Meet a Silent Movie Master
This whimsical filmmaker — and Airbnb Experience host — helps guests craft cinematic stories with striking visuals and not a single word.
Photographs by Nina Manandhar
Wearing his signature bowler hat and wielding a vintage Swiss camera, Alberto Bona easily looks the part of an old-school cinematographer. Follow him through the backstreets of the Shoreditch neighborhood in London and you’ll quickly realize his image is more than an act. To Bona, each lamppost and letterbox is a prop; every shop window and brick warehouse a natural backdrop.
Bona writes, directs, produces, and shoots award-winning silent films and teaches the century-old craft to guests in his Airbnb Experience. He lives by the motto “Vintage to the bitter end,” and is determined to carry on the legacy of a bygone era. “It’s a mission for me,” he said. “I wake up each day knowing I’m in my element and excited to pass on this knowledge.”
Bona traces his love of film back to Treviso, Italy, where he spent his childhood drawing cartoons. When he was 12, he won a short-film competition and worked with a local television company to turn his story about an alien into a movie. “That was a life-changing experience, because I decided I wanted to work in the entertainment industry,” Bona said.
He continued to draw and got his first job as an illustrator in Milan, animating scenes for theater and opera productions. Bona later delved into acting — only to find that being on the other end of the camera seemed more interesting. “I decided to create my own reality,” he said of his decision to write, direct, and produce films.
In 2002 he moved to London and began creating short 8mm “no-talkies” in black and white, eventually transitioning to 16mm and 35mm. He’s as interested in the aesthetic as in the theatrical aspects of silent movies. “The audience nowadays is used to having words in films, and yet the silent era of cinema proved that you didn’t need dialogues to actually tell a story.”
Two of his works have made it into the Cannes Film Festival; the most recent is “Sugar!” — a period drama set in 1950s London about a boy who eats too many sweets and sees into the future. His latest short film, “Piercing Stillness,” follows a filmmaker who encounters ghosts of his past on a walk in the countryside. It won Best Original Score at a festival in Rome and was nominated for Best Surrealist Film at a festival in Cadaqués, Spain, home of Salvador Dalí.
While the accolades are gratifying, Bona said his greatest satisfaction comes from keeping a century-old craft alive. “I believe that people doing this experience will treasure the results. I hope it’s something they’ll show their children.”
Bona meets his Airbnb Experience guests over coffee at a cinema in Shoreditch that still runs 16mm and 35mm projectors. There he explains the history of silent films and how to use the camera. Guests devise plots for a 90-second piece, and then head into the streets to capture short scenes.
“Shoreditch is a characterful spot famed for bohemian life and artists,” Bona said. “The area itself is a subject of interest. The film we make looks like a period piece.” He gives guests the option to shoot in black and white — for a “Jack the Ripper, gothic look” — or color, “to re-create the mod, psychedelic London of the 1960s.”
The film itself is expensive, and Bona insists guests rehearse scenes a few times before shooting. Some just want to have fun, while others are more interested in the technical aspects of the camera and the filmmaking process. Bona tailors the experience depending on what guests want to learn.
“Silent film draws the nonconformists. It’s about saying, ‘Hold on: Let’s go back to the old-school style, because that theatrical aesthetic has otherwise been lost.’” — Alberto Bona
One couple filmed a hide-and-seek sequence to use for their wedding invitation. Another guest wanted to film a surrealistic scene in black and white, so she captured Bona running across Brick Lane in slow motion.
Bona hand-processes, edits, digitizes, and adds music to the films with black-and-white footage, or he refers guests to a lab for color pictures. “With 16mm film, the pure quality and transition between scenes is beautiful: a quirky cut with a flash of light,” he said, adding that he finds it amusing when people ask him what filters or software he uses: “Are you serious? This is the real thing.”
Guests have told Bona the films they created with him are mementos they’ll treasure for the rest of their lives. It reminds him of when, as the 12-year-old winner of a filmmaking competition, he first saw his drawings on the big screen: “The moment I saw the first images come in has been a defining moment in my life.”
About the author: Marguerite McNeal Carter is a writer and editor based in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in EdSurge, Wired, and Marketing News. She’s currently a creative at Airbnb.
