Filmconcert: Häxan
Silent film classic Häxan (1922) explores superstition, satanic rituals, torture and persecution in the Middle Ages. Halloween film concert with live score performed by Kevin Toma.
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen’s legendary silent film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages and early modern era suffered from the same ills as psychiatric patients diagnosed with hysteria in the film’s own time. Christensen’s approach to genre anticipates gothic horror, documentary re-creation, and the essay film, making for an experience unlike anything else in the history of cinema.
Kevin Toma (Sittard, 1974) is a film critic for De Volkskrant and a much sought-after composer and performer of contemporary music for silent films. In 2011 he made a new soundtrack for Christensen’s bizarre view on witchcraft and superstition. It became a hallucinatory, feverish score full of dark soundscapes, gritty sounds, diabolical beats and spooky melodies, which Toma performs live on laptop and piano in Lumière. He will also introduce the film.