Hipp, Hipp, hooray, it’s Hippfest programme launch day. You can now head over to the Hippfest website to read the full lineup for one of my very favourite silent film festivals. And book your tickets while you’re at it – over the years I’ve learned that popular events at Hippfest can and will sell out. Hippfest is just less than two months away, running 20-24 March, 2019 so you want to move quick, but not so quick that you don’t have time to peruse this handy preview, of course.
Here are some of my highlights of the schedule:

- Forbidden Paradise – You know that your humble scribe is smitten with Pola Negri. So when I saw the restoration of the sizzling Ernst Lubitsch comedy starring Negri and Rod La Rocque at Pordenone, I was bowled over. I am looking forward to watching it again, slightly more composed, but also glammed up for the HIppfest Friday Night Gala. This film deserves your best bib and tucker. I am also psyched to hear the new score by Jane Gardner. Here’s what I said when I saw it in October: “Hearts and reputations are won and lost. Moustaches are twirled. Fingers and furtive glances are everywhere. A revolution rages and is quashed, and always, behind a door Negri is making a conquest or throwing a plan into disarray. It’s ironic and light, but also physical and passionate. I can’t tell you what a treat it is. Seek it out and savour if you can.”
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