When Emily Laurance, Ph.D., was chair of music history at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, she regularly enjoyed the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Her desire to explore with students and the public the expressive power of early cinema combined with live music came to fruition when Emily joined the faculty at Oberlin Conservatory as visiting associate professor of musicology.
Launching a silent film event with live musicians presented challenges – funding among them – but in January 2022, the inaugural silent film festival opened at Cleveland’s historic Hermit Club. Other locations included Oberlin’s Apollo Theater and other campus venues, The Cinematheque at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music. At that first festival, Buster Keaton in “Steamboat Bill, Jr.,” Erich von Stroheim in “The Wedding March” and F.W. Murnau’s classic “Sunrise” presented a history of film language that has inspired over time. The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, one of today’s finest silent film musical groups, came from Boulder, Colorado, and was a key element in the festival’s early success. The music director of that group, Oberlin Conservatory alumnus Rodney Sauer, directly coached Oberlin students as part of the event.
The enthusiastic response made it clear that the Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium, with Emily Laurance as executive director, was meant to be. “Our mission is to show the best silent films (classic and new) with the transformative effect of live music. The experience of watching a silent film is more than just seeing a movie from the past,” Emily said. “It is an immersive experience with art being made right in front of you. Filmgoers are bridging the past and present in a way that is very vivid.”
Most silent films are in the public domain, but often the festival negotiates contracts with rights holders or collectors who own restorations of films. “It would be ideal to show these movies in the original format of film, but it is more expensive, and not all of our venues are able to do so,” Emily noted. “So, we use a high-quality Digital Cinema Package (DCP) for digital cinema projectors. I depend on the high standards of our venues for showing the films.
“People tend to think of silent film as less of an experience due to the earlier technology. I believe that is a mischaracterization. Those filmmakers made use of the medium by telling stories visually that were fantastic. There is nothing less about them than films with synchronized soundtracks,” Emily asserted. “Initially, I didn’t realize the range and quality and how much was available in the international interpretation of silent films.”
In 2023, the Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium was held in multiple locations including the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Cinematheque, the Cleveland Museum of Art and Cleveland Masonic Auditorium, where the well-known silent film musician Clark Wilson (artist-in-residence at the Ohio Theater in Columbus) played the Masonic’s Mighty Wurlitzer. Audiences saw Harold Lloyd’s 1923 comedy “Safety Last!” and Douglas Fairbanks in the 1920 film “Mark of Zorro,” along with a silent film produced by the Cleveland Illuminating Company in 1924 called “The Heart of Cleveland.” Closing night presented the classic “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Apart from Clark Wilson, all other films were presented with original compilation scores using photoplay musical cues created by Rodney Sauer of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. “All Quiet on the Western Front” was also presented with live sound effects courtesy of Radio on the Lake Theatre, a northeastern company specializing in audio storytelling.
In 2024, the festival pivoted events to be held throughout the year to build awareness and audiences. The group receives fee support for the unique musicians who are expert at playing — and often composing — the scores, partially from the Music Performance Trust Fund secured through the Cleveland Federation of Musicians. “Once we had the mechanism to fund venues and musicians in place, we knew we could proceed with an annual festival,” Emily said.
In 2025, the Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium presented both yearlong programming and a film festival focused on films made in 1925. “Our free monthly film series at the Cleveland Public Library and at the West Shore Unitarian Church is continuing throughout 2025. The 2025 Silent Film Festival and Colloquium will take place in September,” she said. The annual festival kicks off on September 14 with Lon Chaney in “Phantom of the Opera” accompanied by a 15-piece orchestra playing the original score at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium. Other festival highlights include a return of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra performing two other classics from 1925: Ernst Lubitsch’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan” and Buster Keaton’s “Go West.”
Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium
September 14 / September 19–21, 2025
Cleveland Museum of Art Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland