We return to the majestic Holy Trinity Church, Eccleshall for our final screening of the 2025 Pocket Film Festival. To close this year's festival we will be celebrating the 95th anniversary of Alred Hitchcock's Blackmail with a special silent screening of the film with Darius Battiwalla providing live musical accompaniment on the organ.
Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail is a landmark in British cinema. Released in June 1929, it was hailed as 'the first British all-talkie film'. Characteristically, Hitchcock makes flamboyant use of the new technical and aesthetic opportunities which sound offered. But the film was also released in a silent version, and to this day some critics consider this version a superior work.
The film will be accompanied by a live score on the organ by Darius Battiwalla. In the last few years Darius has been increasingly in demand as a silent film accompanist on both organ and piano. After a sell-out performance of Nosferatu in 2009 at the Sheffield Festival, he has accompanied Phantom of the Opera, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on the organ, and on the piano has played for the premieres of the newly restored Helen of Four Gates.
