The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival returned for its 14th edition from 20th - 24th March, with a programme of 18 feature films and 24 short films in the Hippodrome Cinema, as well as talks, workshops, excursions and our popular Platform Reels at Kinneil Railway. 

Highlights of the programme included the glitzy Friday Night Gala screening of Mantrap; the Audience Award winning community screening of The Flying Scotsman at the Barony Theatre; Maud Nelissen’s jazz age accompaniment to Our Dancing Daughters; and Scottish director Frank Lloyd’s Oliver Twist, starring Jackie Coogan and Lon Chaney, with musical accompaniment from Neil Brand.  The premiere of a new score from Shetland musicians Inge Thomson and Catriona Macdonald for Scottish filmmaker Jenny Gilbertson’s (née Brown) The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric, saw an audience over 340 enjoying it in person and online, making it the largest audience the cinema has seen since the early twentieth century.