Portland's Hollywood Theatre is about to get a lot louder for a festival built around films that never made a sound. Sonic Silents, a new four-day event running September 17 through 20, 2026, brings brand-new live scores to classic silent films, performed by the very musicians who wrote them, at the century-old movie palace on Sandy Boulevard.
The festival is curated by Mark Orton, who told KATU about the project in an interview Tuesday night. Orton is a Portland-based multi-instrumentalist who co-founded the acoustic chamber group Tin Hat, and he has previously composed scores for Oscar-nominated films including Alexander Payne's *Nebraska* and *The Holdovers*, according to OPB. Orton reportedly recorded *The Holdovers* soundtrack in Portland using period-accurate 1970s equipment, the station notes.
Rather than leaning on traditional organ accompaniment, the lineup draws on Portland's indie and chamber music scene. The roster includes Grammy and Tony Award-winning bassist Todd Sickafoose, Los Lobos saxophonist Steve Berlin, DownBeat critics poll winner Jenny Scheinman, and Decemberists members Jenny Conlee and Nate Query, spanning jazz, chamber music, and indie rock, per the Hollywood Theatre.
Opening Night Summons a Clay Giant
The festival opens on September 17 with a program called “Snatched From Dark Powers,” pairing Paul Wegener's 1920 German Expressionist film *The Golem* — centered on a clay giant brought to life in medieval Prague — with a new live score by Steve Berlin, Scott Amendola, Adam Dorn, and Max Knouse. The night also includes experimental shorts by Hans Richter, according to the theater's program details.
The following night, September 18, shifts to a program titled “Surreal Paris & The Insectarium,” presenting newly scored early silent shorts by pioneering filmmakers Ladislas Starewicz, Georges Méliès, Alice Guy, and Luis Buñuel. Starewicz was an early animator famous for using preserved insects as puppets, and the program will be performed by ensembles featuring Jenny Conlee, Rachel Blumberg, Jon Neufeld, and Courtney Von Drehle.
Centennial Send-Off for Buster Keaton's Train Wreck Classic
The festival's centerpiece arrives September 19 and 20 with a centennial presentation of Buster Keaton's *The General*, a silent Civil War comedy. The screening features an expanded 90th-anniversary score by Orton performed with string players from Portland's 45th Parallel Universe, accompanying a newly restored transfer from Kino Lorber, according to footage posted on YouTube. The program also includes short film openers scored by Jenny Scheinman and Todd Sickafoose.
Keaton filmed *The General* in Cottage Grove, Oregon, in 1926 after plans to shoot in Georgia fell through, transforming the small timber community into 1862 Marietta, Georgia. The production produced what's considered the most expensive stunt of the silent era, when a real locomotive crashed off a bridge into the Row River — a wreck that reportedly remained a local tourist attraction until World War II, according to The Oregon Encyclopedia.
The timing isn't incidental. Sonic Silents caps a year of dual centennials for Portland's cinema history: the Hollywood Theatre's own 1926 opening as a 1,500-seat silent movie palace and vaudeville venue, and Keaton's Oregon-shot masterpiece from the same year. The theater opened with the silent comedy *More Pay, Less Work* and gave the surrounding Hollywood District its name, per the theater's own historical materials.
A Nonprofit Steward Behind the Screen
The Hollywood Theatre has been owned and operated since 1997 by Film Forever Northwest, a nonprofit that also acquired Portland's Movie Madness video rental archive in 2018 to preserve more than 90,000 physical media titles and establish a dedicated local Film District, as Hoodline detailed in its coverage of the archive's relocation across Sandy Boulevard. That earlier reporting also outlined how the nonprofit has expanded its footprint alongside a growing membership base.
Film Forever Northwest generated $6.47 million in total revenue during fiscal year 2025 and relies on a subscriber base of more than 6,000 active members to fund its theater operations and community film initiatives, according to nonprofit financial data compiled by Cause IQ. The organization employs approximately 58 staff members across its Portland properties, the same data shows.
Sonic Silents also fits into a broader national trend in 2026, as independent theaters and venues including Detroit's Senate Theater, Tucson's Loft Cinema, and the Cleveland Museum of Art host their own centennial silent film programs backed by live ensembles, Hoodline has reported. Many of the country's 1920s movie palaces are marking their 100th anniversaries this year, adding a wider context to Portland's own celebration.
Hoodline previously covered the Hollywood Theatre's 100th birthday festivities in July, which included live organ scores for silent films and early plans for the Film District now taking shape around the venue.
