film

Here's a rare screening of Mario Roncoroni’s 1915 amazingly forward-looking Italian silent film Filibus, a gloriously eccentric adventure about a master criminal who travels by airship, steals from the wealthy and stays one step ahead of the law. By day, Filibus poses as the aristocratic Baroness Troixmonde; by night, she becomes a masked aerial pirate and uses ingenious gadgets and elaborate deceptions to confound a dogged detective, Kutt-Hendy. Her schemes take an audacious turn when she adopts a male identity to pursue a romantic interest in the detective’s sister, Leonora.

Largely overlooked for the bulk of the century following its release, it was brought back to prominence in the late 90s and early 00s and is now recognised as a remarkable work of early cinema. Its playful treatment of disguise, gender and sexual identity gives a subversive edge, while its fantastical technology anticipates the imagination of later science fiction. A fascinating precursor to the modern action heroine.