The town of Bo’ness, situated between Glasgow and Edinburgh, was home to Scotland’s silent film festival, HippFest, bringing black-and-white classics and sepia-tone hidden gems to life for audiences young and old.
Now in its sixteenth year, the Festival is about to launch into its online programme, running until 6 April – perfect for Easter weekend bingeing – with hand-picked offerings from the in-person event able to be viewed ‘from the comfort of your favourite armchair’, so if you like your movies dialled up to eleven and your piano jaunty, I strongly recommend looking into it. I went along to the physical festival over Friday and Saturday of the festival, and despite having only seen the absolute core classics of silent cinema – your Nosferatus and your Metropolises and so on – I had an absolute ball.
The town is home to The Hippodrome, Scotland’s oldest purpose-built cinema, and it’s here that the aptly named HippFest calls home. First opened in 1912, you really couldn’t find a better place in Scotland to watch a silent movie. This was my first visit, but from the moment I stepped into the darkened auditorium and heard the accompanying live pianist in full swing (alas, that day, I was that most annoying of cinemagoers: the latecomer), I really felt as though I’d stepped back into a bygone age of cinema.
Make no mistake, HippFest isn’t about trying to pull a Doc Brown on its audience and completely teleport you back to the 20s (er…the other 20s). This isn’t a strict recreation of the era by any means – topcoat and tails are entirely optional and the thick mist of tobacco in the air is left for you to imagine; make-believe smoke sits easier in your lungs – but there’s enough excitement in the crowd and butter in the popcorn to pull off the illusion.
Perhaps it was merely a case of country prices being new to a city boy’s eyes, but the refreshments on offer seemed to be pitched far more ‘Gilded Age’ than Post-Crash, too, which helped me to enjoy each picture just a little more.
I caught eight films in my two days at HippFest. Of that number, there really seemed to be a little bit of everything on offer, which speaks to the quality of Festival Director Alison Strauss’ programme. While I found some stories more engaging than others, there was no film on either day that felt like a wasted slot – they each had something different and interesting to bring to the table, from the giddy jazz numbers of the recently-rediscovered Saxophone Susy to the fascinating alpine photography of the German Mountain of Destiny that had actors dangling off of a sheer cliff-face (no small feat even now, but imagine the size of 100-year-old cameras). Whether it was the belly laughs of New York comedy April Fool or the turning point of Captain January that had us all so silent that you could have heard a pin drop, each day felt like a whistle-stop tour round silent cinema from both sides of the Atlantic.
My favourite of the bunch had to be The Cameraman, which was, I must admit, my first encounter with Buster Keaton. Based on the fun I had with him on the Saturday morning, in a packed cinema full of fans and families all laughing together, it won’t be my last. Nor will it be my last trip to this fantastic little festival.
I was somewhat daunted at the prospect of a whole weekend of silent pictures – until a few years ago, silent cinema, to me, meant letting the remote fall between the couch cushions and scrambling to find it again to unmute the telly. I was glad to find in HippFest an event and an atmosphere that welcomed anyone who wanted to take the time to come along and get stuck in with everything on offer. Whatever your experience with the genre, there’s a lot to like here.
While my lack of greater silent film knowledge made for stormy seas in the pub quiz, I never felt as though I was intruding on some closed-off affair meant only for the already-enlightened – I felt extremely welcome as I was catapulted headfirst into a jam-packed weekend of entertaining cinema. They even had dancers doing the Charleston on stage!
So if that sounds like lively ragtime music to your ears, I thoroughly recommend taking a trip up, down or sideways to HippFest when it reappears in Bo’ness next March. I’m already saving the date. If you can’t wait until next year for your next black-and-white fix (and, let’s face it, who could?) then a trip to the Digital Festival may well fit the bill, featuring films like Captain January, The White Heather and possible inspiration for Bob Kane’s Caped Crusader, The Bat!
Digital passes for HippFest At Home are available here: https://www.falkirkleisureandculture.org/memberships/ (£35)
A great big Gatsbean ‘Thank you!’ to Hannah and the team at HippFest for inviting me to attend. HippFest will return to Bo’ness 17-21 March 2027.
