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Born Jan. 3, 1905, in Los Angeles' Chinatown, Wong played the lead role in the first Technicolor feature, The Toll of the Sea, in 1922, when she was just 17. By 19 she was intriguing against the movies' top action star, Douglas Fairbanks, in his super-production The Thief of Bagdad. At 23 she went to Europe, where she starred in a half-dozen A pictures - including her best one, E.A. Dupont's Piccadilly - and, when sound films arrived, performing roles in three languages: English, German and French.

Even though the vintage reels shown of Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova spooled three weeks ago in Pordenone, the aura of the dancer, her interminable legs, her precision on tip-toe and her incredible grace and femininity tinged with mystery, linger in the minds of all festival-goers who viewed them.

UKULELESCOPE Film accompagnati dal vivo da / Films accompanied live by The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (Dave Suich, Richie Williams, Hester Goodman, George Hinchcliffe, Kitty Lux, Will Grove White, Jonty Bankes) Ideazione e produzione / Created and produced by: Hester Goodman Musica di / Original music: Hester Goodman, George Hinchcliffe

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is a group of all-singing, all-strumming Ukulele players, using instruments bought with loose change, which believes that all genres of music are available for reinterpretation, as long as they are played on the Ukulele.

Jean Darling, child prodigy of the silent film era, now a sprightly 84, is present as Guest of Honour at this year's Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone to introduce the restored copy of OUR GANG films she starred in during the '20s. As a child star, her colleagues included Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Jean Harlow, Hal Raoch, Fatty Arbuckle, Marion Davies, Greta Garbo and Clark Gable. She is one of the few remaining actors of the silent film period left to witness the scene as she did in her autobiography a peek in the past, published in 1995.

This film is shown in dual homage to the great Max Linder himself, and to the maker of the film, his daughter Maud Linder, this year's Jean Mitry Award honoree. On 31 October 1925 Linder, not quite 42 years old, and his 20-year-old wife died in a Paris hotel, in an apparent suicide pact. They left behind their 16-month-old baby, who was taken away by her mother's family, and raised in ignorance of her father's identity. Not until she was about 20 did Maud Linder learn who her father was, and began her quest to rediscover him.

The Rose of Rhodesia (1918), one of the earliest feature films made in South Africa, presented at this year's Giornate del Cinema Muto is a five-reel romance cantered on a stolen diamond, an interracial friendship, and an anti-colonial uprising, The Rose of Rhodesia impressed contemporary reviewers with its daring realism, spectacular outdoor locations, and casting of African actors in prominent roles. Considered lost for most of the last century, the film may claim to be the first fictional treatment of Zimbabwe in cinema.

The film Der Golem is a classic film – doubly so.

First, it has long nestled comfortably within the list of titles that make up the German Expressionist movement of the 1920s. Teachers of survey history courses are more likely to show Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, but a serious enthusiast will make a point of seeing Der Golem as well.

From the start, reviewers recognized Der Golem as Expressionist. In 1921 the New York Times' critic wrote, "Resembling somewhat the curious constructions of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, the settings may be called expressionistic, but to the common man they are best described as expressive, for it is their eloquence that characterizes them." (Spellbound in Darkness, p. 362) In 1930, Paul Rotha's The Film Till Now, the most ambitious world history of cinema in English to date, appeared. Highly influential in establishing the canon of classics, Rotha adored Weimar cinema, including Der Golem.

Francesca Bertini was one of the most successful silent film divas of Italy. Born 1892, she played in films as a child in Naples and in Rome.

Sherlock Holmes comes to Pordenone this year where a crop of his early productions will be shown in the TEATRO VERDI to ardent fans.