This year, our journey through silent cinema takes us deep into a world of intrigue, deception, and false identities. Yes, for more than half a century, the image of the spy film has been shaped above all by James Bond films and their many variations, by post/Hitchcockian conspiracy thrillers and manhunts, by all kinds of impossible missions—and, on a more pessimistic note, by adaptations of John le Carré’s novels. As we’ll see, however, the history of the espionage film reaches back to the earliest days of feature-length cinema.

It was in the 1910s and 1920s, after all, that games of power, information, and loyalty became an especially timely and appealing theme. It might have had much to do with the outbreak, duration, and aftermath of the First World War, the collapse and rise of nations, the increasingly loud voice of patriotic rhetoric, and the advent of modern mass media. Spy motifs, though, can also be seen as a helpful impetus for narrative conflict. Moreover, distrust, betrayal, and clashing principles could easily be woven into familiar melodramatic, criminal, or adventure-driven patterns.

We’ve encountered espionage before in previous festival editions, shaping destinies in diva films (Love Everlasting), ruling Feuillade’s serials (Fantômas), or steering the plot of Keaton’s The General. This time, however, we’ll focus on the many faces of the spy genre itself: cross nations, poetics, and formats. In Denmark, we’ll see a serious family drama; in Germany, a crime thriller; in the Soviet Union, a serial adventure; and in Czechoslovakia and the United States, various takes on the romantic melodrama.