FILM

Discovery Green and Houston Public Media present Houston Public Media Silent Film Concerts. At the Anheuser-Busch Stage and Fondren Performance Space. Houston Public Media presents a series of silent film screenings accompanied by live music. Back by popular demand, classic silent films get a new twist thanks to Texas’ best indie classical musicians.

April 6, Friday, 8:00pm: Films by George Melies. Loreta Kovacic performs her original score to "Films by George Melies." A collection of 16 short films by French filmmaker and special effects innovator, George Melies (pictured). 

Georges Méliès (8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938), was a French illusionist and filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Méliès, a prolific innovator in the use of special effects, accidentally discovered the substitution stop trick in 1896, and was one of the first filmmakers to use multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted colour in his work.

Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality through cinematography, Méliès is sometimes referred to as the first "Cinemagician". Two of his most well-known films are A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904). Both stories involve strange, surreal voyages, somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films, though their approach is closer to fantasy. Méliès was also an early pioneer of horror cinema, which can be traced back to his Le Manoir du diable (1896).

The contribution of Méliès to cinema history is the subject of the 2007 illustrated novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, and Martin Scorsese's 2011 film adaptation of it as Hugo with Ben Kingsley playing Méliès. The film recreates how the Méliès studio functioned, features several segments of early films by Méliès, and portrays the neglect and later recognition he received in his lifetime. The movie was nominated for 11 Oscars and in February 2012 won five.

Known for her virtuoso performances from the Boom Boom room to Carnegie Hall, Loreta Kovacic’s style is inspired by music from around the world, a unique, international mixture of influences. This “International Immigrant”, also known as “Texas Slav”, calls her own style “Slavic & Western”. With a Doctorate degree in piano performance from Rice University, she composes, teaches, directs, produces and plays in her studio in Houston Heights.