An early screening of some silent film?

A century ago (May 16), we read from The Malta Herald of Monday, May 17, 1909, the Grand Cinematograph of Strada Reale was attracting large crowds by exhibiting a curious miniature man, Baron Pouce, aged 47 years, only 34 inches high, and his miniature son, aged 11 years, only 24 inches high, who were both perfect and proportionately symmetrical in their smallness.

There was nothing repellant or gruesome about them, it was reported. The tiny son especially being very bright and very attractive.

Could this be an early screening of some silent film in Malta? And can anyone know where, in Strada Reale, this Grand Cinematograph was?

According to A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen by Daniel Blum, the original motion picture machine came into being in 1889. Thomas Alva Edison is credited for this invention though at first it was not taken seriously. The first recorded film in 1893 was made of a sneeze performed by Fred Ott, an assistant to Edison.

By 1908, nickelodeons, as motion picture theatres were then called, were springing up all over America. With the public showing an increased interest in this new form of entertainment, by 1909 more motion picture companies were being formed and the creation of stars started with Mary Pickford, Mabel Normand, Annette Kellerman, Maurice Costello, Alice Joyce, Florence Lawrence, Pearl White and many others.

By 1909, many one-reel features started being produced such as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, Anthony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. Other films included The Violin Maker of Verona, The Prince And the Pauper, Oliver Twist and the first important animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur.