A short History of the Festival.
Told by the Festival’s Founder
Pre-History and first Silent Film Weekend
It all started in 2002 with a silent film weekend. Before that, there had only been occasional silent film screenings in the ballroom of the student house. In the ballroom there is a 35mm projector, the speed of which can be changed – an important technical requirement. In 2002, just two films were shown, more precisely chamber feature films: “The Backstairs” by Leopold Jessner / Paul Leni and “Shards” by Lupu Pick. One thing was clear: the audience could not expect light fare. The standard was high.
2003
The second silent film weekend in 2003 was dedicated to Ernst Lubitsch, of whom we showed four early German silent films; two comedies: “The Oyster Princess” and “Kohlhiesels Töchter”, and two costume films: “Sumurun” and “The eyes of the mummy Mâ”. The outstanding quality of the comedies was also proven by the Karlsruhe audience. We then caught up with “The Wild Cat” in the “From Caligari to Metropolis” program in November 2006.
2004 …
the event was named “Karlsruhe Silent Film Festival”. The student AFK (Academic Film Club) was still involved in 2004 and then withdrew. We presented four films by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau: “Nosferatu”, “Tabu”, “Schloss Vogelöd” and “Sunrise”. The pianist Eva Chahrouri and the pianist Frieder Egri participated for the first time with the musicians. Until 2015 he belongs to the musicians of the Silent Film Festival Karlsruhe. In 2004, Karlsruhe was in the fever of applying for the Capital of Culture. In the early phase of the application, we also looked into the allocation guidelines and learned that projects with children and young people are particularly important. In cooperation with Sylvia Jürges, a musician and music teacher at the Baden Conservatory, and Ilmar Klahn, a violinist and music teacher, a project was created that required a lot of courage: not only should one film be shown that is suitable for children, children should also accompany the film. Since there were no special children’s films in the silent era, the search for a suitable film was not easy; With “Sleeping Beauty” (1917) by Paul Leni, however, a perfectly fitting film was found. Finally, around 70 children in 3 ensembles accompanied the film. For the first time, we received a special grant from the city of Karlsruhe for this program.
Note: the student cultural center received a lump-sum project grant, which was then allocated to individual projects by the managing director of the cultural center, so that the silent film days can be regarded as being funded by the city even before this year.
2005
The following year, 2005, we were less fortunate in finding a suitable film for children; three Chaplin short films were offered as a program for children accompanied by adult musicians. The main program was dedicated to one genre: we showed four street films; these were “Die Straße” by R. Grune, “Asphalt” by Joe May, “Varieté” and “Piccadilly” by E. A. Dupont. The silent film days were not spared from mishaps: the performance of “Varietè” had to be canceled due to a projector damage. The film was included again in the program at the next festival. When I was preparing for the festival in 2005, I was looking for another venue, but I hadn’t dared to address the ZKM with this small event. Unfortunately, it was not possible to hold the silent film days in the Landesmedienzentrum (State Media Center) for technical reasons.
2011
After the person-oriented programs of the previous years, we played a program called “Einbruch des Fantastischen”. We mainly concentrated on German films, not least to keep the financial risks low. In addition to classics such as “Nosferatu,“ Der Müde Tod ”or“ Orlac’s hands ”, there were also discoveries such as the unique“ Shadow ”by Artur Robison, one of the best films of the 1920s – if you follow Siegfried Kracauer. We added “Vampyr” by Carl Theodor Dreyer as a replacement for “The Downfall of the House of Usher”, which the Cinémathèque francaise unfortunately did not want to make available to us. We conducted a visitor survey to find out which films the typical Karlsruhe visitor wants to see, or to see who is interested in a film like “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide “arrives late at night with electronic music: the young audience predominated. We realized that we could influence the placement of a film; however, most of the Karlsruhe visitors would prefer to see the German silent film classic. The result makes us work for the future: we have to drive multi-track: The Karlsruhe audience has to be reached with special offers such as the “Culinary Cinema” and the “Film Concert” on Saturday evening, for the cinematic demanding program with rarely seen silent films, we have to go beyond the region attract national and even international audiences. We have entered into a partnership with the festival in Anères / France and will in future be inviting films and musicians from the Anères program. In return, Anères is inviting a film from our festival to France. In 2010, for the second time, “as an exception”, as it was said, we received a grant from MFG. In 2011 that was no longer possible. After an exchange of views with a key representative of the MFG, we entered into a cooperation with the Kinemathek. For the first time, we were able to benefit from the usual subsidy at a ratio of 2: 1 H. we received a grant from MFG amounting to 50% of the municipal grant.
The organizing team of the Silent Film Days takes on the challenges that the realization of the Karlsruhe Silent Film Days presents now and in the future. In future, we will distribute our advertising material between Pordenone and Paris – and not skip London and Amsterdam. Nevertheless: the Karlsruhe Silent Film Festival is (still) a small festival. For the first time, we will receive a grant of more than 5000 euros for the anniversary program. We want to expand the festival continuously but not rashly. We are convinced that cultivating the cultural heritage in the film sector will not only introduce the audience to the almost forgotten riches from the first third of the 20th century. In almost every conversation about silent films with non-experts, we have the experience that we are asked whether there are enough films from this time? This question alone shows the extent to which knowledge about early cinema in the first two decades of the 20th century and the heyday of silent films in the 1920s was lost. There is another decisive reason for preoccupation with silent film: only those who know the past can talk about the future. Those who take the present as zero point do not know their own direction.
Josef Jünger
Addendum 2018: it is time to revise the text and reassess the possibilities and the future of the festival. JJ