Greetings, not from Pordenone, but from Marco Polo airport. Sadly I am not staying for the final day of the Giornate, so this may not be the blogging finale you were expecting.

There is a fine day ahead for those of you still at the festival, including Colleen Moore in Ella Cinders and Reginald Denny in Skinner’s Dress Suit, not to mention the conclusion of the Charles Hutchison serial The Great Gamble.

Tonight’s special event in Teatro Verdi is one that I am especially sorry to miss, and perhaps the fog surrounding the airport this morning is some kind of sympathetic sign.The closing gala for the 38th Pordenone Silent Film Festival will be Alfred Hitchcock’s murky murder mystery The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), starring the beauteous Ivor Novello and the marvellous Marie Ault. I hope you’re looking forward to watching the silky new BFI restoration of this British silent classic, especially when I tell you that the music will be Neil Brand’s brilliant new orchestral score, conducted by Ben Palmer. Enjoy it for me, blub.

• Silent London ran a review of Brand’s new score, written by Sheldon Hall, in 2017
• Here’s my piece for the BFI website on The Lodger: The serial-killer thriller that launched Alfred Hitchcock’s career.
• You can buy The Lodger on DVD or Blu-ray, with Brand’s score too, from the Criterion Collection.

Whether you have been reading the Pordenone blogs every day, or just caught up with a couple of them, thanks for reading. I enjoy writing them, and I especially enjoy discussing the films with my fellow Pordenauts – the Giornate is a great place to talk movies. There are lots of people reporting from the festival this year, so watch out for more posts in the days, weeks and months to come – but for now, let me give you a few recommendations.

• The heroic PJ has been blogging daily from the Giornate too. I feel like a bad influence. Why not start here with his first post? His recaps are excellent, thorough, beautifully illustrated and fearless in the face of a pun.
• Michelle Facey’s Twitter feed is always a beautiful thing – and she has been sending dispatches from Pordenone tweet by elegant tweet.
• Ditto Maggie Hennefeld, but with yet more combustible feminist slapstick.

Thanks to the team behind the festival, the archives and the amazing musicians and the company of great friends that made this such a vintage year. Ciao!

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So, if I am not at the Giornate today, where am I going next? Here’s a clue:

• See you back in the UK soon: I am introducing GW Pabst’s brilliant Abwege (1928), starring Brigitte Helm at the Watershed in Bristol on 20 October, thanks to South West Silents.
• Read all my Pordenone posts in one place.
• You can read more about the festival, and all of the films, on the Giornate website.
• Silent London will always be free to all readers. If you enjoy checking in with the site, including reports from silent film festivals, features and reviews, please consider shouting me a coffee on my Ko-Fi page

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