Pordenone Silent Film Festival Announces 45th Edition Lineup

The 45th edition of the Giornate del Cinema Muto (Pordenone Silent Film Festival) will run from 3 to 10 October at the Teatro Verdi in Pordenone, with a repeat showing on 11 October. The opening film is the restored silent adventure Don Q Son of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks; the print was rescued by the Danish Film Institute and will be accompanied by a new score from Slovenian composer Andrej Goričar, performed by the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra.

The closing night will feature John Ford’s 1924 western The Iron Horse, presented in a 35 mm copy of the Photoplay edition with a fresh John Lanchbery score played by the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone under conductor Ben Palmer. The festival’s main retrospective, continuing through 2027, is titled “Weimar without censorship: Taboo and transgressions in German cinema 1919‑1920,” curated by scholars Tony Kaes and Michael Cowan. The event is directed by Jay Weissberg.