How did silent cinema become an art form, and directors become thinkers? This lecture will introduce the secrets of 1920s cinema, the influence of the first film theorists, and the history of the development of visual language that still speaks to us from the screen. Silence on screen can say more than a thousand words. Silent cinema of the early 20th century not only anticipated the great art of the future - it laid the foundations of visual storytelling and spawned an entire school of film philosophy. The lecture "Silent Cinema: Film Thought of the 1920s" is the first session of a course dedicated to the philosophy of cinema and the influence of early directors on culture and ways of thinking. Participants will embark on a journey through time - from 1895, the moment of the birth of cinema, to the dawn of cinematic reflection in France in the 1920s. The lecturer will discuss Georges Méliès, the Lumière brothers, D. W. Griffith, and other key figures, as well as focus on the works of Delluc, Epstein, Kirsanov, and L'Herbier - thinkers for whom cinema became a way of understanding the world. The meeting will showcase rare short films and scenes from films of the era, and the lecture will be complemented by an analysis of styles, visual techniques, and philosophical ideas that originated at that time. The audience will discover early experiments with rhythm, editing, emotion - and see how these techniques are still used in modern cinema. Where to go in St. Petersburg can be found on our website.