22nd Silent Film Concert Festival 2025

HITCHCOCK
The complete series of Hitchcock silent films comes to life again, set to specially composed live music. As a special highlight, Jens Wawrczeck, known as the voice of Peter Shaw from “Die drei ???”, will add an extra dimension with his narration skills.

BIG CITY FILMS
The pulsating life of the big city is in focus: with films that focus on people in the anonymous masses of BERLIN, the festival opens up exciting perspectives on urban stories of the 1920s.

COMEDIES
With humour and heart, the festival brings the wit and charm of classic silent film comedies to the screen, accompanied by rousing live music that underlines the esprit of these films in an unforgettable way.


NOSFERATU
The silent film classic par excellence: F.W. Murnau's ‘Nosferatu’ is presented in a spectacular performance with the Berlin Live Film Music Orchestra and an accompanying choir - an incomparable experience between sound and horror.


ALKOHOL
A true rediscovery! The festival celebrates the Berlin premiere of the digitised version of the film ‘Alcohol’. A fascinating work that is not only cinematically but also socially significant.


SCHIZOPHRENIA
Away from the silent film, another highlight awaits: the ‘Schizophrenia’ concert combines modern sounds with visuals by renowned artist Michael Koschorreck, who has created visual worlds for Tangerine Dream, among others.


The 22nd Silent Film Concert Festival combines cinematic tradition with innovative interpretation. It invites you to discover film heritage with new ears and eyes and to be enchanted by the synergy between image and sound.


Stephan Graf v. Bothmer

Bothmer transcends the “silent film” genre, his events are almost concerts with films. The music is extremely delicately matched to the films, which makes the films even greater: they seem to emerge from the screen with the music.

His newly composed live film music is gripping and virtuoso at the same time. It constantly changes perspective, so that the characters' contrasting personalities become vivid, their motives convincing and their failures painful - or the audience can't stop laughing, as the case may be. Bothmer not only uses the compositional techniques of the silent film era, but also masterfully integrates what has been developed by the best film composers in more than 100 years of film music history. The result is a modern soundtrack that draws the audience into the film in a way that is otherwise unknown from silent films. They experience the movie immersively, almost as if from within.

The pianist and composer is one of the leading international silent film musicians and has played at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival as well as in Hamburg at the Laeiszhalle and in Berlin at the Admiralspalast, the Wintergarten Varieté and Berlin Cathedral. At the rock-pop festival “Berlin-Festival” at Tempelhof Airport, he performed alongside Björk, Blur and the Pet Shop Boys. He played in the National Concert Hall Budapest and opened the 3rd International Organ Festival in the Philharmonie Kazakhstan with two concerts.