The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival (aka ‘HippFest’) was launched in 2011 and has since become a key annual event in the cultural calendar, drawing audiences from across Scotland and beyond. This very special festival of film takes place at the exquisite jewel of art deco style that is the Hippodrome Cinema in Bo’ness. Reopened in 2009 with digital and 35mm projectors and a state-of-the-art sound system, a café and licenced bar, the Hippodrome was named ‘Best Cinema Experience in Scotland’ in the 2019 Scottish Hospitality Awards and shortlisted for ‘Cinema of the Year’ at the 2019 Screen Awards.
Now in its 14th edition, Hippfest presents a stellar line-up of silent films with live musical accompaniment from silent film aficionados, including Neil Brand, Jenny Hammerton, Maud Nelissen, and John Sweeney, that adds a particularly enjoyable part of the Hippfest experience, plus talks, workshops, exhibition and an online offering too.
Katharine Simpson from Screen Scotland said “HippFest, held at Scotland’s first-ever cinema The Hippodrome in Bo’ness, is an unparalleled experience that stands out in both Scotland and the UK. This festival offers a one-of-a-kind blend of historic films from our cinematic legacy, complemented by live music, all curated and presented for today’s audience in engaging, fun, and meaningful ways.”
Depictions of Scotland on Screen are in focus, with Peggy(1916) and The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric (1933) while later in the Festival, local young musicians will accompany shorts from the National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive in the annual New Found Sound screening.
The transition to sound in film features again in this year’s Platform Reels with an outdoor screening of hybrid-talkie The Flying Scotsman (1929) on the platform of the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway.
Big names, such as Lon Chaney, Jackie Coogan, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton and Joan Crawford abound across this eclectic programme where ‘America’s Sweetheart’ Mary Pickford and screen legend Lillian Gish star in films from screenwriter and director Frances Marion including Just Around the Corner (1921), one of only two films directed by the prolific scenarist and a rare example of a 1920s film with a woman officially occupying the director’s chair.
Among the range of genres in the Festival, world cinema is represented with examples of work from countries as diverse as Ukraine, China and Sweden. Add to this a pop up vintage clothing shop and a gala after party and you have a feast of a treat for cinema lovers.
Selected events and screenings will be livestreamed from the cinema, plus pre-festival talks on Frances Marion, Jenny Gilbertson, and the story of Victorian film by British Film Institute Curator of Silent Film, Bryony Dixon as part of HippFest At Home.
The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival will run Wednesday 20th to Sunday 24th March 2024. For more information about this, the full HippFest 2024 programme and to purchase tickets, please visit www.hippfest.co.uk.
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 