Janko the Musician + In the Land of the 10th Muse

Village boy Janek has always loved music. For an alleged attempt to steal a violin, the boy is sent to a reform house. Many years later he’s a renowned violinist. Will his criminal past affect the love story with a famous chorus girl? 

Janko The Musician is one of the first Polish sound films, yet after World War II only an incomplete, silent copy was known. Thanks to a sensational discovery of original records with the soundtrack and a meticulous reconstruction based on two incomplete copies, Janko the Musician regained its original form. Today it’s a very interesting example of a film made in the transitional period between silent and sound cinema.

Michał Pieńkowski

Screened alongside In the Land of the 10^th Muse (dir. Witold Dunin-Bredsznajder, Poland, early 1930s, 10 min). The actor shows what working on set looked like in the silent era, and the sound engineer shows how much has changed when sound entered the picture, and also demonstrates how sound is recorded on tape. In the Land of the 10^th Muse is a unique behind-the-scenes which lets us take a look inside a pre-war film studio.