Lau Nau joined Matti Bye Ensemble to play two silent film concerts at Castro theatre, San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2018:
Mauritz Stiller’s Gösta Berlings Saga
and a collection of Silent Avant Garde films: Anémic Cinéma (1924-26, Marcel Duchamp); Pas de deux (from the Looney Lens series from Fox Movietone, 1924); a Slavko Vorkapich montage with four sequences: Skyline Dance, 1928; The Money Machine, 1929, Prohibition, 1929; and The Furies, 1934; A Bronx Morning (1931, Jay Leyda); The Life and Death of 9413–A Hollywood Extra (1927, Robert Florey); Hände (1927, Mikos Bandy and Stella F. Simon); and 1931 Mexican footage by Sergei Eisenstein.
“The experience forcefully reminded me that movies are surreal by their “magic lantern” nature, and silent films even more potently so, particularly when accompanied by live, dreamy music.” – SF Civc Center blog
“The Matti Bye Ensemble matched each film with a fitting score, which were often meditative.”
“So I’d seen Gösta Berling one previous time–and kind of fell asleep halfway through it. I may have considered it dull. But! I was open to having my mind changed by a fine showing on a big screen with a high-quality score. And you know what? It worked! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and might even add it to my DVD collection. (…) The evocative score by the Matti Bye Ensemble played a big part in my conversion, I do declare.” – Silentology