[Tin Hat Trio performs original scores to the puppet films of Ladislaw Starewicz, 7:30 PM, May 19, 2001]

The whimsical puppet animations of Ladislaw Starewicz are among the most legendary and imaginative works of early cinema. Starewicz's initial interest lay in entomology which he brought to life through film, manipulating tiny beetles in a handmade habitat. Soon his talent for animating insects became apparent as the bugs were called into the service not of science, but of fanciful dramas full of joyful dragonflies, grouchy bumblebees, and swooning beetles. Perhaps his most famous film is The Cameraman's Revenge, a frisky tale of insect infidelity, starring cinema's most passionate six-legged actors. Starewicz left the enclave of the insect behind for the greater animal kingdom, creating such masterpieces as Frogland, brimming with hundreds of life-like croakers, and Town Rat, Country Rat, in which a rural rat is dazzled then duped by his city-slicker cousin. Now the amazing animations of Starewicz will be joined to the bug-eyed scores of the Tin Hat Trio, an edgy Bay Area ensemble, comprised of Mark Orton (guitar), Carla Kihlstedt (violin), and Rob Burger (accordion). They'll wed their energetic avant-folk music to these lush cinematic landscapes, exhibited tonight from archival prints. As the final installment of The Unsilent Film, several of Tin Hat Trio's scores will be world premieres!-Steve Seid. The Cameraman's Revenge (Russia, 1911, 12:40 mins, 35mm, From Cinémathèque Québecoise). Insect's Christmas (Russia, 1911, 6:25 mins, 16mm, From David Shepard). The Ant and the Grasshopper (Russia, 1911, 5:30 mins, 35mm, From Cinémathèque Québecoise). Frogland (France, 1923, 8:35 mins, 35mm, From David Shepard). -- Pacific Film Archive program note, May 2001.