Manoel Theatre rolls out red carpet

Two descendants of French film pioneer and magician Georges Méliès will act as moderator and pianist for a special screening of Méliès films at the Manoel Theatre this evening.

Meeting the descendants of Georges Méliès in Valletta on Monday while visiting the Manoel Theatre in preparation for tonight’s cine-concert, was a voyage back to the time when silent movies were the new entertainment en vogue.

Marie-Hélène Lehérissey-Méliès and her pianist son Lawrence are part of the Méliès family network who are bringing back the joy their great-grandfather gave to France and the world in the first decades of the 20th century.

After a long career as a television news editor, mostly with Telefrance 1, Marie-Hélène and her son decided to take the challenge and help out Les Amis de Georges Méliès in Paris in recovering and conserving as many original spools of their ancestor’s 520 original films.

Fifty years ago, in 1961, Les Amis, mostly made up of relatives descended from the famous conjuror known for his creative visual effects in the early years of the cinema, started their collection with a score of Méliès features.

Today, while still searching for missing movies, they have so far traced and restored 211. The last find, Robinson Crusoe, will be re-premiered in Paris on December 8, 150 years to the day of his birthday.

It was Madeleine Malthèt Méliès, Georges Méliès’ niece, who hit on the idea of restoring old titles to their original glory, right after the war when she could boast of the first acquisition of eight films belonging to her grandfather. Today Méliès touring cine-concerts have reached audiences in most continents, presenting shows in embassies, universities, film colleges and theatres.

So far this year, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth, Méliès movies have already entertained cinemagoers in Ireland, Spain, Italy, five cities in Russia as well as Odessa, Bogota, Johannesburg and Singapore.

From Malta they will proceed to the Minsk Cinema Festival followed by Taiwan and Tbilisi for Christmas. After a tour of France in 2012, the Lehérisseys will be embarking on a grand tour of Latin America. Ms Lehérissey-Méliès explains that she and her son could not hold back from this family commitment: we cannot but universally share this “treasure”.

On November 21, Studio Canal of France will be launching a three-DVD souvenir gift box featuring 40 of Méliès exciting titles together with a booklet containing anecdotes and useful iconographic information.

But the biggest news for cinema aficionados is the new Hollywood movie by Martin Scorsese, Hugo, to be released in the United States on November 23 in time for Christmas.

Based on Brian Selznick’s children’s picture-book, the film relates the story of an orphan who lives within the walls of Montparnasse train station wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton.

Starring Ben Kingsley in the role of toy-maker Georges Méliès, the film could be considered as Hollywood’s homage to this great pioneer of the cinema. As with many of Martin Scorsese’s films, it’s an inspired history lesson besides being a dreamlike children’s fable.

• Music From The Silent Movies, showing projected original French silent movies accompanied by a live pianist and French and English running commentaries, starts at 8 p.m.