HippFest reveals its 2026 programme

Is it just me, or is silent cinema suddenly en vogue? Over the summer of 2025, the centenary of Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin was celebrated with a rerelease, featuring a score by the Pet Shop Boys no less. Last Halloween, F. W. Murnau’s horror classic Nosferatu  was absolutely everywhere. And just this month, Buster Keaton’s 1924 comedy Sherlock Jr is screening in cinemas across the UK, with a pair of R.E.M. albums providing the score.

HippFest was way ahead of this trend. For 15 years, this festival – which takes place at the wonderful Hippodrome cinema in Bo’ness – has been celebrating the best of the silent era, pairing silent film gems with new scores performed live by talented musicians. The upcoming 16th edition, running 18 to 22 March, offers another enticing lineup, with bona fide classics rubbing shoulders with some rediscovered masterworks that have barely screened since their original releases a century ago.

The festival kicks off on Wednesday 18 March with The Outlaw and His Wife, Victor Sjöström’s elemental tale of redemption set in the vast expanse of Iceland. An elegant use of locations also characterises Jean Epstein’s Finis Terrae, which screens the same day; the 1929 film presents initially as an ethnographic work depicting the backbreaking labour of seaweed harvesters toiling away on the French island of Bannec before morphing to something more mythical, almost hallucinogenic. Epstein’s poetic visuals will be matched by a newly-composed score from Edinburgh-based multi-instrumentalist Dan Abrahams and French drummer Phillippe Boudot.

That opening night concludes with Fante-Anne, Norway's first indigenous feature film, which will be brought to life by a new folk-meets-electronica live score by Dina Konradsen and Jo Einar Tobias Sterten Jansen; Konradsen will also be DJing at a Folkemølje (aka a folk dance concert) after the screening. Closing the festival, meanwhile, is King Vidor’s masterwork The Crowd, which charts the uneventful life of an ordinary man as he struggles to adjust to a life of dreams unfulfilled and the loneliness of being just one face in a crowd. HippFest regular John Sweeney provides an improvised accompaniment on piano.

Expect early adaptations of two of Scotland’s most beloved authors on Thursday 19 March, with the first screen adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s rip-roaring adventure Kidnapped, followed by a trio of shorts based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tales. We also love the look of The White Heather, painter-turned-film-director Maurice Tourneur’s Shetland-set yarn that was only rediscovered in 2022. Look out for its wild underwater fistfights and a young John Gilbert before he became a matinee idol, with multi-instrumentalist Stephen Horne providing the score.

High Treason (1929) Courtesy ITV Studios Ltd.

HippFest's weekend also overflows with highlights. Anyone who thinks silent films are dusty tombs that don’t speak to the issues of today should check out April Fool, Nat Ross’s empathetic look at the plight of an immigrant in 1920s New York. Or what about High Treason? Dubbed 'the British Metropolis', it imagines a future United Europe on the brink of war with the United States. Come for the too-close-for-comfort political parallels, stay for the bold Art Deco aesthetic.

For something a bit more escapist, there’s the horror-comedy whodunnit The Bat, a “old dark house” thriller in which a group of people are thrown together with a caped vigilante. The film was a huge influence on Bob Kane when he was creating the Batman comic – he even stole the design of the Bat-Signal wholesale from the film. Adrenaline junkies, meanwhile, should get a kick out of Mountain of Destiny. A man versus nature spectacle from Germany, it centres on a young climber who is forced into scaling the same alpine rock face on which his father fell to his death when one of his friends gets in trouble on their ascent of the vertiginous rock and needs rescuing.

The Bat (1926) Courtesy Undercrank Productions | UCLA Film & Television Archive

Fans of jazz-era romances are in for a treat thanks to a couple of delightful flapper rom-coms. First, there’s William A. Seiter’s Why Be Good?, in which a good-time gal falls for a millionaire goody-two-shoes son, much to the chagrin of the father. And there’s Karel Lamac’s Saxophone Susy, a comedy of errors in which two girlfriends (a Count’s daughter and a showgirl) switch places.

Several huge stars from the silent era also pop up in the lineup. There’s HippFest regulars Laurel and Hardy with a double bill of With Love and Hisses and Slipping Wives. Buster Keaton displays gut-busting slapstick and heart-in-mouth stunts in The Cameraman. Anna May Wong is devastating in the romantic melodrama Song, the Chinese icon’s first European film. And there’s even an appearance of Baby Peggy, one of the biggest child stars of the silent era, in the sweet family drama Captain January.

This is the biggest HippFest yet, with 43 musicians providing music for 31 features and shorts, so the above is just a handful of titles from this year’s programme. Ahead of launching this edition, HippFest director Alison Strauss said: “We cannot wait to welcome audiences to the 16th edition of HippFest. This year’s programme contains a wealth of musical talent, both Scottish and international, with a spectacular selection of silent film, from rediscovered classics to revelatory new discoveries.

"Whoever you are and wherever you’re from, we invite you to join the Festival community. You’ll discover not only great films and live music but also the beautiful town of Bo’ness and the surrounding region, where each day is packed with screenings, activities and opportunities to get involved. We hope you’ll join us for this celebration of cinema at its best.”

---

HippFest runs at the Hippodrome Cinema in Bo'ness, 18-22 Mar. Tickets are on sale now; more info at hippodromecinema.co.uk/hippfest

HippFest at Home, an online version of the festival, runs 30 Mar-6 April