Interview: Lily Weisberg And Michael Bloom Bring MODERN SILENT FILMS to NYC

From August 4 to 10, Lily Weisberg and Michael Bloom will tour New York and New Jersey with Modern Silent Shorts, a night dedicated to new works of silent film scored with live music. (Their dates are here; they will be in Brooklyn on August 4 at Pioneer Works and in the Upper West Side on August 5 at the Center at West Park. We spoke about the series, now entering its third year, and how it got started.

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Where did you first get the idea to do this series?

The idea originally came from the entrepreneur Boykin Curry.

Boykin lives near Isabella Rossellini in Bellport, and in the summer of 2022, he attended an old silent film screening with live music on her farm. He was so taken with the movie, the music, and I think, most of all, the way the event itself brought people together. It was an experience that had to happen live and around others to make sense.

That fall, Boykin approached us [Lily Weisberg and Michael Bloom] with the idea of commissioning new works of silent film. When he brought this to us, he really framed it as an experiment. Could an experience like the one he had on the farm be replicated and updated with contemporary films? Could re-examining this old medium be a way to gain a new perspective on today’s world?

His long-term hope was that these new films could bring people together on summer evenings, with screenings in parks, art venues, and other public spaces around the country— like a modern-day traveling picture show.

The three of us agreed that the films wouldn’t be made in the style of old silent movies. The films could borrow visual storytelling techniques from the silent era, but we wanted to seek out films that felt like they were made in and about the present. Films that were depicting contemporary conflicts and questions, where the silence was a tool in the storytelling. We were looking to create a slate of films that each used silence in different ways.

We also decided that the live music composed for each short should connect back to the roots of old silent films, but still feel relevant and exciting. We brought in the brilliant composer Kevin Donald to create a compositional arrangement that was synth-forward, a modern-day progression of the theatre organs of the early 20th century.

What draws you to the format of silent movies?

Silent films are propelled forward not by dialogue, but by action, image, and performances. Those tools are the foundation of the medium, and we love that this prompt forces directors to return to the basics, in a sense.  

What we’ve also discovered, though, is that these silent films do a profoundly accurate job of capturing what life today feels like. Through their silence, they can capture the alienation, internality, and anxiety of the modern world, as well as its comedy, absurdity, and tenderness.

What was the selection process like for deciding which films to feature? Did you have an open call for submissions or solicit work from filmmakers you knew?

To select our filmmakers, we attend a ton of film festivals, watch shorts on online platforms like NoBudge, Short of the Week, Directors Notes, and get recommendations from other directors and producers. We are looking for filmmakers who are able to move a story forward primarily through image. Films whose narrative propulsion doesn’t hinge on verbal communication.

Then, we invite a selection of filmmakers to pitch to us. Directors walk us through their films, visual references, budget proposals, and most importantly, explain why their story needs to be a silent film. We look for proposals with a strong connection between form and content – films that had a good reason to be silent.

From there, we select our directors. They move through pre-production, production, and post in the span of seven months.

What kind of response have you been getting to the series so far?

For the last two years, we have premiered the films on Mama Farm, with a live score written by Kevin Donald and performed with his bandmates: Greg Pease, Ryan Vinh, and Athos Maelstrom. This summer is the first time we’re taking Modern Silent Shorts on the road to share it with wider audiences! We are bringing a selection from our catalogue to five venues in the New York area. Pioneer Works, Center at West Park, Bannerman Island, Bellevue Theater in Montclair, and the Gateway Playhouse.

What's so special about this project is its ephemerality – it's somewhere between a film screening, play, concert, and party. We’re so excited to bring that experience to a variety of venues and see how different audiences respond.

We had no sense of what the interest in the program might be, and we have been so pleasantly surprised. Tickets have been selling fast for all the venues, and we are so excited that people want to attend and have seemed so enthusiastic. 

Do you have any future plans for this series after you finish this tour?

The long-term goal for the project has always been to have a canon of silent films that play as a single program in public screenings across the country, and this summer will be a sort of trial run!

And continue finding new filmmakers to work with!

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

We’d like to give a shoutout to our August 5th screening at the Center at West Park on the Upper West Side. The Center is a nonprofit arts venue that I think a lot of Broadway World readers would love. It’s an incredible incubator and resource for emerging theater artists in NY that puts on plays, readings, writing workshops, a puppetry festival, film screenings, and so much more.

The beautiful church that the Center operates out of is at risk of demolition, and theater legends like Kenneth Lonergan and Mark Ruffalo have been huge advocates for its preservation. Its demolition would be a massive loss as the Center is a vital space for community and theater in New York City.

It’s a big venue, and we still have tickets available! All proceeds from the pay-what-you-can screening go to saving The Center, and it would be so wonderful to have a full house that evening.

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