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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Denver Film Media Contacts:
Keith Garcia: keith@denverfilm.org
Marty Schechter: marty@schechterpr.com
Denver Silent Film Festival Media Contact:
Howie Movshovitz: hmovshovitz@cs.com
Films presented with live musical accompaniment
Tickets on sale now at https://www.denverfilm.org/
Film and festival assets HERE
DENVER – Aug. 12, 2025 – The Denver Silent Film Festival (DSFF), presented by Denver Film, announced today the lineup for its 12th edition, Sept. 12-14 at the Sie FilmCenter, 2510 E. Colfax Ave. Individual tickets, on sale now, are $13 for Denver Film Members/$16 Non-Members. Festival passes are also available for $75 for Denver Film Members/$85 Non-Members. All tickets are available at denverfilm.org.
The three-day Denver Silent Film Festival includes a collection of silent-era feature and shorts films showcasing groundbreaking works in early cinema from around the globe. In celebration of the silent-era tradition, films will be presented with live musical accompaniment, showcasing the talents of the world-renowned Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Hank Troy, namebackwards, Perc Ens, Tenia Nelson, The Dollhouse Thieves, and Rodney Sauer.
The Festival kicks off Sept. 12 with a 7 p.m. presentation of the 1926 silent action-adventure classic The Black Pirate. Directed by Albert Parker and shot entirely in the then-novel two-color Technicolor, the film stars the legendary Douglas Fairbanks in another iconic swashbuckler role—a young man who infiltrates a pirate crew and swears vengeance after his father is killed by pirates. Born at 14th and Franklin in Denver, Fairbanks is considered the first true action hero of the silver screen, known for his acrobatic stunts and infectious energy. Opening Night will also include a presentation of the David Shepard Career Achievement Award to Maggie Hennefeld for her outstanding contributions to silent cinema.
Closing the Festival on Sept. 14 is a 5:15 p.m. presentation of Diary of a Lost Girl, the 1929 German drama adapted from Margarethe Böhme’s notorious novel, in which the daughter of a middle-class pharmacist (Louise Brooks) becomes pregnant by her father’s assistant, only to be ejected from her home and sent to a strict girls’ reform school.
“Every film in this year’s Denver Silent Film Festival is exciting, and each one for different reasons. The festival opens with a rousing Douglas Fairbanks adventure picture and ends with the alluring, transgressive Louise Brooks,” said Festival Director Howie Movshovitz. “In the middle, David Shepard awardee Maggie Hennefeld will present a program of (to many of us) unknown early women comics – they’re hilarious, and as Hennefeld says, ‘nasty.’”
Maggie Hennefeld is a Professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. In addition to curating the 4-disc archival collection Cinema’s First Nasty Women celebrating the rebellious comediennes of early cinema, Hennefeld has also authored the award-winning book Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes and the recently published Death by Laughter: Female Hysteria and Early Cinema, which uncovers the forgotten history of women said to have died from laughing too hard. Hennefeld also serves as an editor of Cultural Critique.
This year’s lineup also includes four special pay-what-you-can screenings in which tickets are available for a minimum of $5, as a means to be accessible to our community of film lovers. These presentations include Cinema’s Early Nasty Women, the 1915 Italian crime thriller Filibus, the Mysterious Air Pilot, the 1925 drama and directorial debut of the Josef von Sternberg The Salvation Hunters, and the Silent Comedy Shorts Program celebrating comedic pioneers, including Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy.
“Silents are golden and that’s a lovely way to think of these black-and-white classics shining brightly on the screen, looking better than they ever did before thanks to recent restorations and remasters,” said Keith Garcia, Artistic Director of the Sie FilmCenter. “Connecting the films with a gorgeous cast of local musicians, all ready to provide live scores before your very eyes, that’s the final polish that really makes these films at this festival sparkle”.
Established in 2010, the Denver Silent Film Festival is dedicated to celebrating the extraordinary body of silent film and inviting contemporary audiences to immerse themselves in the foundation of film history.
Click to see the full schedule and purchase tickets.
Members of the press interested in covering the Denver Silent Film Festival may contact Keith Garcia at keith@denverfilm.org or Marty Schechter at marty@schechterpr.com.
THE BLACK PIRATE
Director: Albert Parker
Opening Night – Friday, Sept. 12, 7 p.m.
A young man (Douglas Fairbanks) becomes a pirate as he seeks to avenge the killing of his father. In his too-short prime, Fairbanks (born at 14th and Franklin in Denver) is an acrobatic, enthusiastic, generous performer – the first action hero and always a delight to see.
Accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI
Director: Lois Weber, Phillips Smalley
Saturday, Sept. 13, 10 a.m
During the mid-17th century Spanish occupation of Naples, a speechless young woman, who fishes for a living, is seduced and abandoned by a Spanish nobleman. The film was the first woman-directed blockbuster. At the time, Lois Weber was a star filmmaker as women had not yet been pushed out of directing movies, and Anna Pavlova – renowned dancer, choreographer and actor – displays all of her power in this film.
Accompanied by namebackwards; In partnership with Swallow Hill Music
FILIBUS, THE MYSTERIOUS AIR PILOT
Director: Marco Marcoroni
Saturday, Sept. 13, 1 p.m.
From the Milestone Films catalogue: “No other crime thriller compares to Filibus!” exclaimed a Corona Films ad in the April 1915 edition of the Italian film magazine La Vita Cinematografica — and for once the ballyhoo was correct! Directed by Mario Roncoroni and scripted by future science fiction author Giovanni Bertinetti, Filibus is the most exciting, witty, feminist, steampunk, cross-dressing aviatrix thriller you will ever see!
Accompanied by Hank Troy
SILENT COMEDY SHORTS PROGRAM
Saturday, Sept. 13, 3:15 p.m.
Humor abounds in this delightful collection of comedic silent shorts including Laurel and Hardy in The Two Tars, Charley Chase in His Wooden Wedding, Max Davidson in Pass the Gravy, and Charlie Chaplin in The Immigrant.
Accompanied by The Dollhouse Thieves
CINEMA’S EARLY NASTY WOMEN: THE QUEENS OF DESTRUCTION
Saturday, Sept. 13, 6 p.m.
In this package of rarely-seen silent films about feminist protest, slapstick rebellion, and suggestive gender play, these women organize labor strikes, bake (and weaponize) inedible desserts, and assume a range of identities that gleefully dismantle traditional gender norms and sexual constraints.
Accompanied by Hank Troy
THE SALVATION HUNTERS
Director: Josef von Sternberg
Sunday, Sept. 14, 10 a.m.
This is the first feature by the famous, and sometimes infamous, von Sternberg, who went on to make The Docks of New York, Underworld, and a series of increasingly perverse films with Marlene Dietrich. His obsession with complex visual images is already present in this story of an unhappy couple and child living on the docks until they finally decide to seek a different life. With Georgia Hale, George K. Arthur and Bruce Guerin.
Accompanied by Perc Ens; In partnership with Swallow Hill Music
THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED
Director: Lotte Reiniger
Sunday, Sept. 14, 12:15 p.m.
The magical adventures of a prince who rides a flying horse. Prince Achmed is the earliest surviving feature-length animated film. Lotte Reiniger was 26 when she started the film; she’d taught herself the ancient art of shadow plays, learned to cut silhouettes as a child and attended Max Reinhardt’s drama school, where she fell in with a bunch of young avant-gardists interested in film. Karl Koch and Reiniger developed an early multi-plane animation camera, and all in all it took about three years to make this astonishing film.
Accompanied by Tenia Nelson
BLIND HUSBANDS
Director: Erich von Stroheim
Sunday, Sept. 14, 2:30 p.m.
Former DSFF honoree Richard Koszarski writes that von Stroheim’s “Blind Husbands was the most impressive directing debut in Hollywood history,” until Orson Welles made Citizen Kane in 1941. The picture centers on an American couple on vacation in Italy’s Dolomites and looks at morals and mores in the behavior of people at a resort. With Erich von Stroheim, Francelia Billington, Sam De Grasse, and Gibson Gowland
Accompanied by Hank Troy
DIARY OF A LOST GIRL
Closing Night – Sunday, Sept. 14, 5:15 p.m.
Director: G.W. Pabst
Louise Brooks was far less than the international phenomenon she became when she first arrived in Germany in 1926 to make the scandalous Pandora’s Box with Pabst. Diary mounted another serious attack on bourgeois German morality with its story of a young girl raped, and sent to a morally rigid “reform school” from which she escapes and eventually works in a brothel before finding a way to rise in social standing.
Accompanied by Rodney Sauer
Sponsors
Prime Meridian Media, Sheila Rucki and Michael Mitchel, Classic Pianos, Swallow Hill Music, Bonfils Stanton Foundation, SCFD (Scientific and Cultural Facilities District)
About Denver Film
Denver Film has been transforming and entertaining the Colorado community through the power of diverse voices in film since 1978. Operating as the region’s only membership-based, 501(c)(3) nonprofit film institution, Denver Film has grown into a signature cultural organization in the West, screening international and independent movies found nowhere else in the region.
Serving more than 160,000 patrons annually through 600-plus screenings that include year-round programming at Denver Film’s flagship home the Sie (pronounced SEE) FilmCenter, the annual Denver Film Festival celebration, the iconic Film on the Rocks program at Red Rocks Amphitheater, and Spotlight Festivals including CinemaQ, Women+Film, and the Colorado Dragon Boat Film Festival. Spotlights highlight underrepresented communities and foster inclusivity. Denver Film works to build resilience across all of its programming and events by amplifying diverse voices, promoting equity, and fostering community connections.
About Denver Silent Film Festival
The Denver Silent Film Festival was established in September 2010. The Denver Silent Film Festival presents a broad spectrum of silent film by programming a lively and thought-provoking mix of educational and entertaining films. American and foreign classics, as well as lesser-known rare and restored films will be presented.
