Govinda’s Silent Film Festival

Overview

Govinda's is going all The Artist on us with its latest cinematic lineup. As part of Australia's Silent Film Festival, they're presenting two six-week programmes of restored silent classics, with each film accompanied by a musical soundtrack.

Master Directors of the Silent Era, running on Tuesday nights, kicks off with Abel Gance's moving WWII saga J'accuse, though if you find it difficult to sit through 166 minutes of war film even when (a) there is dialogue and (b) you're not lapsing into a vegetarian-buffet-induced food coma, then the rest of the lineup might be more appealing. It includes film noir pioneer Fritz Lang's hauntingly beautiful tale of fantasy and gothic horror Destiny, the 1920s Soviet silent By the Law, and a film that was believed to have been lost since 1936 until a nearly complete print was unearthed in France six years ago.

On Sundays get your jollies from underrated pleasures like slippery banana peels and airborne cream pies with Golden Comedy Era of Silent Cinema. Crazy stunts come courtesy of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in Wild and Woolly, and delightfully deadpan facial expressions abound in a Buster Keaton-fest of four shorts celebrating the most recognised face of silent comedy besides Charlie Chaplin. For a more enlightening cinematic experience, escape to late 19th-century France in The Italian Straw Hat. A horse munching on someone's fancy headwear has never appeared so elegant.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ywWoeswCDc4