Synchro 2024

Festival of film-concerts at Les Abattoirs

Les Abattoirs
Auditorium
Entrance fee payable

This festival is dedicated to silent cinema and film concerts. It offers the chance to (re)discover works from silent cinema through the eyes and talents of musicians with very different approaches (from piano to electro via jazz and rock). It's an opportunity to prove, if proof were still needed, that thanks in part to live music, cinema has never been silent!

Pratical information synchro 2024

L'inferno
Francesco Bertolini, Giuseppe de Liguoro, Adolfo Padovan
1911. It. 66 min. Tinted. DCP. Italian intertitles with French subtitles.
Copy provenance: Cineteca di Bologna, Bologna.

When the marvellous is clothed in darkness. A period blockbuster with outsized ambitions. A free adaptation of Dante's Divine Comedy for sixty-six minutes in hell. Naked, tortured bodies amid the fumes of sulphur, the undead rising from their tombs, demons fishing for damned souls, eternal rains and balls of fire, Cerberus the guardian of the underworld and, of course, the master of the place himself, Lucifer, feasting on us poor mortals. All in all, fifty-four infernal tableaux and as many tricks and gimmicks that are still devilishly impressive today.

Accompanied by Armando Balice (acousmatic music creation, acousmonium direction)

After the screening: on-stage chat with Armando Balice, composer, and Franck Lubet, head of programming at the Cinémathèque de Toulouse.

A joint evening with the ByPass Forum and SYNCHRO. A partnership between the Cinémathèque de Toulouse and studio éOle.

> Thursday 28 November at 7.30pm

In the workshop of a film concert

Based on excerpts from silent films, discover the research and development of a musical accompaniment.

Michel Lehmann, a lecturer and researcher at Toulouse Jean-Jaurès University, is director of the IRPALL Institute, a partner of the Cinémathèque de Toulouse. With Christine Calvet, he is responsible for the ‘Cinémusique’ research programme devoted to the musical accompaniment of silent films. As a pianist, he has revived the practices of the Motion Picture Moods era, which associated works from the classical music repertoire with films, according to particular narrative and dramatic correspondences.

With the support of the IRPALL Institute

> Friday 29 November at 4pm

Laurel and Hardy in concert!

An eye for an eye
James W. Horne
1929. USA. 20 min. B&W. DCP. English intertitles with French subtitles.

Long live freedom!
Leo McCarey
1929. USA. 20 min. B&W. English intertitles with French subtitles.

These two found each other... The legendary duo of American burlesque, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were not friends in life. But on screen, they were in cahoots. Or rather, one was the fuse when the other was the powder... Explosive! In Œil pour œil, our two heroes deal in Christmas trees. You'll appreciate their rudimentary sales technique: if you don't want our tree, we'll destroy your house. In Vive la liberté, the second film in the programme, Laurel and Hardy finally get some height. With a crab in their pants, of course, but perched at the top of a building under construction. The view is breathtaking!

Accompanied by art students (Music'Halle, INSA Toulouse)

In partnership with INSA Toulouse and Music'Halle. With the support of the IRPALL Institute.

> Friday 29 November at 8pm

Buster in Love

The Scarecrow
Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton
1920. USA. 20 min. B&W. DCP. English intertitles with French subtitles.

Sherlock Junior
Buster Keaton
1924. USA. 40 min. B&W. DCP. English intertitles with French subtitles.

Buster in Love is a programme of two hilarious shorts by the brilliant Buster Keaton, The Scarecrow and Sherlock Junior. A great acrobat and poetic clown, he was also a great romantic. In The Scarecrow, Buster and Roberts work for a farmer and share a room. When they fall in love with the same woman, their friendship is in danger... In Sherlock Junior, Buster becomes a projectionist. In love with his boss's daughter, he falls asleep one day in the middle of a screening. He falls into a crazy dream in which he plays the best detective in the world.

Accompanied by Catherine Vincent (songs)

> Saturday 30 November at 2.30pm

The Veil of Happiness
Édouard-Émile Violet
1923. Fr. 52 min. B&W. DCP. French intertitles.
Film restored by the CNC thanks to a print made available by the Eye Film Museum with the Édouard-Émile Violet estate and the Fondation Musée Clémenceau.

Seeking the light, before giving it up. An adaptation of the play of the same name by the statesman Georges Clémenceau, whose career as a man of letters is often forgotten. This work was made into a film twice: the first time in 1910 by Albert Capellani, the second in 1923 by Édouard-Émile Violet. Violet's film is strange and bizarre, centred on the gaze, the eye and the retina, and set in China. It's an orientalist fable about a blind poet who recovers his sight thanks to a magic potion, only to end up refusing the spectacle of a world that disappoints him, in an unexpected excess of gore.

Accompanied by undude (Hluru Kalyre, sampling and small objects)

In the presence of Béatrice de Pastre, Deputy Director of Film Heritage and Director of Collections at the CNC

In partnership with the CNC

> Saturday 30 November at 7pm

Madam Ambassador
Fritz Wendhausen
1928. All. 98 min. B&W / tinted. DCP. French intertitles.
Film restored in 2018 by Das BundesArchiv in 2K from a tinted French diacetate print held by the Cinémathèque de Toulouse. This print, which is around 20 minutes shorter than the original version originally released in Germany, is considered to be the only surviving element of the film.

Nothing goes well in the little principality of Silestria. To cover her lavish clothing expenses, the local princess is forced to sell the island of Petrasia to the highest bidder in her neighbouring countries. Two competitors emerged: Count Geza, envoy extraordinary from the King of Ilyria, and Madame Dschilly, envoy extraordinary from the Sultan of Turquisia. From now on, all bets are off between the two! An adaptation of a Viennese operetta in the form of a surprisingly modern comedy, in the image of Madame l'ambassadeur, played by the sparkling Mady Christians.

Accompanied by Ginté Preisaité (prepared piano, electronic textures), Adrian Barstad Andresen (trumpet, flugelhorn, goat horn, objects), Antoine Ferris (electric bass, effects) and Rémy Gouffault (percussion, synthesiser, effects).

In partnership with the Festival d'Anères. With the support of the IRPALL Institute.

> Sunday 1 December at 3pm