The big picture of Greek Cypriot shorts: between processes of transnationalization and re-articulations of the local

Addressing an increasingly globalised housing crisis, European filmmakers have turned their attention to the precarity of home, generating a vast mediascape of activist documentaries, essay films, shorts, and some features. Adopting a film and urbanism approach, in this article I take a specific focus on the short film form, framing it as a space for experimentation, and offering a snapshot of a wider transnational corpus of media. I compare two 2019 short films by two emerging women artists: British Ayo Akingbade’s Dear Babylon and Portuguese Leonor Teles Dogs Barking at Birds (Cães Que Ladram Aos Pássaros). These artists’ works establish film as a form of resistance while, at the same time, being rooted in an understanding of socio-economic inequality in housing. Purposedly merging observational, participatory methods with the fictional, these two films share a focus on young people in uncertain living conditions. Grappling with their individual situations the youth at the centre of these stories build forms of resistance to their present housing struggles in the attempt to shape a better future for themselves and their community.

This chapter seeks to demonstrate that the short films in Lucrecia Martel’s cinema recover the possibility (typical of the short films of the historical avant-garde and experimental cinemas) of an image that is not regimented in perceptual, narrative and production terms. Lucrecia Martel’s short films are autotelic productions, emancipated from the commercial and narrative impositions of other film formats, such as feature films and television series. The short film can aspire to, or contains in nuce, a kind of aesthetic radicality that is still possible in the very era of post-radicality. In her short films, there are possibilities that are not in the feature films: female freedom (Dead King); a minority language policy as resistance to the intelligibility of the story and the proposal of a perception that does not depend on the narrative (New Argirópolis); the autotelism of the short film, alien to the demands of authorship, the market and the expectations of the critics (Muta); playful experimentation without purpose and without authorial features (Fish).

Perishing Heritage:

Howl[ing] without Raising Their Voices

This article analyses chosen Apichatpong’s short films, organized in two thematic areas, with reference to the director’s primary interest in communicating about post-traumatic memory. The first part is dedicated to ghostly presences, their meanings and depictions. Apichatpong’s ghosts derive from the light penetrating the surface to human-shape projections or figments of imagination. This part of the analysis will refer to Derrida’s hauntology concept and its dissemination in such films as A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (2009) or Apichatpong’s early project Haunted Houses (2001). In the following part of the article, I will focus on the destruction of memory, symbolized by the images of fire, burning objects or split narrative structures. Here I will analyse films such as Blue (2018) and Ashes (2012), pointing out similar semiotic references in Apichatpong’s feature films. The analysis presented is accompanied by the observation of connections between Apichatpong’s feature films and short films, with a particular emphasis on his new short projects. My reflection on the topic was built upon the audio-visual resources, including interviews and records from exhibitions, as well as subject literature in English, Polish and Japanese.

This article offers a historical study of short films and their place in the British cinema programmes of the 1960s as a way of exploring the monopolistic practices which characterised the film industry during this period. Focusing on the short fiction/entertainment film is a particularly useful way of studying competition in the industry because the problems of financing, distribution and exhibition which characterised film production were felt more keenly by those working on short films than they were by those working solely in the feature film sector. The 1960s, and more specifically the mid-1960s, represented a key moment in the history of the short fiction film in Britain. The year 1966 saw the publication of the Monopolies Commission report into the dominance of the cinema circuits by Rank and ABC, a document which heralded recognition of the problems facing short film-makers (and film-makers in general). This article will tell the story of how the producers and distributors of short films in the 1960s jostled to find a space for their products among cinema programmes already replete with Rank and ABC’s Look at Life and Pathé Pictorial lifestyle documentary serials, and this history will in turn highlight the ways in which the conservative nature of the industry hampered the growth of a healthy, creative short film sector in Britain.

Indian films are gradually coming of age: becoming more realistic, bold, and daring. Indian short films are getting candid: talking openly about issues rather than brushing them under the carpet. The digital media boom and the advent of social media have made the short film genre popular. In the fast-paced age where people, caught up in the humdrum and rat race of everyday life, are generally becoming impatient about everything, the short film has come to the rescue of filmmakers and film lovers. Gone are the days where everyone had ample time and patience to watch a three hour feature film or a two hour saga. In case of a short film, the message gets conveyed in a quick, crisp, and focused manner, without beating about the bush. Women-oriented short films like Her First Time, Juice, The Day After Every Day, Mama's Boy, Going Dutch, Pressure Cooker, The Girl Story, Ek Dopahar, Khaney Mein Kya Hai, White Shirt, Naked, etc. are breaking stereotypes of the patriarchal notions about women. The chapter probes the portrayals of women characters in Indian short films.

After the New Order stepped down in 1998 and the Department of Information was closed down in 1999, the Indonesian government loosened their control on film regulation. At that time, theatres rarely screened Indonesian films and there had been no film festivals in Indonesia for a long period. Meanwhile, advanced digital technology had provided a digital film camera – for the non‐professional user – that more people could afford. Some young Indonesians believed that lots of Indonesians had a digital film camera and used them to make films, instead of just recording family gatherings. These youngsters – mostly from big cities – came from different backgrounds and usually met at alternative film screenings in foreign cultures centres or the Indonesian Cinematheque. Most were well‐educated and dreamed of watching films from their own country. They therefore organized a film festival in 1999 under name ‘the Indonesia Independent Film‐Video Festival’. They chose a short‐film format for the festival because it was easier for common people to make a short film than a feature film with a digital camera. The organizer of the Indonesia Independent Film‐Video Festival established an organization in early 2000 named Konfiden. After 2000, Konfiden tried to promote Indonesian short films at international short‐film festivals such as the Oberhausen Short Film Festival and Tampere Short Film Festival. After 2002, Konfiden’s festival was not the only short film festival in Indonesia. Several film communities in Java started to organize short film festivals. The Konfiden’s next step is to build a film market, database, and to shape the quality for Indonesia short films.

The ‘invention’ of the long feature film was the key tool used by production and distribution companies to try to solve the overproduction crisis of short films in Europe at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century. Neither cinema owners nor their patrons had clamoured for the shift from entertaining short film programmes to challenging long feature films that absorbed the viewer’s attention and required qualifications in creating meaning while watching moving pictures. Thus, it was the local cinema manager who had to succeed in attracting paying audiences to multiple-reel feature films that ran for one hour or longer – in some cases more than two hours. This essay presents a local study of the cinema programme in Trieste before the First World War that examines the selling points put forward in newspaper ads published in Il Piccolo, the most read daily newspaper at the time, with the aim of promoting long feature films. The evaluation of a sample of over 350 cinema advertisements shows that stars and divas like Asta Nielsen and Lyda Borelli were but one among other, some stronger, selling propositions to attract local audiences for long feature films. These other selling points were Danish dramas produced by Nordisk, Italian peplum films and programmes of short film comedies by Max Linder. This diversity in selling points for the long feature film testifies to the fact that though the star system was emerging, it had not yet been fully established as a means of marketing multiple-reel feature films by the end of the 1913–14 season, at least not in Trieste.

Computer Animation Festival The SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival is the leading annual festival for the world's most innovative, accomplished, and amazing digital film and video creators. An internationally recognized jury receives hundreds of submissions and presents the best work of the year in the two programs of the Computer Animation Festival: Daytime Selects and the Electronic Theater. Selections include outstanding achievements in animated feature and short films, scientific visualization, visual effects, real-time graphics, game excerpts, and much more! The Computer Animation Festival is recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a qualifying festival. Since 1999, several works originally presented in the Computer Animation Festival have been nominated for or have received a Best Animated Short Academy Award. Production Sessions In Production Sessions, the world's most elite and talented computer graphic experts and creative geniuses explain their processes and techniques for creating compelling content. Real-Time Live! An interactive extravaganza that celebrates real-time achievements at the intersection of ingenious technical skills and creative beauty, Real-Time Live! showcases the latest trends and techniques for pushing the boundaries of interactive visuals. Daytime Selects Three programs of outstanding work in visual effects, games, and tiny programs, plus a survey of Computer Animation Festival award winners since 2010. Daytime Selects: Break It Down A behind-the-scenes look at the techniques and technology used to make today''s most stunning visual effects. "Break It Down" shows in-depth, technical shot breakdowns from some of this year's greatest commercial work, games, and feature films. It not only highlights groundbreaking new techniques, but also shows a glimpse of how some standard techniques can be used in new and interesting ways to create innovative visual effects. Daytime Selects: The Arcade A new bespoke audience experience focusing on games from concept art through technology and implementation in cinematic and real time. Daytime Selects: >Demoscene_ The demoscene is an international computer art subculture that specializes in creating self-contained programs that produce audio-visual presentations. The main goal of a demo is to exhibit programming, artistic, and musical skills within highly constrained limitations; for example, restricting the executable file to just 64k in size. Yes, you read that correctly: 64k. Quite honestly, you won't believe what you''re seeing. Daytime Selects: Winner's Circle Winner's Circle celebrates the most impressive, original, and amusing award winners from the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival over the last seven years. Compiled as a compact and highly entertaining show, student and commercial projects sit side-by-side in this incredible recap of festival highlights.

Tissa Liyansuriya is widely recognized by critics and fans of Sri Lankan cinema for his unique contribution to local cinema, continuing in the tradition of Lester James Peirce. He entered the feature film industry as the assistant director of Lester's "Rekava" (1960), subsequently creating numerous documentaries and short films under the government film department, and he is the creator of a trilogy of feature films. The purpose of this research is to determine the subjective evaluation of Tissa Liyansuriya among filmmakers, based on locality. The research problem is to determine, both expressively and technically, what kind of social characteristics and individual biographies are revealed in Liyansuriya's work within the context of local cinema. For this study, Liyansuriya's feature films "Saravita" (1965), "Punchi Baba" (1968), and "Narilatha" (1969) have been subjected to content analysis. These films focus on themes related to contemporary Sri Lankan life, with casts portraying various aspects of Sri Lankan society. Liyansuriya, who apprenticed under Lester, used observations from Sri Lankan society to create films that went beyond the imitative cinema stream prevalent at the time. The characters such as Gunahami in Saravita, Sena in Punchi Baba, and Surendra in Narilatha are based on Buddhist concepts and values, and Liyansuriya's films reflect middle-class society. Additionally, the songs included in these films enhance their cinematic quality rather than merely serving as a trick for popularity. Actors such as Malani Fonseka (Punchi Baba), Wally Nanayakkara (Saravita), and Carl Gunasena (Gatawarayo) were introduced to Sinhala cinema by Liyansuriya. In conclusion, Tissa Liyansuriya's films present the natural environment, realistic characterization, lifestyles, religious culture rooted in faith and belief, and human qualities, all equipped with the most cinematic quality of Lester's contemporary cinema style.

Cinema has a distinct originality as an artistic genre due to its mass popularity and ability to reach a wide audience. When "Arab cinema" is considered in the history of cinema, the biggest and most important role in this field belongs to Egyptian cinema.The Egyptian film industry has been and remains the most powerful and influential of its kind in the Arab world. Known for being the only country in the Middle East that produces feature films, Egyptian cinema has been called the "Hollywood of the Arab world". There are different opinions about the beginning date of Egyptian cinema. According to some film historians, the start date is 1896, when the Lumière Brothers' short films were shown in Alexandria; and according to some, it is 1907, the year the first short documentary film of Egyptian cinema was made; according to others, it is the year 1927, the year of production of the first feature-length film, "Leila", directed and scripted by Azîza Amîr, the famous female director and actress of Egyptian cinema. Egyptian cinema, which has become a mirror of Egyptian society by mostly addressing social and economic issues, has sometimes come to the fore with newly written scripts, sometimes with adaptations from films of other countries and sometimes from literary works. Egyptian cinema has gone through important stages until it has reached a level where it can produce directors, screenwriters and actors who have received cinema education, can follow social changes and can express them with a developed artistic language. This study aims to examine the development process of Egyptian cinema, which has an important place and identity in the history of world cinema with its unique style, attitude, language, style and rich vocabulary, from 1927 to the 1970s.

The first short films from the Allegro Polish Legends series attracted great popularity. Further productions were created on the wave of this trend – short films, audiobooks and music videos. A feature film was also announced. The Legends are a unique narrative in Polish popular culture, not only because of the circumstances of its creation, but also the manner of its execution, distribution and the subject matter. In the article, I analyse this popular series, judging whether it can be considered a transmedia narrative. Firstly, I reflect on concepts such as an entertainment supersystem, a universe, a narrative and a transmedia story. Secondly, I relate these concepts to The Legends in an attempt to ascertain their applicability in an analysis of the series. I also reflect on the current situation of the franchise, as well as its potential and development prospects.

Contrary to the situation in most countries there is, in Yugoslavia, a place for the short film. This is not on television or in the art houses, but in theaters, showing along with the regular feature. demand is so great, and the quality so high, that it is not necessary to import shorts from abroad. industry makes only about 15 features a year, and therefore must import an average of 150-half of which are Americanbut this year it will make well over one thousand short films. categories are the same as in most countries: documentaries and educationals; children's pictures; the entertainment featurette, and the animated short. A difference is the grouping: there will be almost 900 documentaries; a dozen films for children; usually less than 52 newsreels; and only 20 cartoons. cartoons are best known abroad but the home audience is much more familiar with the documentaries. One distributor smiled and said: The cartoons? Oh, you must go abroad to see them. documentaries are ubiquitous thoughon the whole-better than those of most countries. One of the reasons is, I think, that the Yugoslavs had to develop their own style. Their feature film is sometimes indebted to foreign models (Renoir has had a beneficial influence; the average English or American all-talkie a pernicious one) but the short films have had no foreign mentors. One of the results is a kind of freedom. Yugoslavs have not seen Berlin and Rien que les Heures; they have never read Rotha or Grierson, and they do not know Night Mail from the Daily Mail. This freedom leads occasionally to home movies: ski-meets in Bled, poorly photographed; the life of the bald eagle in which most of the footage is spent in merely getting up the Macedonian mountains. And there is occasional commercialism: lovely Dubrovnik-and it is lovely-seen entirely through the watercolors of some moderately talented local artist. But, more often, the freedom from influence results in a style which is both simple and strong. Boatmen on the Drina (Sblavari na Brini, Bosna-film, Sarajevo), though in no way the best of recent documentaries, shows the approach. Given the subject, the life of the boatmen on a particularly unruly river, the director took numerous rides with them on their log rafts, trying to get the feel of the experience. He decided that he did not want the loggers dwarfed by the high canyon walls since he himself did not feel dwarfed, and so he cut out all overhead shots. He even left out the bridge at Videgrade, famous since its appearance in the Andric novel. bumpiness impressed him and so he increased the effect by hand-holding his camera. Nights on the river, the rafts either drifting along in the broader stretches or anchored in a cove off the rapids, impressed him and these he intercut in the most natural manner, alternating night and day until the mouth of the river was reached. When the sea was reached the film was ended-a documentary by no means great but consistently honest. Like most Yugoslav documentaries it was free of the omnipotence of a Dziga-Vertov, the cozy picturesqueness toward which the Kunst film

In December 1916, as Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company was crossing the United States to make its West Coast premiere in Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Musical Bureau attempted to generate additional publicity and sustain excitement by publishing the first (and only) issue of the Diaghilef Ballet Russe Courier. Squarely in the center of the front page, under the headline “Ballet Too Expensive for Filming,” was a letter from American film director and producer Thomas H. Ince, purportedly responding to impresario and publicist Robert Grau's recommendation that Ince invite the ballet troupe to make a film: Dear Mr. Grau, I have read your communication in regard to the Russian Ballet. I fail to see the practicability of the idea of making a picture of the Russian Ballet, wonderful and unprecedented as the success of this notable organization has been. You understand, of course, that it would necessitate bringing the entire organization to Los Angeles, and any aggregation of dancers that can play to $100,000 dollars in two weeks would most assuredly demand all the money that I have, my right eye and left hand in addition to any hopes that I may have for a future life, in return for their service. Very truly yours, Thomas H. Ince.1Thomas Ince was not the only one skeptical of a Ballets Russes film project. The company's impresario, eager to position his company within the realm of high art, actively shunned mass culture and popular entertainment, including the still-young filmic medium: no Ballets Russes production was ever filmed.2 Despite this, there were numerous encounters between the Ballets Russes and the burgeoning Hollywood film industry during and immediately after the company's American tours in 1916 and 1917. Tales of these encounters paint a picture of the reciprocal fascination and mutual attraction of Diaghilev's troupe and the American film industry, and the spheres of stage and screen more broadly. A few of these connections have been examined: film scholar Gaylyn Studlar, for example, has discussed the influence of the Ballets Russes on the mise-en-scène of The Thief of Baghdad (dir. Raoul Walsh, 1924), particularly the extent to which the film's star, Douglas Fairbanks, was inspired by Vaslav Nijinsky's choreography and stylized movements.3 Scholars have also explored cases in which Ballets Russes dancers went on to choreograph dance numbers for American films, such as Adolph Bolm's work with director Dudley Murphy on Danse Macabre (1922) and Theodore Kosloff's collaborations with director Cecil DeMille on nearly thirty Hollywood productions following his time with the Ballets Russes.4 Relatedly, Lynn Garafola has cited such “crossovers and parallels” between film and the Ballets Russes, though she has focused primarily on the relationship between European avant-garde and experimental film strategies and the company's aesthetics.5 However, the Ballets Russes's sustained influence on silent film culture in the United States—its production, narratives, aesthetics, and exhibition—as well the extent to which Hollywood crafted and offered American audiences its own vision of the Ballets Russes and its dancers long after the company departed, remains largely unexamined. This omission is hardly surprising: not only have many of the silent films (and silent film scores) that may most clearly demonstrate these connections been lost, but crucial information about the production and exhibition contexts in which these relationships were most visible are scattered and incomplete as well. Finally, the West Coast leg of the Ballets Russes's second US tour, which brought the company into the orbit of the burgeoning American film industry, is rarely discussed.In this article, I examine this mutual attraction between the Ballets Russes and cinema, beginning with the company's arrival in Los Angeles for a week of performances in late December 1916, during which Hollywood elite attended performances that received rave reviews and company members, in turn, were treated to behind-the-scenes visits to the town's film studios. With this expanded vision of the troupe's activities and reception in mind, I examine two types of cinematic “appearances” that Diaghilev's dancers made in the years immediately following the company's US tours: first, the performances by company members and invocations of company repertoire and aesthetics in the live stage acts so often integrated into film presentations in the silent era and, second, the incorporation of Ballets Russes dancers, repertoire, and aesthetics, as well as the Ballets Russes as a broader signifier, into a number of feature-length films. In the former performances, I argue, the visual and narrative themes, music, and choreographies associated with the company were reprised on cinema stages, most often under the direction of the company's male dancers. The latter performances offered a more fanciful and imaginative vision of the company onscreen, frequently deploying either female Ballets Russes dancers or fictional modern Russian ballerina characters as visual—and highly visible—icons of the Ballets Russes and American mythologies of Russian culture and politics more broadly. Both types of cinematic (re)appearance, I argue, introduced new audiences to the company's choreographic, musical, and visual aesthetics, allowing these aesthetics to circulate and the company's influence to grow long after its departure. These performances also benefited the film industry, enabling filmmakers, studios, and exhibitors alike to associate themselves with the company's cultural capital, its status as high art, and the aura of mystique and intrigue that surrounded it.Scholars such as Hanna Järvinen have recently challenged standard narratives about why the Ballets Russes failed “to conquer America.”6 Yet the Ballets Russes spawned a fleet of reprises, tributes, and references on cinema stages and screens throughout the country. These cinematic performances generated their own advertisements, programs, and reviews that gestured toward the Ballets Russes and simultaneously invited an ever-expanding segment of the American public to engage with and find their own meanings in both these cinematic “texts” and the Ballets Russes performances and mythologies that they referenced.7 Perhaps this is not a conquest. But this complex, layered, and multivalent intermedial web, I believe, is evidence of the company's significant influence on art and entertainment in the United States, as well as its lasting resonance within American culture.Bypassed during the Ballets Russes's first US tour, Los Angeles audiences and critics were on pins and needles waiting for their first glimpse of the company in the fall of 1916. “Dancers Are Coming!” declared a Los Angeles Times headline, announcing that the company was set to arrive on Christmas day for a weeklong engagement at Clune's Auditorium.8 Over the next several weeks, audiences in Los Angeles were bombarded with glowing previews hyping premier danseur Vaslav Nijinsky; Schéhérazade and other signature ballets; the seventy-piece orchestra traveling with the troupe; and the “wild opulence” of the company's scenery and costumes.9 By the time the Ballets Russes arrived via train—six baggage cars of equipment, three coaches and a dining car for the performers, plus a private car for Nijinsky and an extra baggage car decked for the company's Christmas Eve party, the Los Angeles Examiner reported—the press was near fever pitch. Los Angeles residents were equally excited. The company's premiere, which featured Nijinsky's new ballet Till Eulenspiegel and the dances from Prince Igor, was completely sold out and began late due to the large crowd, which included film industry elite and familiar faces from the screen. As newspapers gleefully reported, the delay was compounded when the dancers, on hearing that Charlie Chaplin was in attendance, demanded that he be brought backstage. One critic explained, “[They] had all heard of him and seen him . . . so that Nijinsky, Revalles, Lopokova, all of them, kowtowed to him, and I shouldn't be surprised if someone kissed him; . . . foreigners do that when greatly enthused.”10That Chaplin and others working in early film would have been eager to see the Ballets Russes is hardly surprising. Those in the film industry had looked to the dance world for inspiration and personnel since its advent, yielding early moving picture experiments such as Thomas Edison's Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895) and silent feature films like director Lois Weber's The Dumb Girl of Portici, starring Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova (Universal, 1915). For early filmmakers, dance was understood as a means of displaying—and a model for exploring—film's capacity to represent movement, as well as a strategy for creating rhythm, pace, and mood onscreen. Many directors, such as D. W. Griffith, also believed that dance training cultivated an attention to physical presence and a slower, more musical movement style that worked far better on screen than that quicker, larger gestures that many theater actors brought to film studios.11 As a result, a number of dance schools and companies in and around Los Angeles—perhaps most notably Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn's Denishawn, but also former Ballets Russes dancers Theodore Kosloff and Alexandra Maria Baldina's ballet school and British dancer Ernest Belcher's Celeste School—quickly became affiliated with the film industry, training film actors and actresses to move on camera and providing a steady supply of dancers for film productions.12 That the principles of movement and gesture established by François Delsarte are as visible in the aesthetics of silent film as they are in the aesthetics of modern dance, as scholar Carrie Preston has demonstrated, is hardly a coincidence.13Reviews of the Ballets Russes's Los Angeles performances were strikingly enthusiastic, praising the company's vigor, speed, and variety. As Los Angeles critic Edwin Schallert wrote, “Daring to the last degree in its big conceptions, startling throughout in its massing of color, and breathtaking in the swiftness of its supreme moments, the first performance of the Diaghileff Ballet Russe . . . made all other dancing we have seen here seem like child's play.”14 Schallert continued at length, almost rhapsodic: “They have an all-consuming energy that leaves you dazed, captivated, and inspired at once. The dancers come and go like magic, they concentrate more motion into the minute than could seem possible, and they finally leave you again seemingly almost before you had realized their presence. . . . [T]here is something inconceivably swift in the magnetic power of this troupe.”15 As exciting to critics as the choreography were the musical performances that accompanied it. “The pulsation of the Borodine [sic] music to the Prince Igor, played in masterly style by an orchestra,” the Los Angeles Times reported, was “worth more than half the price of admission in itself.”16 A critic for the Los Angeles Examiner concluded a description of Cléopâtre by noting, “The Balakireff music is superb; rushing hither and thither with the sweep of the violins predominant—the clash of the cymbals and rumble of tympani combining with the winds to form an overwhelming tornado of Russian fire and expression.”17 The close relationships between music and choreography were praised as well; after watching the company's rendition of Carnaval, Schallert asserted, “Schumann must have dreamt something like this when he wrote this piano series.”18But it was the company's dancers—especially the company's male dancers—who stole the show. Descriptions of the grace and delicacy of female dancers including Lydia Lopokova quickly gave way to lavish praise for Nijinsky's “technical wizardry” and “many-sided genius,” his “rhythmic perfection” and “delicate yet virile suppleness.”19 As Edwin Schallert waxed in an account that, despite its euphoria, was fairly typical of the Los Angeles reaction, “Strange realms does the genius of Waslav Nijinsky invade. Amid the floating clouds of his imagination's horizon arise unreal colors and mysterious shapes of things wherewith to create the background for realities that venture into untried provinces in the world of art. He opens by turn the portals of charm, of fire, of magnificence, he treads the corridors of symbolism and drama and the plastic arts, and he and his assistants lead their audiences through the ever-varying suggestions of these things.”20 Similar accolades were awarded to the “wonderfully expressive” Bolm, whose “facial expression and muscular grace plac[e] him on a plane but little removed from the master, Nijinsky, himself.”21 A few critics acknowledged the company's difficulty moving scenery quickly on opening night, but the concerns about ticket prices, the sexual overtones of Faun, and racial representations in Schéhérazade that had dominated New York and Boston reviews were either absent, dismissed outright, or even mocked by the Los Angeles press.22 Los Angeles audiences, in short, loved the Ballets Russes.The Ballets Russes dancers and personnel were equally enamored with Hollywood, based on anecdotes that emerged in both trade press and first-hand accounts. Company members visited at least two film studios, where they watched the production process with curiosity and wonder. In the February 1917 issue of The Moving Picture Weekly, a short article described the company's tour of a Universal City studio, where they looked on as director W. W. Beaudine shot one of his many comedy shorts. The article reports, The particular set on which they were working had a living room and a hall room next door. In the hall was a telephone on a table. The [ballet master] remembered he had an appointment and was late, and he requested permission to use the phone. Beaudine's sense of humor immediately came to the surface, and he said, “Why, certainly.” The ballet master sat for quite a long time at the phone and then appealed to the director. He tried again. Finally Beaudine told him it must be that the line was out of order. But the Russian never knew that the telephone cord extended no further than the edge of the carpet and that it was merely a “prop” instrument.23About halfway through Charlie Chaplin's autobiography, there is a similar—albeit far more poignant—account of Nijinsky and other Ballets Russes personnel watching the production of a short film in which Chaplin was acting (see Figure 2). According to Chaplin, Nijinsky “sat behind the camera, watching me at work on a scene which I thought was funny, but he never smiled. . . . Before leaving he came and shook my hands, and in his hollow voice said how much he enjoyed my work and asked if he could come again. ‘Of course,’ I said. For two more days he sat . . . watching me. . . . [A]t the end of each day he would compliment me. ‘Your comedy is balletique, you are a dancer,’ he said.”24The details of both stories are likely exaggerated, and the Moving Picture Weekly tale seems particularly apocryphal: it is difficult to believe that anyone associated with the Ballets Russes was not intimately familiar with the concept of sets and props. Indeed, the story seems designed to tacitly imply that company members embodied a sort of innocence—an exotic primitivity—when it came to modern technology like telephones and film. It also conjures for readers an oft-cited distinction between stage and screen in the ‘teens and early 1920s: film's ability to achieve a sense of realism to which stage productions could only aspire—or, in the case of the Ballets Russes, to which many stage productions did not aspire at all. Yet while highlighting the radical differences between comedy shorts and Schéhérazade, these anecdotes also highlight the intimate connections between dance and silent film. Perhaps most importantly, they point to the shared artistry and imagination of these two projects: the continuity between the experiments in choreography, design, and music that the Ballets Russes was conducting onstage as the troupe reimagined twentieth-century ballet and the experiments in movement, mise-en-scène, and visual language that filmmakers and actors were conducting in studios and on location as they imagined into existence narrative cinema. In these visits by Diaghilev's dancers to film studios, in Chaplin's attendance at the Ballets Russes premiere, in the open-minded and enthusiastic reception of the company in Hollywood and beyond, a reciprocal patronage, engagement, and admiration comes into focus.Though Ballets Russes performances were never recorded, the and of the company made their way into American film culture before the company's United States tours even the cinematic in which Ballets Russes aesthetics and of the company's were most immediately were film By the late ‘teens and throughout the large in as well as throughout the offered a feature film as of a larger audiences were treated to a musical by a of live stage and comedy with short films including films, and by the feature and often an or other musical on the of a as much by as by many were around particular a an or or a particular were of acts believed to with the feature film at hand and even with theater or the of can be film trade and newspapers often only the of by the of the However, a number of male Ballets Russes dancers are more than in the of large in several that they in and dance numbers at these Adolph and also in the two US for example, were both in the worked at the and in New York and at the in Los Angeles, the in the in New York and with in but left the company before the 1916, was the at the in and a dance school in the and both of with in before dance numbers in at the and in New York and the in this is to a It is difficult to the they looked and but it is that many or at least Ballets Russes of the company's at the as did at the a of was included on a in and the dances from Prince are as of offered there in both and Ballets Russes to the United States in in the film an of a at the that it would the of the ballet in associated with or inspired by the Ballets Russes was also frequently integrated into at many film during and in the of the troupe's American According to and of at large in newspapers and film trade of Schéhérazade and Till Eulenspiegel were as on such of to the of a also became a popular musical of these were at accompanied by and choreography that Ballets Russes a at New that Schéhérazade as the for example, the stage was with two and in and and a as a of the I a with a scene with a and all to out the music associated with the Ballets Russes both in and as film was actively in the of film trade These of associated with the company such as and exhibitors on where to and piano of their and praised theater and music for their with A in a December issue of Moving Picture for example, with a letter from an in of of the dances in Prince you me how to the there is no music but popular music in my little The that exhibitors the in New York for As was often the case with in film trade this was likely a by a than the of an the simultaneously and a demand for the company's music, a popular with audiences from the company's and exhibitors the to of it into their programs, if only to with their were the filmic in which the music, choreography, and male dancers of the Ballets Russes continued to be to long after the company left the United States is not surprising. offered an for dance and music with exciting musical and stage acts week in and week likely at the to music associated with the Ballets Russes and to the male were with the company in the American The numbers both Ballets Russes eager to of the company's performances and to see the dancers had often been in the company's film art music and comedy from stage to screen from an experimental film short to a popular dance accompanied by a had been in the orchestra an the of the Ballets Russes that most American all-consuming color, and of and But even as these male dancers on their with the Ballets Russes, also the to with new movement aesthetics and performance the of the both to new and and to more and than the company's own performances had As Adolph wrote in his autobiography, is no better for dancer and public than the motion picture the stages of in New Los Angeles, and beyond, male dancers like and were to their aesthetics, of dance, and themselves as performers, while simultaneously and American with and admiration for Diaghilev's own the music and choreography of the Ballets Russes were reprised in film programs, of the company's aesthetics, and were visible and in a number of feature-length silent films in the late and early the company's male dancers and were most visible in both the press the Ballets Russes tours and on the stages of it was the company's female dancers were most visible onscreen. female Ballets Russes dancers were by studios to in films following the second American tour, often in that a to they had a number of films about fictional Russian often played by American were made during these These or in Ballets the and performances of the company's female dancers. Indeed, while film the company's male dancers a to themselves as and at a from Diaghilev's these feature films female Ballets Russes and time and their and performances became of the company and Russian more it is one of the films a fictional Russian ballerina that most conjures the Ballets Russes onscreen. The which and is was by in as the second Ballets Russes tour was to a by the film in the of Russian dancer and A the film as she to with a ballet company and an The company's director that she is the of a Russian and all is when and with making way for to a the film's narrative and visual there are several references to the Ballets Russes and the that had around the company by 1917. Perhaps most the film troupe's from to for its premiere Diaghilev's of the Ballets Russes in the for its first The director in the film also to was with a and around about sexual and a relationship with Vaslav Nijinsky However, the Ballets Russes is early in the film after several of dance an Ballet Russe Ballet In the that and Ballet by Theodore Kosloff's an extended by a large of dancers. It is not the Ballets Russes's choreography, of course, but the and are not the film and theater music would likely have attempted to highlight the by the with from Those had seen the company would have the and members could quite have it for the and publicity for the film on Kosloff's as evidence of the and of the film's dance if not the film as a A dancer had arrived in New York City to and in and would go on to as dance master of the Metropolitan Company in the Kosloff's with the Russian Ballet were and his by was described as a and Russian engagement for the the trade press was of the most ever made in the motion picture and the for Moving Picture came close to that the film was as as the Ballets other ever such of the art of the Indeed, went so far as to that the stage with Kosloff had into a As performance was and by the presence in the of . . . is of how these of the dance go about in and how they into of dancing These dancing in