HippFest announces line-up

A restored version of The Wind will close the festival Photo: Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Collection

The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival (HippFest) has announced the programme for its 14th edition, which will run from Wednesday 20 to Sunday 24 March.

Depictions of Scotland on Screen are in focus with the opening film Peggy (1916), with live musical accompaniment from Stephen Horne. It marks the film debut for Billie Burke (The Wizard of Oz’s Glinda the Good Witch) who plays New York socialite Peggy Cameron (Burke) as she moves to Scotland to live with her new guardian, “a man as stern and unyielding as the rocky hills of his native land”. Will she succumb to the charms of the ‘hot’ Reverend? Once thought lost, the film has been reconstructed with the final missing scenes being filled in with stills and text from the 1916 copyright registration to ensure that today’s audiences are not left in suspense at the film’s conclusion.

Also on the opening day, pioneering Glasgow-born filmmaker Jenny Gilbertson directs an entirely different take on Scotland, The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric (1933), a poignant “story documentary” about crofting families in Shetland. Presented with a new music commission by award-winning multi-instrumentalist and composer from Fair Isle: Inge Thomson, with Shetland-born Catriona MacDonald.

Mantrap will be accompanied by Neil Brand Photo: Park Circus

Later in the Festival, local young musicians will accompany shorts from the National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive in the annual New Found Sound screening. Audiences can learn about the life of a Scottish locations manager with a visit to Callendar House on Thursday 21 March, setting for key scenes in the popular Outlander TV series, with illustrated talk from a speaker in the business of transforming some of Scotland’s best-known landmarks into backdrops for big budget blockbusters.

Thursday’s screenings begin with a film from screenwriter and director Frances Marion: Stella Maris (1918) starring “America’s Sweetheart” Mary Pickford. Mary Pickford made some of the best features of her career with the prolific and respected screenwriter Frances Marion, including this first-rate female-fronted melodrama about two women who fall in love with the same man. Accompanied on piano by Meg Morley, the film handles some very dark themes, but balances them beautifully with genuine light and charm.

The focus on Marion continues with a new restoration of Just Around the Corner (1921), one of only two films directed by the prolific scenarist and a rare example of a 1920s film with a woman officially occupying the director’s chair. This unabashedly sentimental drama about maternal love and the trials of navigating a man’s world is a tantalising glimpse of another dimension of Marion’s unparalleled gift for movie making.

The triptych of Marion’s work is completed with the Festival’s closing night film, the world premiere of a prestigious new restoration of The Wind (1928), starring screen legend Lillian Gish.

World cinema screenings include Adventures of Half a Ruble (Priklucheniya Poltinnika) (1929), The Organist at St Vitus Cathedral (Varhaník U Svateho Víta) (1929) starring Czech actor/singer and war hero Karel Häsler and with live musical accompaniment from Dutch composer and pianist Maud Nelissen. From Sweden comes Per Lindberg’s The Norrtull Gang (Norrtullsligan) (1923), with musical accompaniment from John Sweeney.

Other films in the line-up include Mantrap (1926) with music from Neil Brand. Victor Fleming (director of Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz) directs the silent-era’s quintessential It Girl, Clara Bow in this entertaining battle of the sexes. The film will screen as part of the Friday Night Gala including an after-party.

At the weekend Lon Chaney and Jackie Coogan star in one of the earliest adaptations of Dickens’ work, Oliver Twist (1922) directed by Glasgow-born director Frank Lloyd. With musical accompaniment from Neil Brand. There will also be a Saturday monring Jeely Jar Screening of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Looking ahead to the Festival, HippFest Director, Alison Strauss said: “HippFest is proud to have grown a real community of people who share an adventurous appetite for extraordinary cinema and live music. I am particularly thrilled that this year we have been chosen as the festival to host the world premiere of the prestigious new restoration of The Wind from New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and I am over the moon that we have secured the means to commission a new accompaniment for Jenny Gilbertson’s rarely screened Scottish masterpiece The Rugged Island for the exceptionally talented Inge Thomson and Catriona MacDonald. We can’t wait to welcome everyone to discover these and the many other brilliant films and musicians that we have lined up.”

For full details of the line-up and to book tickets visit the official site.