Four Fridays at 11 am March 7, May 23, June 20 and July 18 Digital restorations with soundtracks

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1 Charlie Chaplin Festival at St Ives With Ku-ring-gai Council 100 Years in film

2 Four Fridays at 11 am March 7, May 23, June 20 and July 18 Digital restorations with soundtracks Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden Education Centre 420 Mona Vale Road St Ives Inquiries and tickets through Ku-ring-gai Council Call The Gold Rush-City Lights- Modern Times- The Great Dictator The Festival salutes Charlie Chaplin s start in film 100 years ago: and is proud to present high definition digital restorations of Charlie s classic silent films with outstanding soundtracks. Charlie s genius captivated and enchanted audiences around the world within a very short period of time. That relationship has never ended. The whole world claims Charlie as its own: the qualities in his roles as director, actor and composer are timeless and universal.

3 Thank you Charlie!

4 THE GOLD RUSH (1925) 95 minutes USA Friday March 11 am The Gold Rush remains one of Charlie s most loved films. Chaplin has been reported as seeing this treasure as the film he would most wish to be remembered for.

5 This most delightful comedy paradoxically emerges from a rich blend of such grim and harsh conditions: a lone prospector who comes to Alaska in search of gold, larger than life bullies, epic storms, murder, starvation and a giant chicken! Charlie earns the rewards of the girl and wealth but he has to battle fierce opponents in the process. The film was highly successful and contains some of the greatest scenes in cinema, perhaps with the dance of the bread rolls the stand-out. The critics at the time? They hated it. The New York Times Here is a comedy with streaks of poetry, pathos, tenderness, linked with brusqueness and boisterousness. It is the outstanding gem of all Chaplin s pictures, as it has more thought and originality than even such masterpieces as The Kid and Shoulder Arms. New York Herald Tribune Praising one of Mr. Chaplin s pictures is like saying that Shakespeare was a good writer a member of the audience was heard saying.. I think Chaplin is a genius! Well, so do we, but never has it been written so clearly in letters of fire as now. New York Daily News The Gold Rush collars you, plays quickly on your emotions and leaves you in that mood where you can t laugh without a sob tearing through or sob without a laugh bubbling up from the depths of the understanding of laughter. It is the funniest and saddest of all comedies.

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8 City Lights (1931) 87 mins Friday May 11 am

9 Park Circus notes: : This 1931 silent comedy drama sees the Tramp fall in love with a beautiful blind flower girl whose family is in financial trouble. When he learns that an operation may restore the girl s sight, he sets off to earn the money she needs to have the surgery. The tramp s friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the girl s benefactor and suitor but will she love him even when she discovers that he is not a wealthy duke, but a tramp? New York Evening Journal wrote: With curious crowds standing outside the theatre to stare at eleven dollar seats who swept inside past a cordon of policemen, City Lights, Charlie Chaplin s first picture in two years, opened at the George M. Cohan Theatre last evening and proved that silence-if it s Chaplin who s silent- is still golden. City Lights has no dialogue. And it s just as well because if the picture has had words the laughs and applause would have drowned them out.

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13 Modern Times (1936) 87 mins Friday June 11 am

14 Park Circus notes: In Modern Times, one of Charles Chaplin s most popular films, the Tramp struggles to live in a modern industrial society with the help of a young, homeless woman, played by Paulette Goddard. The film is both the last of the Tramp films and the last silent film Chaplin made and is another masterful mix of drama, social comment and wonderful comedy. New York Post wrote: The gorgeous spoofing, the annihilating inventiveness of the comedy, comes from Chaplin rather than from his material. The picture is a brilliant succession of gags and stunts, strung together on the priceless tradition of Chaplin himself. His story is not so much a satiric thrust at the machine age as it is an employment of machinery as a field for comedy There is no doubt that Modern Times is the season s motion picture event. The New York Times wrote: Sociological concept? Maybe. But a rousing, ribtickling, gag-bestrewn jest for all that and in the best Chaplin manner This morning there is good news. Chaplin is back.

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16 The Great Dictator (1940) 124 mins Nominated for five Academy Awards Friday July 11 am Park Circus notes: Chaplin s first foray into the talkies, this much celebrated political satire( produced in 1940 while the Us were still at peace with the Nazi regime) is considered one of the most important of Chaplin s career.

17 The Great Dictator is a hilarious look at a very serious subject in which Chaplin plays two opposing characters, Adenoid Hynkel, the dictator of Tomania, and a Jewish barber. The young barber is a caught in a plane crash in the first World war and after twenty years in hospital with amnesia is horrified to discover that his country is under the rule of the fascist Hynkel. Hynkel s soldiers take pleasure in harassing the Jews and the dictator is bent on world domination. With Hynkel ready to invade his neighbouring country Osterlich with his fascist ally Benzino Napaloni, will the Barber be able to spread his message of world peace before the bombs and tanks are deployed? The New Times wrote: No event in the history of the screen has ever been anticipated with more hopeful excitement than the premiere of this film which occurred simultaneously at the Astor and Capitol Theatres; no picture ever made has promised more momentous consequences. The prospect of little Charlot, the most universally loved character in all the world, directing his superlative talent for ridicule against the most dangerously evil man alive has loomed as a titanic jest, a transcendent paradox. And the happy report this morning is that it comes off magnificently. The Great Dictator may not be the finest picture ever made- in fact, it possesses several disappointing shortcomings. But, despite them, it turns out to be a truly superb accomplishment by a truly great artist- and, from one point of view, perhaps the most significant film ever produced.

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19 We acknowledge the assistance from MK2 in arranging the films for these sessions. The Festival appreciates the invaluable and generous support from the renowned David Shepard, Film Preservation and Associates and Blackhawk Films, Lobster Films, Jeff Masino, Flicker Alley, Robert Gamlen, Leslie Eric May and the sublime flair and talents of Stephanie Khoo. Please visit and read about your favourite silent film with the superb reviews at Amazon by the Festival s tireless supporter, Barbara Underwood.

20 AUSTRALIA'S SILENT FILM FESTIVAL Phone

21 Thank you Charlie!

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