BFI to screen silent Hitchcock in 2012

The British Film Institute (BFI) has announced plans to be part of a nationwide retrospective of Alfred Hitchcock's rare early silent films.

Nine of the director's surviving silent works are expected to be shown as part of the Cultural Olympiad, The Independent reports.

Some films will be screened at the BFI, while others may be shown at music venues and festivals with a live accompaniment from modern bands.

BFI artistic director Eddie Berg said: "One of the things we are trying to get off the ground is to restore the silent films. Most of the visual tropes in these titles appear in his later works.

"We want to look at his influence on the contemporary world. The season will look at his huge body of work and his influence in different ways."

BFI director Amanda Neville said that the initiative could "resurrect the films that are not on the tips of everybody's tongues".

She added that the films needed essential restoration work, noting that "three of them cannot go through a film projector - the level of damage to them is phenomenal".