Giovanni Pastrone's Cabiria and Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari are the two forthcoming silent movies to be screened at Teatru Manoel's Sala Isouard as part of the successful Silents are Golden series of silent movies. Cabiria will be screened on Wednesday 15 November while The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari will be on a fortnight later on Wednesday 29 November.

Through The Silent Movies series, initiated this summer, Teatru Manoel is seeking to bring a series of classic films from the silent era to a new audience within a unique setting. During the screenings, guests will be able to avail themselves from the bar while enjoying live music, reminiscent of the silent movie days when pianists used to accompany the action on screen.

With Cabiria, Giovanni Pastrone wanted to make the biggest and most thrilling epic ever produced. So much so, that a million lira was budgeted for the production, a sum considered extravagant at the time. The film was shot in various locations including Tunisia, Sicily and the Alps. The result was a tremendous success and ensured Pastrone's name would be enshrined in the history of world cinema. Featuring Lidia Quaranta, Dante Testa, Umberto Mozzato and Bartolomeo Pagano, the two-hour movie recounts the story of the infant Cabiria who, kidnapped by Phoenician pirates from her Sicilian home, grows to become involved in Rome's conflict with Carthage during the Second Punic War. The film contains some memorable scenes including Hannibal crossing the Alps with elephants and one of the most ostentatious suicides ever filmed. Alex Vella Gregory will be creating a live score on piano to this screening.

Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) features actors Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher and Lil Dagover. The production is only 71 minutes long however, it is considered to be a horror classic and a landmark of German expressionism in cinema. It is also widely considered one of the most influential silent films ever made, since traces of the film can be seen in the likes of later masterpieces such as Metropolis, Nosferatu, Faust, and Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler. Wiene's opus showcases a nightmare realm in which light, shadow and substance are abstracted, a world in which a demented doctor and a carnival sleepwalker perpetuate a series of murders in a small community. Complementing the strange world of Dr. Caligari will be a unique score by Kris Spiteri.