FIRST CROSSINGS' celebration of the 100th anniversary of the German expressionist classic Das Kabinet des Dr. Caligari will be a colossal one, and in accordance with the leading theme of this year’s festival edition which is dedicated to sound. Caligari is of course a silent film – what sound are we therefore speaking of? The sound of image itself, which is always already there, not technologically that is, but maybe ontologically? Image is in itself a screaming image, and a dark, twisted and bizarre film like Caligari calls for a dark, twisted and bizarre soundscape. You may not hear it, but you can almost hear it. On the other hand, this celebration is not just about discovering what is hidden in the image itself, but more importantly about what can I add to the film and how to, in this dialectical contrapuntal play, make the film richer and updated.

​

Ivan Antić, Jan Vysocky and Giorgio Pacorig will be talking to us about all of this and much more in the introductory part to the actual cine-concert, sonorization of Dr. Caligari. Between talking about human perception of sound throughout history and the possible implementations of it, how to make it effective and affective, a dialogue with the public will hopefully be established. And this dialogue will be carried on to the actual cine-concert. The public will not be only watching and hearing, but also playing, making this experience a shared, common one – a real participatory experience.

​

Through it we will maybe get to know a thing or two more about sound and peak into its secrets. As Caligari says: Ich muss alles wissen … ich muss in sein Geheimnis dringen. In English: I must know everything. I must penetrate the heart of its secret!

The secret of sound, that is.