Have you seen Dune: Part Two yet? Our desire to ride the very crest of a zeitgeist wave before the next exciting thing comes along sets the rhythm of cinema takings across the land. A normal drop in box-office gross from the first weekend to the second is a massive 40%. At the single-screen Hippodrome, this drop-off would make me think carefully about whether to schedule a blockbuster title at all. 

Given the stone-cold data, imagine the reaction I got when pitching the idea of a whole festival of films that first did the rounds about 100 years ago. I was met with quizzical eyebrows and kindly-meant warnings that my heart would be broken because audiences ‘just don’t turn out for dusty old silent films’. Fast forward 14 years and The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival (HippFest) is alive and kicking.

You could put it down to the live improvised or composed music accompaniment that offers a fresh interpretation of each movie. Or that buzz people get from having an excuse to dress up in Gatsby-era outfits without attracting weird looks from the rest of the crowd. But I think it’s also the fact that all those films still ‘speak’ to us. Where do you stand on Bradley Cooper’s fake nose in Maestro? Well, you can pick up the debate after watching Lon Chaney as Fagin in the 1922 Oliver Twist. Still raging that Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig weren’t nominated for Oscars? Then check out Frances Marion’s work as screenwriter of The Wind (1928) or director of Just Around The Corner (1921) and ask yourself why, despite evidence of Marion’s hands-on involvement in many stages of the motion pictures she wrote, she is credited with co-directing only one.

Livid that Yorgos Lanthimos erased the Glasgow setting of Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things? Wait until you see how American studios represented Scotland in Peggy (1916) compared to how a Scottish filmmaker lovingly portrayed her Shetland home in The Rugged Island (1933). The old films do still have something to say to us today, even the ones that say it ‘silently’. And in an industry that conspires to make us believe that films have a short shelf life, it’s good to know that audiences will turn out in great numbers for cinema experiences with a timeless appeal.

HippFest, The Hippodrome, Bo’ness, Wednesday 20–Sunday 24 March; main picture: Lily Kelly.