San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Encyclopedia
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is a film festival
first held in 1996 and presented annually every July at the Castro Theatre
in San Francisco, California, USA. It is the largest silent film
festival in the United States, although the largest silent film festival in the world remains the Giornate del cinema muto in Pordenone
, northern Italy
.
The 16th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival was held at the Castro Theatre
July 14-17, 2011, featuring 18 programs of films and presentations, all with live accompaniment by the foremost silent film musicians in the world. The festival opened with the new restoration of Upstream
(1927) directed by John Ford
and brought back last year to the U.S. from the New Zealand Film Archive, where it was discovered. As part of a collaboration between the Silent Film Festival and the Headlands Center for the Arts
, the Matti Bye Ensemble performed three original commissioned scores to Mauritz Stiller
's The Blizzard
, Herbert Ponting
's The Great White Silence
, and the Closing Night Film, Victor Sjöström
's He Who Gets Slapped
. The festival's Visiting Director was Alexander Payne
.
On July 14, 2011, the Silent Film Festival announced their presentation, in association with American Zoetrope
, The Film Preserve, Photoplay Productions, and British Film Institute
, of Abel Gance
's Napoleon in March 2012 at the Paramount Theatre Oakland. The presentation features the U.S. premiere of the complete restoration by Academy Award winner Kevin Brownlow
and the U.S. premiere of Carl Davis
' orchestral score, with Davis conducting members of the Oakland East Bay Symphony
. The film's famous triptych sequences will be shown in full Polyvision
, with three simultaneous projectors and a 70-foot screen. Napoleon has not been screened theatrically in the U.S. with live orchestra for nearly 30 years and there are no plans to repeat this presentation in any other American city.
In 2006, the festival added a one-day "Winter Event". On February 14, 2009, the 4th Winter Event presented the rarely seen A Kiss From Mary Pickford
(1927) along with three other silent feature film
s. The 6th Annual Winter Event on February 12, 2011 featured the Marcel L'Herbier
film L'Argent
and three short films by Charlie Chaplin
: The Rink, The Adventurer
, and The Pawn Shop.
The Silent Film Festival includes a focus on film preservation
. Each year the festival includes a free program titled "Amazing Tales From the Archives," during which film archivists screen and discuss rare and newly restored films and fragments. The festival also offers an annual Film Preservation Fellowship to a student at The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation, George Eastman House
in Rochester, New York
. The recipient of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival Preservation Fellowship works on restoring a short film from the George Eastman House Motion Picture Collection
, and then screens the preserved film at the San Francisco festival.
Over the years, many famous people from the world of silent films, such as Fay Wray
, Sydney Chaplin
and Diana Serra Cary
(aka "Baby Peggy"), have appeared in person at the Festival. Live music is presented with each film, with pianists Stephen Horne and Donald Sosin, organist Dennis James
, and the ensembles Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra and the Matti Bye Ensemble among the frequent performers. The advisory committee for the festival includes such noted names as Kevin Brownlow
, Bruce Goldstein
, Guy Maddin
, Leonard Maltin
, Lee Mendelson
, David Shepard
, Paolo Cherchi Usai, and Terry Zwigoff
, as well as festival founders Melissa Chittick and Stephen Salmons. Currently, the Executive Director is Stacey Wisnia and the Artistic Director is Anita Monga.
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
first held in 1996 and presented annually every July at the Castro Theatre
Castro Theatre
The Castro Theatre is a popular San Francisco movie palace which became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street, in the Castro district, it was built in 1922 with a Spanish Colonial Baroque façade that pays homage—in its great arched central window...
in San Francisco, California, USA. It is the largest silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
festival in the United States, although the largest silent film festival in the world remains the Giornate del cinema muto in Pordenone
Pordenone
Pordenone is a comune of Pordenone province of northeast Italy in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.The name comes from the Latin "Portus Naonis" meaning the port on the river Noncello - History :...
, northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
The 16th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival was held at the Castro Theatre
Castro Theatre
The Castro Theatre is a popular San Francisco movie palace which became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street, in the Castro district, it was built in 1922 with a Spanish Colonial Baroque façade that pays homage—in its great arched central window...
July 14-17, 2011, featuring 18 programs of films and presentations, all with live accompaniment by the foremost silent film musicians in the world. The festival opened with the new restoration of Upstream
Upstream (film)
Upstream is a comedy film directed by John Ford. A "backstage drama", the movie is about a Shakespearean actor and a woman from a knife-throwing act. The film was considered to be a lost film, but in 2009 it was discovered in the New Zealand Film Archive.It is considered the first Ford film to...
(1927) directed by John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
and brought back last year to the U.S. from the New Zealand Film Archive, where it was discovered. As part of a collaboration between the Silent Film Festival and the Headlands Center for the Arts
Headlands Center for the Arts
Situated in a campus of artist-renovated military buildings in the Marin Headlands, Headlands Center for the Arts hosts an internationally recognized Artist in Residence Program, interdisciplinary public programs, and subsidized studio rentals for Bay Area artists of all disciplines.- Mission and...
, the Matti Bye Ensemble performed three original commissioned scores to Mauritz Stiller
Mauritz Stiller
Mauritz Stiller was a Finnish-Swedish actor, screenwriter and silent film director, who was mostly active in Sweden.-Life:...
's The Blizzard
The Blizzard (1923 film)
The Blizzard is a Swedish silent drama film directed by Mauritz Stiller and starring Einar Hanson, Mary Johnson, Pauline Brunius and Hugo Björne. The film's original Swedish title is Gunnar Hedes saga...
, Herbert Ponting
Herbert Ponting
Herbert George Ponting, FRGS was a professional photographer. He is best known as the expedition photographer and cinematographer for Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition to the Ross Sea and South Pole...
's The Great White Silence
The Great White Silence
The Great White Silence is a 1924 English documentary that contains brief cinematograph sequences taken during the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910—1913...
, and the Closing Night Film, Victor Sjöström
Victor Sjöström
Victor Sjöström was a Swedish actor, screenwriter, and film director.- Biography:Born in Silbodal, in the Värmland region of Sweden, he was only a year old when his father, Olof Adolf Sjöström, moved the family to Brooklyn, New York. His mother died when he was seven years old in 1886...
's He Who Gets Slapped
He Who Gets Slapped
He Who Gets Slapped is a 1924 film starring Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, and John Gilbert. It was directed by Victor Sjöström. The film is based on the Russian play Тот, кто получает пощёчины by playwright Leonid Andreyev, which was published in 1914 and in English, as He Who Gets Slapped, in 1922...
. The festival's Visiting Director was Alexander Payne
Alexander Payne
Alexander Payne, born Alexander Constantine Papadopoulos is an American film director and screenwriter. His films are noted for their dark humor and satirical depictions of contemporary American society.- Early life :...
.
On July 14, 2011, the Silent Film Festival announced their presentation, in association with American Zoetrope
American Zoetrope
American Zoetrope is a studio founded by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. Founded on December 12, 1969, American Zoetrope was an early adopter of digital filmmaking, including some of the earliest uses of HDTV...
, The Film Preserve, Photoplay Productions, and British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
, of Abel Gance
Abel Gance
Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse , La Roue , and the monumental Napoléon .-Early life:...
's Napoleon in March 2012 at the Paramount Theatre Oakland. The presentation features the U.S. premiere of the complete restoration by Academy Award winner Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow is a filmmaker, film historian, television documentary-maker, author, and Academy Award recipient. Brownlow is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era. Brownlow became interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent...
and the U.S. premiere of Carl Davis
Carl Davis
Carl Davis CBE is an American born conductor and composer who has made his home in the UK since 1961. In 1970 he married the English actress Jean Boht....
' orchestral score, with Davis conducting members of the Oakland East Bay Symphony
Oakland East Bay Symphony
The Oakland East Bay Symphony is a leading orchestra based in Oakland, California. The current music director and conductor is Michael Morgan, who has held the position since September 1990. The Paramount Theatre has been the home of the Symphony since the 1995. Bryan Nies has been Assistant...
. The film's famous triptych sequences will be shown in full Polyvision
Polyvision
Polyvision was the name given to a specialized widescreen film format devised exclusively for the filming and projection of Abel Gance's 1927 film Napoleon. It involved the simultaneous projection of three reels of silent film arrayed in a horizontal row, making for a total aspect ratio of 4:1...
, with three simultaneous projectors and a 70-foot screen. Napoleon has not been screened theatrically in the U.S. with live orchestra for nearly 30 years and there are no plans to repeat this presentation in any other American city.
In 2006, the festival added a one-day "Winter Event". On February 14, 2009, the 4th Winter Event presented the rarely seen A Kiss From Mary Pickford
A Kiss From Mary Pickford
A Kiss From Mary Pickford is a comedy film made in the Soviet Union, directed by Sergei Komarov and co-written by Komarov and Vadim Shershenevich. The film, starring Igor Ilyinsky, is mostly known today because of a cameo by the popular film couple Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks...
(1927) along with three other silent feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
s. The 6th Annual Winter Event on February 12, 2011 featured the Marcel L'Herbier
Marcel L'Herbier
Marcel L'Herbier, Légion d'honneur, was a French film-maker, who achieved prominence as an avant-garde theorist and imaginative practitioner with a series of silent films in the 1920s. His career as a director continued until the 1950s and he made more than 40 feature films in total...
film L'Argent
L'Argent (1928 film)
L'Argent is a French silent film directed in 1928 by Marcel L'Herbier. The film was adapted from the novel L'Argent by Émile Zola, and it portrays the world of banking and the stock market in Paris in the 1920s.-Background:...
and three short films by Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
: The Rink, The Adventurer
The Adventurer (film)
The Adventurer is a short comedy film made in 1917 written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. It is the last out of the twelve films made while he was under contract for the Mutual Film Corporation.- Plot and characters :...
, and The Pawn Shop.
The Silent Film Festival includes a focus on film preservation
Film preservation
thumb|300px|Stacked containers filled with reels of [[film stock]]The film preservation, or film restoration, movement is an ongoing project among film historians, archivists, museums, cinematheques, and non-profit organizations to rescue decaying film stock and preserve the images which they contain...
. Each year the festival includes a free program titled "Amazing Tales From the Archives," during which film archivists screen and discuss rare and newly restored films and fragments. The festival also offers an annual Film Preservation Fellowship to a student at The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation, George Eastman House
George Eastman House
The George Eastman House is the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in Rochester, New York, USA. World-renowned for its photograph and motion picture archives, the museum is also a leader in film preservation and...
in Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
. The recipient of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival Preservation Fellowship works on restoring a short film from the George Eastman House Motion Picture Collection
George Eastman House Motion Picture Collection
The George Eastman House Motion Picture Collection in Rochester, New York, comprises over 23,000 titles, including features, shorts, documentaries, newsreels, and paper artifacts. In 1996 the Eastman House founded the L...
, and then screens the preserved film at the San Francisco festival.
Over the years, many famous people from the world of silent films, such as Fay Wray
Fay Wray
Fay Wray was a Canadian-American actress most noted for playing the female lead in King Kong...
, Sydney Chaplin
Sydney Earle Chaplin
Sydney Earle Chaplin was a film and theatre actor.-Biography:The third son of Sir Charles Chaplin and the second by his second wife, Mexican-American actress Lita Grey, Sydney Chaplin was named after his uncle Sydney Chaplin .Lita Grey was 16 when she married the 35-year-old Charles Chaplin in 1924...
and Diana Serra Cary
Diana Serra Cary
Diana Serra Cary , best known as Baby Peggy, was one of the three major American child stars of the Hollywood silent movie era along with Jackie Coogan and Baby Marie....
(aka "Baby Peggy"), have appeared in person at the Festival. Live music is presented with each film, with pianists Stephen Horne and Donald Sosin, organist Dennis James
Dennis James (musician)
Dennis James is an American musician who has played "a pivotal role in the international revival of silent films presented with live music." Primarily an organist, since 1971 he has presented live accompaniments for silent films, with piano, theatre organ, chamber ensemble and full symphony...
, and the ensembles Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra and the Matti Bye Ensemble among the frequent performers. The advisory committee for the festival includes such noted names as Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow is a filmmaker, film historian, television documentary-maker, author, and Academy Award recipient. Brownlow is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era. Brownlow became interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent...
, Bruce Goldstein
Bruce Goldstein
Bruce Goldstein is a New York Repertory film programmer, producer, archivist, and historian.Goldstein became the director of repertory programming for New York's Film Forum in 1986. At Film Forum he presented series on Film noir, silent comedy, classic 3-D, Pre-Code movies, science fiction and...
, Guy Maddin
Guy Maddin
Guy Maddin, OM is a Canadian screenwriter, director, cinematographer and film editor of both features and short films from Winnipeg, Manitoba...
, Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
, Lee Mendelson
Lee Mendelson
Lee Mendelson is an American television producer. He is best known as the executive producer of the many Peanuts animated specials....
, David Shepard
David Shepard
David Shepard is a film preservationist whose company, Film Preservation Associates, is responsible for many high quality video versions of silent films...
, Paolo Cherchi Usai, and Terry Zwigoff
Terry Zwigoff
Terry Zwigoff is an American filmmaker whose work often deals with misfits, antiheros, and themes of alienation. His fiction films are the features Ghost World , Bad Santa , and Art School Confidential...
, as well as festival founders Melissa Chittick and Stephen Salmons. Currently, the Executive Director is Stacey Wisnia and the Artistic Director is Anita Monga.