Underplayed Gems

Filibus (1915)

Filibus poster
Directed by
Mario Roncoroni
Genre
silent film, adventure film, LGBTQ-related film, science fiction film
Country
Kingdom of Italy
Runtime
1h 10m
Rating
6.8 of 10 from 25 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A mysterious sky pirate uses a high-tech airship to pull off daring heists. She pursues a detective and also romances his sister while disguising her identity.

playfulslywhimsicaldaringromanticlightheartedmischievous

What happens

Filibus is a 1915 Italian silent adventure film directed by Mario Roncoroni and written by the future science fiction author Giovanni Bertinetti (it). It features Valeria Creti (fr) as the title character, a mysterious sky pirate who makes daring heists with her technologically advanced airship. When an esteemed detective sets out on her trail, she begins an elaborate game of cat and mouse with him, slipping between various male and female identities to romance the detective's sister and stage a midnight theft of a pair of valuable diamonds. Filibus was produced by Corona Film, a short-lived Turin-based studio operating on relatively low budgets and obscure casts. Though Italian reviews at its release were negative, Filibus has been well received by later writers and film historians who have highlighted its pioneering use of lesbian attraction, genderfluidity, and science fiction motifs, and its creative adaptation of stylistic elements from contemporary popular fiction. It has been screened at numerous film festivals, and a nitrate print survives at the Eye Filmmuseum (Amsterdam) with a dupe print held in Milan. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.