San Francisco Silent Film Festival

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about silent film as an art form and as a culturally valuable historical record.

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Pandora’s Box

You can read the program essay for our 2012 screening of Pandora's Box here By mid-October 1928, when production began on Pandora's Box in Berlin, the art of silent cinema was at its zenith. That year alone, U.S. audiences had already been treated to Buster Keaton in Steamboat Bill, Jr., Frank … [Read more...] about Pandora’s Box

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Pan

Norwegian feature film production in the 1920s was infrequent. It could hardly be considered a major industry at the time; there were very few full-length movies being made annually and very few trained and experienced filmmakers working in Norway. It was quite a sensation when someone suddenly had … [Read more...] about Pan

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A Page of Madness

When’s the last time you were surprised by a silent film? Impressed, dazzled, yes, but genuinely surprised? You’d think by 2017, with all the silent-era history scholarship behind us, that authentic, mutant-DNA “Holy Crap” moments would be rare on the ground, and, of course, they are. But there’s no … [Read more...] about A Page of Madness

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The Oyster Princess

It took a Mexican filmmaker at the Oscars to remind Americans that one of the most essential creators of its national cinema is an immigrant named Ernst Lubitsch. Parent to both the American movie musical and the rom-com, the brilliant twins that sustained the Hollywood film industry in its lean … [Read more...] about The Oyster Princess

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The Overcoat

On December 5, 1921, at Petrograd’s Theater of Free Comedy, three young artists delivered their “Manifesto of the Eccentric Theater.” Among other upheavals, they called for the elevation of circuses and clowns, comic strips and boxing rings, gaming tables and carnivals, vaudeville and slapstick to a … [Read more...] about The Overcoat

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Outside the Law

Outside the Law stars the legendary “Phantom of the Opera” and is written and directed by the creator of Dracula and Freaks—but don’t expect a horror film. This movie has more in common with the pioneering crime fiction of Dashiell Hammett, who became synonymous with stories set in the San … [Read more...] about Outside the Law

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The Outlaw and His Wife

A master of 20th century cinema, the Swedish director and actor Victor Sjöström is best remembered for his moving performance as the elderly physician reflecting on his life in Wild Strawberries (1957). As a director, his highly acclaimed 1921 adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf’s novel The Phantom … [Read more...] about The Outlaw and His Wife