Hitchcock Silent Film Week

The Hitchcock Silent Film Week is a unique cinematic experience featuring six restored films from the British Film Institute’s "Hitchcock 9" restoration project. It will take place in Almaty from 21-25 May and is being organised by the British Council with support from the British Film Institute, Shell, the city Akimat and Arman film centre.

There will be an opening ceremony on 21 May at 20:30 in the Republic Palace square at which the first film, “The Pleasure Garden”, will be shown. The film will be accompanied by live music performed by the State Orchestra Camerata of Kazakhstan and directed by the British conductor Christopher Austin. The music was written especially for the film by British composer Daniel Patrick Cohen, who will be attending the opening ceremony.
Entry to the opening ceremony is free of charge. The other films will be shown in the Arman and Caesar cinemas with a ticket price of 500 Tenge.

All films will be shown with Kazakh, Russian and English subtitles. “Champagne” will be accompanied by musical improvisation by the Kazakh DJ Aero. “The Manxman”, “The Farmer's wife” and “Blackmail” will be accompanied by live performances by the British pianist John Sweeney.

The restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s surviving silent films has been the biggest and most complex restoration project undertaken to date by the British Film Institute National Archive. Elements have been sourced from seven international archives during the restoration process, although film materials from the BFI National Archive – including a number of original negatives – have been central to the project. Decades of damage and wear have been removed, image quality improved, new shots discovered and intertitles and tinting restored.

Hitchcock's silent films are essential to an understanding of his later work and these restorations now enable them to be seen afresh and discovered by new audiences across the world.