SF Silent Film Festival 2017 at a Glance

§ San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2017
Castro Threatre

Thursday June 1 2017

7:00 PM
THE FRESHMAN
1925 | USA | 76 min | Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor, Harold Lloyd
Music by Berklee Silent Film Orchestra

Friday June 2 2017

10:00 AM (Free screening)
AMAZING TALES FROM THE ARCHIVES
George Willeman, Library of Congress
Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi, EYE Filmmuseum
Heather Linville, Academy Film Archive
100 min
Music by Donald Sosin

1:00 PM
GET YOUR MAN
1927 | USA | 76 min | Dorothy Arzner, Clara Bow, Buddy Rogers
Footage from NOW WE'RE IN THE AIR
Music by Stephen Horne

3:30 PM
THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI
1912 | USA | 112 min | Lois Weber, Anna Pavlova
Music by Donald Sosin & Frank Bockius

7:00 PM
BODY AND SOUL
1925 | USA | 93 min | Oscar Micheaux, Paul Robeson
Music by DJ Spooky

9:30 PM
THE INFORMER
1929 | UK | 99 min | Arthur Robison
Music by Stephen Horne, Guenter Buchwald & Frank Bockius

Saturday June 3 2017

10:00 AM
MAGIC AND MIRTH: A Collection of Enchanting Short Films, 1906–1924
60 min
Music by Donald Sosin

12:00 PM
A STRONG MAN
1929 | Poland | 80 min | Henryk Szaro
Music by Guenter Buchwald & Sascha Jacobsen

2:30 PM
FILIBUS
1915 | Italy | 71 min | Mario Roncoroni
Music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

5:00 PM
OUTSIDE THE LAW
1920 | USA | 76 min | Tod Browning, Lon Chaney
Music by Stephen Horne & Frank Bockius

7:15 PM
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (Bronenosets Potyomkin)
1925 | USSR | 72 min | Sergei Eisenstein
Music by the Matti Bye Ensemble

9:30 PM
A PAGE OF MADNESS (Kurutta Ichipeiji)
1926 | Japan | 70 min | Teinosuke Kinugasa
Music by Alloy Orchestra

Sunday June 4 2017

10:00 AM
THE DOLL (Die Puppe)
1919 | Germany | 60 min | Ernst Lubitsch
Music by Guenter Buchwald & Frank Bockius

12:00 PM
SILENCE
1926 | USA | 70 min | Rupert Julian
Music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

2:00 PM
A MAN THERE WAS (Terje Vigen)
1917 | Sweden | 60 min | Victor Sjöström
Music by the Matti Bye Ensemble

4:00 PM
THE LOST WORLD
1925 | USA | 100 min | Harry O. Hoyt, Willis O'Brien, Wallace Beery, Bessie Love
Music by Alloy Orchestra

6:30 PM
TWO DAYS (Dva Dni)
1927 | USSR | 60 min | Heorhii Stabovyi
Music by Stephen Horne

8:15 PM
THE THREE MUSKETEERS
1921 | USA |  146 min | Fred Niblo, Douglas Fairbanks
Music by Guenter Buchwald Ensemble

22nd San Francisco Silent Film Festival

Thursday is the 1st night of the SF Silent Film Festival, running June 1 - 4 at the Castro Theatre. This year's festival presents 36 musicians providing live accompaniment for 18 films from 9 countries. DJ Spooky is new to the festival this year, & on Friday night he accompanies Body and Soul, a 1925 feature by African-American director Oscar Micheaux, starring Paul Robeson. On opening night the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra performs their original score for Harold Lloyd's The Freshman, & Sunday at noon the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra accompanies Silence, a 1926 American crime drama based on a stage play, restored with recently discovered footage from the Cinémathèque Française.

The festival has 2 films directed by women, including The Dumb Girl of Portici, a high-budget epic directed by Lois Weber & starring Anna Pavlova in her only screen role. Dorothy Arzner is the director of Get Your Man, a comedy with Clara Bow & Buddy Rogers. It plays with a fragment of Now We're in the Air, a lost comedy with Louise Brooks & Wallace Beery.

I am told that the Saturday afternoon showing of Filibus, an Italian adventure film featuring sky pirates, is a must-see. Preceding the screening, the festival will present an award to the the Dutch EYE Filmmuseum, for its commitment to the preservation of silent film. Films from the EYE's Desmet Collection will be shown in the free, & always fascinating, Amazing Tales from the Archives presentation on Friday morning.

The festival will also honor David Shepard, a film preservationist who died this year, with a Saturday morning program of shorts selected by the delightful Serge Bromberg. The classic Battleship Potemkin is on the schedule, as well as the the avant-garde A Page of Madness, which I have always wanted to see. Two Days, a Soviet film set during the Civil War in the Ukraine, looks intriguing.

I got to attend the festival's informal media preview event last month & had a chat with a fellow who does the sound for the Silent Film Festival, which sounds like an oxymoron, but isn't. He said The Freshmen is one of his favorites & assured me that The Three Musketeers show that closes the festival would be the most fun.

§ The 22nd San Francisco Silent Film Festival
June 1 - 4, 2017
Castro Theatre

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