After hiatus, Asia’s only silent film festival returns for its 17th edition

Since its inception in 2007, the ISFFM has screened over 100 silent motion pictures from different countries, including France, Greece, the United States, the United Kingdom, Thailand, and the Philippines.

It was the Goethe-Institut Philippinen, alongside the Instituto Cervantes de Manila and the Japan Foundation Manila as co-initiators, that seeded the idea for the festival with a particular focus on silent cinema, accompanied by live musical scores from Filipino artists.

“That makes it quite unique. And I know that in Bangkok, a few years ago, they tried to do something similar, but  I don’t think they have continued with that. So we are the only ones in Asia,” Guardiola told PhilSTAR L!fe over Zoom.

This year, the festival will feature both traditional and electronic music, headlined by artists like Ma.Ma. (Joee Mejias and Alyana Cabral), the five-piece instrumental band Psychic Surgeons, Pepe Manikan’s chamber orchestra, the Hearlife orchestra, and the female trio of Teresa Barrozo, Pat Sarabia, and Mariah Reodica.

Revamping

Angela Sonico, cultural coordinator of Goethe-Institut Philippinen, said that there’s a mixture of anxiety and excitement in mounting the festival’s comeback edition. “We already have an existing audience for the silent film festival [and we’re excited to see] if they’re still there. And so far, the ones that we see based on the teasers and little promotions that we have, the audience is still there and the feedback is positive.”

Sonico added that the festival hiatus was largely due to the reassessment of the cultural programs the participating institutions are spearheading, alongside the arrival of new cultural directors. 

For the programming, festival coordinator Eunice Helera emphasizes that this year’s edition is centered on reestablishing the ISFFM brand. “We want to put like an exclamation point in its revival,” she told PhilSTAR L!fe.

“It’s really quite difficult to find a theme, especially in silent films, given, of course, the provenance [of the films] and the dates that they were actually shot in,” said Helera.

Some significant hurdles have to do with the technical conditions of the silent motion pictures included in the festival. “The format of the silent films back then may not be necessarily applicable to our cinemas in the Philippines, so there’s a lot of conversion needed to make it viewable in the Philippines,” explained Carlos Ortiz, arts and cultural head of Japan Foundation Manila.

However, in the case of the Instituto Cervantes de Manila, which is working closely with the Filmoteca Española, Spain’s national film library, the archiving of the silent film era is the biggest roadblock. 

“It’s always tricky because the problem with silent films is that most of the heritage has been lost,” said Guardiola. “In the case of Spain, [only] around 10% of the production of that period [has been preserved.]”

Guardiola continued, “It’s quite dramatic because of the war. And then in those days, the films were not as valued, they were not considered a cultural product in the same way that we consider them nowadays. So it’s always tricky to find the material.”

For Germany, though, it’s a lot easier. “I guess the good thing is Germany has a good federal government support when it comes to the restoration of films, and so it was in collaboration with state archives, and even independent archives are very open,” said Sonico.

The magic of silent cinema

Asked why audiences should troop to the cinema for the comeback edition, Guardiola said the viewing experience is heightened by the live performances of the local artists.

“We are talking about silent films, but it’s not that silent screening at all,” he explained. “In the old days, they were very noisy. They were accompanied by music. People would interact. And this is what we are reproducing. I mean, at home, you can see a silent film, but you won’t have the experience of enjoying the live performance of a band, so this makes the festival quite unique.”

Guardiola continued, “I’ve been here at this festival since the first edition. I’m a relic. Sometimes people think I’m one of the actors from the movies. And I’ve learned so much about the codes. They have their own language, you know. We know, for example, in a silent film, if the scene is in blue, it means it’s at night. If it’s red, it means there is a tragedy going on. Yellow means a different thing. So you also learn in the process.”

Meanwhile, Instituto Cervantes de Manila cultural director Francisco Javier López Tapia, who just took his post in September last year, talked about the magic of watching silent films on the big screen. 

“There’s something magical about going back to the cinema to watch a film with other people to comment on the film. And then to make it in this way, like in our case with a band playing live, it’s a completely different experience from the one that we will have at home in these Netflix times,” López explained.

“In October [last year], we had our Película Festival, the festival of cinema in Spanish, and we had 6,500 viewers. That means that people really are delighted or waiting to go back to the cinema.”

“Maybe we are lacking something human which can be found in these kinds of spaces nowadays,” López said.

Sonico also noted how the festival reconciles “two of the most universal languages for humankind: film and music.” “This is like a perfect opportunity for cultural institutions to really utilize and bring together different cultures, and open a different kind of platform which is contemporary meeting heritage,” she said.

“And with the Philippines,” Sonico adds, “it creates this reconciliation of our own efforts to restore a piece of history.”