5-10 April 2005
Various locations

A superb festival packed with silent movies featuring live musical accompaniment, surreal avant-garde classics, art films, Dutch gems (with English subtitles!) and highlights from the Filmmuseum collection – including the recently discovered Beyond the Rocks (Sam Wood, US, 1922). This the only film where Rudolph Valentino plays opposite Gloria Swanson and was thought lost forever until discovered by chance in the Filmmuseum's archives last year, making headline news around the globe. Its world première screening will take place at the Tuschinski on 5 April (see below) to mark the official opening of the Filmmuseum Biennial. Other highlights of the festival include new restorations of classics such as Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr (1932).

More details and additional screenings of Beyond The Rocks:

A copy of a film presumed lost forever starring Rudolph Valentino (opposite Gloria Swanson) was discovered by the Nederlands Filmmuseum in Amsterdam last year. Beyond The Rocks was chanced upon when staff were cataloguing 2,000 film cans donated to them by a film collector from Haarlem. For almost 75 years, film historians and archivists had been searching for a print of the film made just four years before the Italian film idol’s untimely death at 31. And what made this a particularly unique discovery is that it is the only time the two Hollywood icons, Valentino and Swanson, ever appeared together...

Directed in 1922 by Sam Wood (famous for 1939’s Goodbye Mr Chips and 1943’s For Whom The Bell Tolls), the romantic melodrama, based on famous trashy novelist Elinor Glyn’s book of the same name, was a big box office hit in its day. Swanson plays the aristocratic, but improverished, Theodora Fitzgerald who has been forced by her father into marrying a wealthy, retired grocer. On honeymoon in the Alps she encounters the handsome Lord Bracondale (played by Valentino) when he saves her from a mountain climbing fall and the two embark on a passionate affair...

The 81-minute silent classic, which has now been completely restored, will be screened to mark the opening of the Filmmuseum Biënnial 2005 – along with a new score specially composed for the restored version’s world première by Henny Vrienten. Incidentally, when the film was originally released in the Netherlands it had the title Gouden Boeien (Golden Shackles) and this particular print has Dutch intertitles. However, the film will be screened with English subtitles.

5, 10 April

Beyond The Rocks
Tuschinski, Reguliersbreestraat 26-28 (Tel: 0900-1458)
Online: www.filmmuseum.nl
Time: 7pm (10.30am 10 April); Price tbc

6-9 April

Beyond The Rocks
Filmmuseum Cinerama, Marnixstraat 400 (623 7814)
Online: www.filmmuseum.nl
Time: 8.15pm; Price tbc