NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art announces the third annual presentation of Silent Movie Week, the summer series that brings seven recent silent film restorations to MoMA over the course of seven consecutive evenings, from July 30 through August 5, 2025. This year’s presentation includes two US and three New York restoration premieres, and opens with the world premiere of MoMA’s recent digital restoration of Walter Ruttman’s Berlin: Symphony of a City (1927), presented in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden (weather permitting) and co-organized with Neue Galerie New York. The screening will be preceded by a musical performance by cellist Derek Louie, a graduate of the Perlman Music Program and the Juilliard School. Silent Movie Week 2025 is organized by Dave Kehr, Curator, and Steve Macfarlane, Department Assistant, Department of Film.


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As a commercial medium, silent film lasted for only about 30 years, but those 30 years represented a creative explosion with few parallels in the art world. It’s estimated that only 20 percent of the films made between 1895 and 1930 survive, and yet the work of preserving and restoring the remaining films continues. MoMA is one of several archives around the world with significant silent film holdings, and this annual series invites audiences to enjoy some of the recent restoration work done by MoMA and colleagues across the globe.


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Opening night features MoMA’s recent restoration of Walter Ruttmann's 1927 landmark film Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt), which evocatively captures a day in the life of Weimar-era Berlin. Beginning with the arrival of a morning train and concluding in nightfall, the film's five-act structure follows the metropolis from dawn to dusk, moving fluidly through factories, boulevards, cafés, and nightclubs, and capturing the mechanical rhythms and social strata of a city in transformation.

This year's lineup also includes Charles Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925), restored by Italy’s L’Immagine Ritrovato. New restorations from Germany include Karel Lamač’s Miss Saxophone (Saxophon-Susi) (1928) courtesy of Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Frankfurt, and Karl Grune’s The Street (1923) courtesy of Filmmuseum München. From the US, Herbert Brenon’s Beau Geste (1926) was restored by Robert A. Harris (The Film Preserve, Ltd.) and James T. Mockoski (The Maltese Film Works), under the supervision of the Library of Congress; also featured are the Library of Congress’s restoration of John M. Stahl’s Memory Lane (1926) and MoMA’s restoration of Frank Borzage’s Street Angel (1928).

Most screenings will feature live musical accompaniment by Ben Model, Donald Sosin, or Makia Matsumara.


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