In the first thirty years of cinema history, when films were still running in cinemas without sound, hundreds of feature films were made in European countries, including Hungary, but only a small number of these have survived in their entirety or in fragmentary form, as neither the rapid spread of sound films nor the lack of archives favoured the survival of the genre. Since then, the surviving silent films have been sought, collected and restored in a number of institutions, which is not only an essential part of film history research, but also means a source of inspiration for contemporary artists. During September, BMC joins the Budapest Classic Film Marathon of the National Film Institute, where audiences can witness the dialogue between silent films and live music.

The momentary musical discourse of four masters of improvisation, Áron Komjáti, Kornél Fekete-Kovács, László Gőz and András Dés, will interpret of two of the great discoveries of the 2020s from the collection of the EYE Film Museum, heir to the Dutch Film Archives. The quartet of musicians, who defy genre stereotypes, evoke the figure of Ellen Richter: both silent films to be resurrected on the screen – The Bacchanal of Death (1917) and Superstition (1919) – star the Jewish-born Austrian actress, who, in spite (or perhaps because?) of her rather different appearance from the ideal of her time, was revered as one of the decade's biggest stars.