About

Northern Silents fuses new music with film to create inspiring live events across the North of England.

More than a century ago, a new technology swept the world, changing societies and giving birth to a new art form - the cinema. Silent moving images usually unfolded with musical accompaniment; maybe a pianist or organist, a trio or small ensemble, sometimes an orchestra. A film could travel the world, bringing the same experience to audiences wherever it was projected - but the music was local and live. 

Northern Silents reimagines - sometimes radically - a relationship between film and live music. Musicians from diverse genres and backgrounds bring new sonic life to the first chapter of cinema history, alongside classics of experimental film and, occasionally, new silent film. Jazz and folk, experimental musicians, specialist silent film players, classical artists, brass bands, ensembles and orchestras - all contribute to Northern Silents’ programme. 

Find out more about how we work with music

Northern Silents presents a year-round programme and Northern Silent Film Festival every October and - new this June - Silents by the Sea in Morecambe. We screen a wide variety of films, working with archives around the world  to bring newly restored and rarely-seen titles to audiences in Northern England. Our unique live events take place in cinemas and theatres, music venues and concert halls, heritage buildings and village halls across the North of England.

See what’s on

Northern Silents also presents and commissions new composed music, including three scores by celebrated composer Neil Brand – Hitchcock’s The Lodger (2017), Oliver Twist (2018), and the first brass band score for silent film, Echoes of the North: Four Chapters in Time (2022/3).

Northern Silents was previously known as Yorkshire Silent Film Festival.