Paul Robeson was a singer, actor, American football player, intellectual and activist. He fought racism and South African apartheid and spent his career seeking roles in which Black characters were portrayed as complex human beings. Although he became best known for sound films, his film career began in the silent era with two groundbreaking productions: Oscar Micheaux’s Body and Soul and Kenneth Macpherson’s Borderline.
Frustrated by the limited artistic opportunities in Hollywood, Robeson turned his attention to Europe. There he came into contact with the Pool Group, an avant-garde collective of writers and artists centred around the influential film journal Close Up. Together they explored how cinema could develop a visual language of its own, drawing inspiration from German Expressionism, the French avant-garde and the montage theories of Eisenstein, Kuleshov and Pudovkin.
The result is Borderline. An interracial love triangle exposes a web of jealousy, desire and violence, as well as the racist prejudice and hypocrisy of a seemingly idyllic Swiss village. Rapid montage, extreme close-ups and associative images make the characters’ emotions almost tangible.
Paul Robeson stars opposite his wife Eslanda Robeson and the poet H.D. Borderline was director Kenneth Macpherson’s only feature-length film, but it remains a radical work far ahead of its time.
About the Netherlands Silent Film Festival
The Netherlands Silent Film Festival (NSFF) in Eindhoven is the largest festival dedicated to silent film in the Netherlands. In this original form of cinema, stories are told through images, expression and music. Without spoken dialogue, the inventiveness of the filmmakers takes centre stage.
At the festival and through programmes presented throughout the year, NSFF makes the cinematic heritage of the silent era accessible to a wide audience. It does so through film screenings, educational projects, workshops and lectures. The creativity and innovation of early cinema deserve to be seen and heard again.
For its programme, the NSFF team follows current developments in the international world of silent film, from recent rediscoveries and restorations to new research. Audience favourites share the bill with hidden gems, all presented with live musical accompaniment by international film musicians.
