London’s Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2008 – Tuesday, April 8

In Alfred Schirokauer and Reinhold Schünzel's 1927 silent comedy Der Himmel auf Erden / Heaven on Earth, Schünzel plays a moralistic city councilor who "is forced by his brother's will to take a legacy of 500,000 marks on condition that he takes over the running of notorious nightclub Heaven on Earth. Initial disdain gives way to an appearance in full drag." Sounds a bit like La Cage aux folles? With Charlotte Ander, Adele Sandrock, Paul Morgan, and none other than S.Z. Sakall.

Documentary double bill: Daniele Salaris' The Beirut Apt. (above) and Bram Vergeer's 7 Years. "In The Beirut Apt, LGBT people describe their struggle to live authentically in Lebanon. 7 Years brings to light gay life in Kenya."

"Significant Fragments" is described as a collection of "key fragments of gay representation from the silent era include Stan Laurel pursued by [an] amorous cowboy, wildly sissy boxers and Chaplin smooching with a girl dressed as a boy."

The featured shorts are: D.W. Griffith's The Old Actor (1912), with a pre-superstardom Mary Pickford; Charles Chaplin's Behind the Screen (1916), with Chaplin and frequent leading lady Edna Purviance; a five-minute extract from Wilhelm Prager's The Way to Strength and Beauty; Ralph Ceder's The Soilers (1923), with Stan Laurel; and a five-minute extract from Adrian Brunel's Battling Bruisers: Some Boxing Buffoonery (1926).

Piano accompaniment by Costas Fotopoulos.

More details/schedules at the festival's website