Happy new year HippCasters! We're back in the audiosphere with a brand new episode inspired by the premiere of a new music commission for Jean Epstein's Finis Terrae (1929), premiering at HippFest 2026.

Digital Content Manager Christina Webber catches up with Cinetopia's Amanda Rogers, plus musicians Dan Abrahams and Philippe Boudot as they begin creating a brand new soundscape for this film, set on a bleak island off the Breton coast. The film’s visual style, rich in atmosphere, and with a dual sense of menace and beauty, is an exciting invitation to the musicians whose folk-infused score will illuminate the thrilling elemental rhythm of this land and seascape.

The Finis Terrae project is produced by Cinetopia in collaboration with the Edinburgh Film Guild. It is funded by Cockaigne Fund, administered by Foundation Scotland, and with support from the Hope Scott Trust and Help Musicians. We are excited to host the world premiere of this new music commission as part of HippFest 2026.

Enjoy the show!

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Additional reading/relevant links

• Full speaker bios and an English transcript of this episode are available here
• Book tickets for the premiere of Finis Terrae (18 March) at HippFest 2026
• Cinetopia: Scotland's Film Community
• More info on Cinetopia's project I Ken Whaur I'm Guan
• More info on purchasing a HippFest 2026 Festival Pass
• Stay in touch with Dan Abrahams and Philippe Boudot
• More info about ⁠Dowally⁠ (Dan Abrahams and Rachel Petyt)

It's that time of year again! In today's episode - a festive special featuring plenty of yule tide tangents - we talk to author Sarah Cook about 'silent' Christmas. Digital Content Manager Christina Webber has questions: were Christmas movies a thing in the silent era? Would we recognise some of the tropes of today's Christmas film in the movies made a century ago? And why does the iconography of a Victorian Christmas still have such a hold on our imaginations?

Listen along to Episode 31 to hear about all this and more. As another tempting teaser, Sarah also shares a little bit with us on 'creepy' Christmas - see below - and we've included a plethora of additional reading and viewing links in the show notes in case your interest is suitably piqued...Additional reading/ relevant links:

• Read the full English transcript of this episode
• Read 'The best Christmas films of the Silent Era' by Sarah Cook (courtesy of Film Stories)
• Watch Santa Claus (1898) on BFI Player
• Watch Harold Shaw's A Christmas Carol (1914) on BFI Player
• Watch The Night Before Christmas (1913) on YouTube
• Watch HippFest at Home: 'A New Look at Our Oldest Films', an illustrated presentation on Victorian film made for HippFest 2024 by Bryony Dixon
• Read more about the portrait commissioned by Prince Albert in 1848 (courtesy of the V&A)
• A great Christmas film every year from 1925 to now (courtesy of the BFI)
• More information on purchasing a HippFest 2026 Festival Pass

We mark our 30th episode by inviting independent researcher Laraine Porter onto the podcast to chat with Digital Content Manager Christina about what was going on in the film world on either side of, you guessed it, 1930.

The cusp of the 'thirties was a pivotal moment for cinema, with synchronised sound radically changing operations across production and exhibition. Previously loud and boisterous sets had to adapt to operating in silence, and picture houses across the world had to make way for a whole new technology. The discussion ranges from the 'talkies' to the 'singies' and the goat gland films, and considers why some stars ended up as casualties of this seismic revolution.

Additional links:

• ⁠A selection of Laraine's Porter's writing on this subject⁠
• ⁠Listen to Episode 23 to learn more about Hitchcock's (silent) heroines⁠
• ⁠Watch 'Alma Reville: in the shadow of Hitchcock?'⁠
• Read the full English transcript of this episode

About the speaker:

Laraine Porter is an independent researcher and Associate Fellow at DeMontfort University, University of Exeter and Bristol University. She was the co-founder and co-director of the British Silent FIlm Festival which ran between 1998 and 2019 and now runs as annual events at the Cinema Museum and Kings College in London. Between 2014 and 2019, Porter ran a major research project on British Silent Cinema and the Transition to Sound, and has written several journal articles on this subject.