World-first musical performance of cinema masterpiece to close Ballarat International Foto Biennale
Federation University’s Arts Academy and Future Regions Research Centre will host a world-first musical performance and public lecture on the classic silent cinematic movie The Passion of Joan of Arc, as the closing highlight of the 2025 Ballarat International Foto Biennale.
For the first time, the film will be accompanied by a specially curated score featuring music by famed French composer Erik Satie and adapted for the screening by Arts Academy Director Professor Richard Chew, who is also musical director of the performance.
Widely considered to be one of the most important films ever made, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) depicts the final days of the trial of Joan of Arc – drawing on material from the real 15th century trial transcripts.
This screening will feature a live soundtrack of gothic-inspired music by Satie in the centenary year of his death.
Professor Chew, on piano, will be joined by soprano Kate MacFarlane, the Vox Chamber Choir, organist Rhys Boak, Varvara Vakhrameeva on violin and cellist Lachlan Dent for the performance.
In the lead-up to the performance, Federation will also host a free special guest lecture from Professor Steven Adams, visiting from the University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom.
An expert on French visual culture, Professor Adams’ lecture will offer rare insight into the significance of the film’s legacy and enduring power.
The lecture will also be accompanied by a musical performance by Professor Chew and Ms MacFarlane.
“By intertwining Satie’s ethereal and mystical music of the 1890s with this cinematic masterpiece, we are creating a unique dialogue between sound and image that has never been explored before,” Professor Chew said.
“The magnificent Fincham pipe organ we will hear in this performance was installed in 1892, exactly when Satie was writing this music.
“By turns surreal, intense and deeply moving, the film continues to shock and amaze.
“For nearly a century, Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc has been praised as one of the most visually innovative films ever made,” Professor Adams said.
“Indeed, as the noted Dreyer fan Jean-Luc Goddard observed, 'this silent film has to be one in which sound has a palpable impact’.
“Paired with a specially curated score composed of Satie’s haunting and mystical music, this performance invites us to consider the film in a completely new light.”
The collaboration continues the growing partnership between Hertfordshire and Federation, delivered through a co-operative Memorandum of Understanding and encompassing disciplines including health, arts and science.
The free public lecture on the film and its history will be held from 6:00pm on Saturday 18th October at the Post Office Box Theatre, Arts Academy, Federation University, 7 Camp Street, Ballarat Central.
The screening of the film will be at Ballarat Performing Arts Community (the former Neill Street Uniting Church), on Sunday 19th October, at 7:30pm.
Tickets are available at: https://ballaratfoto.org/program/the-passion-of-joan-of-arc