Full of energy from the outset and on a constant wave right until it’s crazy ending. Saxophone Suzi’s Anny Ondra (of Alfred Hitchcock fame) crashes through every scene and really highlights Ondra’s very impressive comic abilities; something of which, not many of us have ever seen before.

A no holds barred rollercoaster of a film which really does, and should, fly the flag of what silent film can show off to new audiences. This is a film everyone should be booking in the future.

Anna May Wong

This is very much the year for Anna May Wong with a new biography recently released earlier in the year (check out the SWS review) and with a second book about her (a very good critical film theory book), it only seemed to be the right time to rediscover the less well known films of this great Asian-American star.

A good selection of less well known Anna May Wong films were screened throughout the Giornate but the two films which stuck out was Schmutziges Geld (Song/ 1928) and Großstadtschmetterling (Pavement Butterfly/ 1929). Both are Anglo-German (with British International Pictures) productions, both directed by Berlin born Richard Eichberg, both shoe-horn her celebrated 1929 British masterpiece and both really do let Anna May Wong shine off the screen.

Song, tells the story of Jack Houben (played by Metropolis’ Heinrich George), a knife thrower who has a mysterious past who saves Anna May Wong’s ‘Song’ from being raped. Jack takes Song in and makes her part of his knife throwing act. As you may have guessed, Jack’s past begins to haunt him and their possible future success.

Pavement Butterfly on the other hand is very much a European jet setting affair involving Paris, where the film’s first section is set, and then jumps to the south of France all of which is beautifully shot. Almost like Song, Pavement Butterfly involves a mysterious past for our leading man, with Anna May Wong being an artist’s muse. Only trouble can lay ahead of them…

Just like Piccadilly, both include extensive show pieces that really show off Anna May Wong’s incredible screen presence and dancing abilities, even to the point that you could, only briefly confused on which one you are thinking about.

But that doesn’t matter, both, and I guess I’m saying both a lot here, are beautifully restored as well. Watch this space, I think Anna May Wong will be arriving in the south west sometime next year.

Sine Nomine: Unseen and Unidentified

Discovery is the key to many a film festival and Le Giornate is a classic example of some of the great finds which we (South West Silents) have been able to find and then show in the south west of the past few years. But there is something even more amazing when it comes to the Giornate, and it can be found in this special strand (which I hope will return in the future) where film archives just screen unknown films and hope that fellow Giornate attendees can possible identity an actor, location or even name the actual film. And it was a success. Names were named, and films were given titles at last.

And while I won’t discuss the films here, one question I would like to ask… Can we do this over here? Would venues or festivals be interested in doing such a screening(s)? This is something I’m defiantly going to look into as it brought something extra to the Giornate this year… and with that, a new unexplored history of silent film and archive film is ripe to be discovered.