Brumes D'Automne | 1929 | Experimental | Avant-garde | Silent | Short film

Name: Brumes d’Automne Director: Dimitri Kirsanoff Studio: Independent / Avant-garde production Starring: Nadia Sibirskaïa Release Date: 1929 (France) Runtime: \~12 minutes (original), \~48 minutes (with 4x stretch version) Format: Black-and-white, silent experimental short Country: France Language: Silent (French intertitles in some versions) Genres: | Experimental | Avant-garde | Silent | Short film --- Summary: *Brumes d’Automne* (*Autumn Mists*) is a 1929 experimental short directed by Dimitri Kirsanoff, known for his poetic visual style. Starring Nadia Sibirskaïa, the film is a meditation on melancholy, memory, and fleeting emotion, conveyed entirely through impressionistic imagery rather than narrative. The visuals, paired in some modern reconstructions with Maurice Ravel’s *Miroirs V: La Vallée des cloches* and *Miroirs I: Noctuelles* (stretched four times for extended effect), create a hypnotic, dreamlike experience that reflects the intersection of music and visual poetry in early avant-garde cinema. --- Background: Kirsanoff, a Latvian-born filmmaker working in France, was central to the French impressionist and avant-garde film movements of the 1920s. *Brumes d’Automne* followed his acclaimed feature *Ménilmontant* (1926) and further established his reputation for crafting films without dialogue, relying instead on montage, atmosphere, and emotional resonance. Later experimental screenings often paired the film with Ravel’s *Miroirs* suite, sometimes slowed and stretched to amplify the film’s meditative tone, creating a modern reinterpretation of silent cinema’s relationship with live musical accompaniment. --- Trivia: * Nadia Sibirskaïa, Kirsanoff’s frequent collaborator and wife, was the sole performer, making the film an intimate character study. * The film had no original soundtrack; the Ravel pairing is a later creative choice by cinephiles and archivists. * Its poetic imagery of fog, falling leaves, and reflections links it to the French Impressionist cinema movement. * Modern digital “4x stretch” versions extend the runtime, giving viewers a slowed, trance-like encounter with the visuals and music. --- Hashtags: \#BrumesDAutomne #DimitriKirsanoff #AvantGardeCinema #SilentFilm #FrenchCinema #NadiaSibirskaia #Ravel #ExperimentalFilm #1929Cinema