Special screening of four Buster Keaton comedies, accompanied by live music of Porto Morto band

The 1920s was the golden age of the pioneers of silent cinema – the great comedies that still thrill audiences worldwide were made then. One of the heroes of that era was the great sad-faced comedian Buster Keaton – an actor, director, acrobat, stuntman and what not. One hundred years ago, the anthology series of his twenty-minute comedies was made. Four comedies from this cycle will be shown as part of A Century of Laughter program on Friday, 30 July, on the terrace of Hotel Roxanich at the foot of Motovun Hill.

In these comedies we find Buster Keaton ending up in unusual troubles and misunderstandings. In The Playhouse he is a scene-shifter who wakes up from a crazy dream and wreaks havoc wherever he appears. In Cops, Keaton will do anything to impress the girl he’s in love with, enraging all the cops in town in the process. One Week tells us about the unbelievable problems Buster and his wife are facing when assembling the house they received as a wedding gift. In The High Sign Keaton gets a job in a shooting range owned by a gang who hire him to kill a businessman.

The screening will be accompanied by the music performed by Porto Morto band, who also composed it. Currently the most intriguing Croatian band, they developed their own sound which is hard to classify. Their sound is supported by their distinctive looks. They will be performing in Motovun on the final night of the festival, 31 July.

This screening is part of Cinema Istria project, a year-long program of reviving film screenings in Istria’s small towns without theaters. This combination of classic films and modern music was co-produced by Motovun Film Festival, Live Cinema (the author and producer of the project) and Kino Otok Izola, with participation of Croatian Film Association and International Filmmaking Academy Bologna. It was co-financed by European Union, Croatian Audiovisual Center and Istrian County.