Häxan is arguably the most original and impressive of all Swedish silent films, and today is still a technically and cinematographically astonishing achievement. An eccentric mixture of didactic lecture and spectacular dramatization, Häxan recounts popular beliefs in the devil and superstition throughout the ages - with director Christensen himself playing Lucifer - and through striking imagery depicts the hypocrisy, sexual repression, and witch hunts of medieval times. Christensen was Danish, as was most of the cast and crew, but the film was entirely financed by the Swedish production company Svensk Filmindustri, which gave Christensen unprecedented artistic freedom and an enormous budget. - Jon Wengström, Swedish Film Institute
This special screening of Häxan features a live score from the Matti Bye Ensemble. Matti Bye (born 1966) is widely considered as one of Sweden’s most important composers of film scores and an extraordinary performer with his own, incomparable style of improvisation on the piano. He is also widely recognized for having written a series of innovative scores for such early Swedish silent film classics as The Phantom Carriage, Häxan and Gösta Berling Saga. Last year he wrote the score for Academy Award® nominee Jan Troell’s latest feature Everlasting Moments (JDIFF 2009) and Stig Björkman’s Scenes from a Playhouse – a documentary about Ingmar Bergman.
