This weekend, Hippodrome Silent Film Festival (aka HippFest) will present the classic silent thriller, Filibus: The Mysterious Air Pirate (1915).
The film follows the adventures of Filibus (aka Baroness Troixmond, aka the cross-dressing Count de la Brive) the fiendishly clever, ever-so-alluring, techno-savvy mistress of disguise… and jewel-thief extraordinaire.
Throughout the film, Filibus travels high across the Italian Riviera in her airship; from where she is lowered in a gondola by her henchmen; steals from the rich, and then mysteriously vanishes into the clouds.
When the film was first released in 1915, Filibus was a ‘modern woman’, seen as adventurous, bold and unwilling to take a back seat to men. This was at a time when the suffrage movement was gathering momentum and this genre of film was becoming increasingly popular amongst women.
The screening will be accompanied by musicians Jane Gardner (piano) and Hazel Morrison (percussion). The event will be introduced by Dennis Doros, President of the Association of Moving Image Archivists and the co-Director of Milestone Film.
Filibus: The Mysterious Air Pirate will be available to view until midnight on St Andrew’s Day (Monday 30th November 2020). Proceeds will go towards the Hippodrome, Scotland’s oldest cinema and home to HippFest.
The screening is part of St Andrew’s Fair Saturday. St Andrew’s Fair Saturday is Scotland’s contribution to the global Fair Saturday movement. In 2019, the festival delivered more than 800 events in over 140 cities.
When: 28th November 2020, at 8pm
Where: Screening online
£: TBC (proceeds will go to supporting the Hippodrome)
More info: www.hippodromecinema.co.uk
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