- Faust, by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, will open the 25th Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival accompanied with music composed and performed by the Tenerife band GAF y La Estrella de la Muerte
- The section will include two gems of Japanese silent cinema, Orochi (Serpent) by Buntarô Futagawa, and Kuruta Ichipêji (A Page of Madness) by Teinosuke Kinugasa, with live narration by the benshi Kataoka Ichirô accompanied by musical pieces composed by pianist Cristóbal Montesdeoca
- Two medium-length French films reaching the hundred-years-old milestone will be shown, too: Rien que les heures (Nothing But Time) by Alberto Cavalcanti, and Ménilmontant by Dimitri Kirsanoff, and they will both be accompanied by live music composed and performed by Jonay Armas
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, April 1, 2026.- The Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival begins on April 23 its 25th edition with the screening of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Faust (1926, Germany, 107 min.), one of the most revolutionary films of the silent era. This masterpiece of German Expressionism, which will open, too, the Camera Obscura section of the Festival, will arrive in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria a century after its premiere, and will do so accompanied by one of the best progressive rock bands from Tenerife: GAF y La Estrella de la Muerte.
As usual since its inception in 2021, Camera Obscura offers the audience a journey into the history of the seventh art by bringing back to the silver screen masterpieces of silent cinema accompanied with live music composed and performed by different artists. This time, the section has recovered five works that have just celebrated their 100th anniversary, including two Japanese gems and four other French ones.
The first Japanese classic, as avant-garde as poetical, is Kurutta ippêji | A Page of Madness (1926, 70 min.) by Teinosuke Kinugasa. This feature, in which we follow the story of a family marked by the mental health problems of the mother, has taken on a special significance because the poster for this 25th edition of the Festival contains a reference, in the form of a Noh mask, to one of the scenes in the film.
Another gem of Japanese silent cinema, Orochi | Serpent (1925, 74 min.) by Buntarô Futagawa, will be screened at the Gran-Canarian capital. The film, which portrays the misadventures of a lower-class samurai, was considered one of the most original pieces of its time for its modern style and critical point of view.
Both screenings will be accompanied by a modern benshi, who were famous Japanese narrators in the silent cinema era. Thus, Kataoka Ichirô will provide the narration for this fascinating experience with the help of Michael Emmerich, a professor of Japanese Literature at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and director of the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities whose support of the benshi art has taken him to New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles or Tokyo. At the same time, island pianist Cristóbal Montesdeoca will perform some pieces he composed for the occasion.
Both narration and music will accompany, too, the short films Les Papillons Japonais | Japanese Butterflies (France, 1908, 4 min.) and Les Kiriki, Acrobates Japonais | Kiriki, Japanese Acrobats (France, 1907, 2,42 min.) by Aragonese filmmaker Segundo de Chomón, which will be shown during the screening of A Page of Madness.
Camera Obscura will close its selection for this edition with two French medium-length films reaching the hundred-years-old milestone: Alberto Cavalcanti’s debut film Rien que les heures | Nothing But Time (1926, 45 min.), an avant-garde piece in which he captured the frenetic rhythms of life in a big city like Paris; and Ménilmontant (1926, 38 min.), a melodrama by Dimitri Kirsanoff that follows the story of two orphaned sisters living in Paris during the 20s. Both of them will be accompanied by live music composed and performed by Canarian artist Jonay Armas.
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