The Brooklyn Silent Film Festival returns tonight, Nov. 8, to Main Drag Music in Williamsburg, where eight acts will play original scores live to eight new silent short films.
It began in 2019 at The Well in Bushwick, a venue that closed for good in 2020. COVID-19 stopped the 2020 edition after its films had been selected, and the festival’s archive lists 2021, 2022 and 2025 as hiatus years, with one more edition, in Greenpoint, in 2024. Jason Grimste, who runs the festival on his own, skipped 2025 after he had a new baby. “It’s a one-person operation (me!),” he said. He is working to make the festival annual.
Films run 10 to 20 minutes, and each is matched with musicians who had a month to compose a score from scratch and play it live alongside the screening. No sound submitted with a film gets played, and every edition shows new films. Judges Caits Meissner, Zaki Barzini and Mariella Price pick the winner, with a fourth judge still to be named, and the winning filmmaker and the act that scored the film split $300.
At least three of the acts list Brooklyn as home: Pencildive, a rock band led by Gina De Nardo that recorded an EP at Silver Cord in Ridgewood; Sean Spada, a piano songwriter; and Melton. Trio Lumière, which plays live accompaniment to experimental films, listed a September show at Alphaville in Bushwick. MamajoeVramajoe, photographed in matching purple wigs and outfits, says on its website, “It’s not a cult, it’s a religion! Praise Purple!”
The films include “The Rusty Fish,” an animated short from Iran that won Best Animation at the IndieFEST Film Awards; “Carnal Inferno,” a 10-minute horror short about a boxer; “Your Soul Knows,” which the Independent Shorts Awards calls “a wordless, symbolic film” about the body as a record of memory and pain; and “Menopause Menopaws,” a 14-minute comedy whose director, Akiko Matsumoto, a musician and piano technician, told the Wildsound festival she played the lead and shot it herself on a cellphone.
The full pairings are “The Rusty Fish,” directed by Milad Fathiani, with MamajoeVramajoe; “Silent Knights” (U.K.), directed by Ethan Hughes, with Jamie Frey of Nite Music; “Carnal Inferno,” directed by Gregory Gullo, with Melton; “Untitled,” directed by Lazarus, with K/Y; “Life is Black and White and Sometimes Color,” directed by Nicolas Gallegos-Anda, with Pencildive; “Menopause Menopaws,” directed by Matsumoto, with Spada; “Day of the Catch,” directed by Jared Engel, with Trio Lumière; and “Your Soul Knows” (Germany), directed by Niloufar Imanian, with the Jim Joustra & Jordan Cortese Duo.
Grimste also performs as brokeMC. The 2019 winner was “La Pescadora,” directed by Edu Lavandeira and scored by Somer Bingham and Doug Linse. The 2024 winner was “BEZ,” directed by Ilshat Saetov and scored by Psirens.
The films start at 8 p.m. and run about two hours. Deathrow Tull, a Brooklyn band, then plays a short set as special guest, and DJ Uncle I closes the night.
Main Drag Music is at 50 S. 1st St. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25 at the door, or $20 plus fees, $22.20, in advance on Main Drag Music's ticket page.
