This year’s NFM Organ Cinema series will close with Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality, a burlesque comedy about the multi-generational conflict between the American Canfield and McKay families. The bittersweet production is filled with scenes full of acting bravura, set off by lyrical humour. The screening will be graced by the organ impressions of Vincent Thévenaz, an excellent improviser and titular organist of Geneva’s Saint-Pierre Cathedral.

When William McKay receives an unexpected letter announcing an inheritance, a vision of instant wealth is born in his head. Radiant at the prospect of fortune, he sets off for his hometown of Rockville, not suspecting that this trip will become an ironic supplement to dreams of easy happiness. Instead of a warm welcome, he is met by relatives who decide to turn their “hospitality” into a truly bitter comedy of errors. Our Hospitality, a work peppered with gags and subtle wit, and permeated with melancholy, is today a jewel in the crown of silent cinema. It was directed by an artist of versatile talent – Buster Keaton, a legend compared to Chaplin, and at the same time an individualist who found his own, unique language in pantomime. A childhood in the world of vaudeville, where he shone from a young age, forged in him an instinct for perfection. “It is undoubtedly the most beautiful of all Keaton’s films,” enthused French critic Michel Denis. Indeed, it is more than a comedy: it is social criticism mixed with artistry, covered with excellent situational humor.

“Keaton perfectly understood his medium. He took his comedy work very seriously. He knew that when attempting to produce burlesques lasting sixty minutes, he had to change the way one thinks about gags. In shorter forms, there could be a lot of them, in longer ones they had to be limited and skilfully interwoven into the plot. They had to be more natural and credible," highlights film expert Rafał Glapiak. In the case of Vincent Thévenaz’s improvisation, an excellent sense of form and how it affects musical coherence is evident in his bold organ improvisations, to be admired during the last screening of the NFM Organ Cinema this summer.