3. Sounds of Silents
The past installments of the SOUNDS OF SILENTS – Warsaw Silent Film Days took place in 2023 and 2024 at the incredibly hospitable Muranów Cinema, with its theaters packed to the brim. Yet the origins of this joyful, exuberant event are tinged with sorrow: November 27, 2022, saw the premature passing of Anna Sienkiewicz-Rogowska, a cherished colleague from our work at the National Film Archive and later at FINA, notably involved in the preparation of the Silent Movie Festival. One simply cannot talk about SOUNDS without mentioning Ania – the event itself was born out of the need to commemorate and grieve her in a way that would please her the most.
One also cannot talk about SOUNDS without mentioning the Film Archive – this is the place in which we all met each other and from which we all departed following the leadership change in 2021. At the end of 2022, we formed the Siostry Archeo collective to once again feel the sense of purpose, unity, and hope that accompanied us throughout our work with Ania. We are driven by the memory of Her, the creative energy, and the need to collectively do something for others. We relish in uncovering long-forgotten silent stories, unconventional and often astonishing films, and pairing them with equally unconventional artists of the contemporary music scene. Archived materials draw us in like a magnet.
As Siostry Archeo, we also share the belief in the need for a responsible, committed, inclusive, and collaborative working environment in the spirit of empathetic Servant Leadership management (which has been the topic of debates during the previous editions of SOUNDS OF SILENTS). It is the king of leadership that we have experienced while working with Ania. Now that nearly all of us are back at FINA, we aim to put its principles into practice. This is made possible thanks to the openness and kindness of the FINA Director, Tomasz Kolankiewicz.
This year’s 3rd installment of the SOUNDS OF SILENTS brings a Saturday full of fascinating proposals. Among them, one will find short films revolving around the technological novelties of the era – the radio and the bicycle. We wouldn’t be true to ourselves if they didn’t feature strong women – our beloved witch and Léontine – Cinema’s First Nasty Woman! The two feature films we will present are the Georgian My Grandmother (1929, dir. Kote Miqaberidze) and the Japanese A Page of Madness (1926, dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa). What these have in common is their creative freedom, visual richness, and an avant-garde approach to the presented themes. Yet, they are set apart by almost everything else. One is a satirical comedy about dysfunctional bureaucracy and a society that mirrors it (or is it the other way around?); the other is a portrait of an individual’s complex reality, full of inner journeys into dangerous realms of madness and guilt. Technocracy and the cult of efficiency, juxtaposed with the oftentimes nightmarish fragility of one’s inner life. They both astonished us with their timelessness and the very modern cinematic language. The experience of watching them will be made richer by the music created by a Berlin-based woman DJ, Mustelide, a lover of synthesizers and club beats, and the German ‘sound technology archaeologist’ Hainbach (Stefan Paul Goetsch). What will be born out of such a unique encounter of these aesthetic tastes? We are just as curious as you are! We wouldn't dare to meddle in this dialogue ahead of time...
We would like to thank the FINA team, the Futurospekcja Foundation, the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation, the Ruchome Obrazy Foundation for Arts and Cinema, as well as all the artists and our dearest guests.
Last but not least, we would like to thank Ania.
Let's all meet at Iluzjon to immerse ourselves in the 'sounds of silents.’
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Siostry Archeo
