1920s

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.

Struggling stockbroker Jimmie Shannon learns that, if he gets married by 7 p.m. on his 27th birthday -- which is today -- he'll inherit $7 million from an eccentric relative.

1929 film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst

A young man falls for a young woman on his trip home; unbeknownst to him, her family has vowed to kill every member of his family.

A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.

Sisif, a railwayman, saves a young girl named Norma orphaned by a train crash and raises her as his own daughter alongside his son, Elie. As she becomes an adult, Sisif grapples with whether to tell Norma the truth about her parentage.

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

A five-person team of gold prospectors in the Yukon has just begun to enjoy great success when one of the members snaps, and suddenly kills two of the others. The two survivors, a husband and wife, subdue the killer but are then faced with an agonizing dilemma. With no chance of turning him over to the authorities for many weeks, they must decide whether to exact justice themselves or to risk trying to keep him restrained until they can return to civilization.

Due to some common interests between German and Russian aristocracy ( the Russians even had aristocrats in their past not to mention they had an Empress called Catherine the Great, as great as this German count's heiresses… ), it is not strange that this Teutonic count has understood and even enjoyed Herr S. M. Eisenstein's "Staroye I Novoye".
It is not very usual that for the aristocracy to enjoy Bolshevist films full of proletarian demands that put private property at risk or as it happens in this case, a film about the Communist Party's policy on the subject of the collectivization of the Soviet agriculture. Normally this would be perfect gibberish for this German count, but thanks to Herr Eisenstein 's greatness and directorial talent, the hardships of the heroine of the film, Dame Marfa ( Dame Marfa Lapkina ) breached even the thick aristocratic Schloss walls.
And that's one of the first remarkable aspects of this oeuvre; in spite of the political subject of the film, the powerful images and lyricism ( astonishing and beautiful shot compositions ), especially during the first part of the movie, preserve the artistic merits entirely while serving a propaganda purpose. The second remarkable aspect of the film is the dichotomy between the old and new, the fight to improve the lot of Dame Marfa and her countrymen. There are many discussions because it is not easy even in Russia to change ancient and conservative customs. There are superb metaphors and social criticism ( illiteracy, bureaucracy, religiosity ) which perfectly fit the film, and last but not least, "Staroye I Novoye", is a kind of archaic documentary about ancient customs established deeply in old Russia, those ones that our heroine must fight against. And there is also a lot about agriculture ( very enlightening for this German count), especially about harvesting and how to fatten Russian cows or pigs ( literally, no pun here… ).
Herr Eisenstein had to bear during the last era of his film career, unbelievable censorship and mutilation of his work, as happens with "Staroye I Novoye". The film was reedited and Eisenstein accused of sympathizing with Trostky's policies but fortunately the film was restored and showed by the German-frenchified t.v. channel "ARTE", natürlich!, including an evocative music score by Herr Taras Bujewski, that fits superbly Herr Eisenstein primal artistic interests.
And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must buy a tractor for one of his Teutonic heiress.

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.

Mary, a poor farm girl, meets Tim just as word comes that war has been declared. Tim enlists in the army and goes to the battlefields of Europe, where he is wounded and loses the use of his legs. Home again, Tim is visited by Mary, and they are powerfully attracted to each other; but his physical handicap prevents him from declaring his love for her. Deeper complications set in when Martin, Tim's former sergeant and a bully, takes a shine to Mary.

Kyiv, 1929. Shots of the city as it wakes up... its awakening echoes with the lyrical pictures of the rebirth of nature. Kaufman’s attentive camera pauses for a long time on the smiling faces of children, painting a lyrical picture, a confession of love for Kyiv.

A young man is elected by a small village to be its parson. As part of his duties, he is required to marry the widow of the parson before him. This poses two problems--first, the widow is old enough to be his grandmother, and second, he is already engaged to another woman.

An unhappily married couple moves to Vienna, where the wife’s married best friend lives, and soon, sparks fly between the wife and the best friend’s husband.

到美國只三年，劉別謙已成首席導演，劉別謙筆觸這個詞兒開始出現，仿效導演無數。已是傳奇人物的他，對人家學步毫不在乎，翻翻手閒閒的又示範了一部抄也抄不來的妙品。醫生夫婦恩愛日子平靜如白開水，百無聊賴的太太將跌宕感情昇華在通俗愛情小說裏，直至一天小說中的美男袒胸在對窗出現。那邊廂，醫生碰上美男的豪放妻，卻原來是舊相好。兩對夫婦各懷鬼主意，不忠的結局出人意表。默片的喜劇動感在這裏妙不可言，手杖做偷情藉口這種神來之筆，也許可以叫大家意會什麼叫劉別謙筆觸。

The last of Lubitsch's silent sex comedies is exuberant, fanciful and teasingly elliptical at the same time. Since Paris is synonymous with sophistication and risqué romance, he deliberately cultivates the mood for love with an opening shot of a bed, subverting audience expectations of the obligatory Eiffel Tower. With equal subtlety, he gives his stock and trade subject of marital infidelities inventive treatment, wittily satirising "sheik fever" and other sex-oriented fads in the erotic masquerades between a doctor, his wife, his old flame and her husband. Unlike many Hollywood contemporaries, where sexual innuendoes serve only as evasions and euphemisms, in this film, they are bold announcements of the real thing.

Source: 28th HKIFF

1924 film directed by F. W. Murnau

When Kriemhild, thirsty for revenge, marries to Etzel, king of the Huns, she invites King Gunther and his court to visit them, intending to finally take the life of the man responsible of her disgrace.

Siegfried, son of King Siegmund of Xanten, travels to Worms, capital of the Burgundian kingdom, to ask King Gunther for the hand of his sister, the beautiful Kriemhild.