We invite you to a special iteration of the NFM Organ Cinema, prepared  for the Night of Museums. The programme features cinematography of the 1920s and live improvised music. Silent films by Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline will be enriched by the monumental timbre of the organ, played by Tomasz Głuchowski and accompanied by DJ Michał Macewicz.

The NFM Organ Cinema refers to a short episode in the history of cinematography, which was the use of organs in cinema halls. From the first screening of the Lumière brothers' famous Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory, films remained silent for over thirty years. At that time, cinema owners made up for the lack of sound during the screening in different ways. In the beginning, pianists were hired to provide live sound for films, and some cinemas could also afford to pay bands and even orchestras. Soon, another alternative appeared. In 1914, the rights to build organs in cinema theatres based on the idea of the Englishman Robert Hope-Jones were taken over by the American company Wurlitzer. Nearly two and a half thousand instruments left their factory, and the lion's share of them went to cinemas. Over time, the invention also reached Poland. In the late 1920s, the original American instrument was installed in the Colosseum cinema in Warsaw. More or less at the same time, a Polish-built organ was also delivered to the Sun cinema in Poznań. Already in 1930, the first sound films began to appear in our country and no musical instruments were  needed any longer during the shows.

The soundtrack to four screenings of short films by Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline will be improvised live by organist Tomasz Głuchowski and DJ Michał Macewicz, who delighted the audience during the screening of the legendary Metropolis by Fritz Lang and Häxan by Benjamin Christensen.