Festival 2019
About
The 24th San Francisco Silent Film Festival included 25 live-cinema programs with 23 silent features and numerous shorts, more than 50 international musicians and renowned guests, and a large, appreciative audience. The 2019 SFSFF Award was presented to the Cineteca di Bologna at the opening night premiere of the restoration of The Cameraman.
The Program
SFSFF 2019 presented a tantalizing array of silent-era classics and newly restored discoveries. Cinematic treasures from ten different countries unspooled over the course of five days and nights. Prominent among the movie marvels were a significant number of films boasting dazzling color palettes, piercing a longstanding myth about silent cinema’s monochrome universe!
The Musicians
SFSFF 2019 featured a truly exceptional line up of international artists: Wayne Barker, Frank Bockius, Timothy Brock, Guenter Buchwald, Philip Carli, Clubfoot Gamelan, Stephen Horne, Sascha Jacobsen, Utsav Lal, Matti Bye Ensemble, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, and students of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
New SFSFF Restorations
SFSFF’s Preservation Department works on film restoration projects year round, premiering the results on 35mm at our annual festival. In 2019, in collaboration with Photoplay Productions, we returned Clarence Brown’s The Signal Tower to the big screen. This thrilling film was shot in large part in the wilds of Mendocino!
