A quintet of musicians from the Scottish Ensemble and DJ Alex Smoke perform his score, commissioned for the 2011 Glasgow Film Festival, to accompany this 1926 version of the classic cautionary tale about the price of selling your soul.

Director F. W. Murnau’s last German film features astonishing photography, magnificent art direction, and special effects which retain the power to amaze. Freed from the constraints of psychological narrative, Murnau’s mastery of cinematic technique places Faust at the pinnacle of the silent era. Its barrage of visceral and apocryphal imagery contrast with the simplicity and directness of its spiritual theme.

Alex Smoke’s music, lauded by the house and techno communities, is also informed by his early experience as a chorister at Durham Cathedral. Drawing on his classical training, he now tours his sets which blur the boundaries between electronica, classical and hip hop across the globe. Smoke’s film score exploits the full expressive range of the string family layered with electronics, creating unusual atmospheres and textures.