• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
San Francisco Silent Film Festival

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.

MENUMENU
  • Events
    • Events

    • Live Music

      Musicians
      Learn about our incredible musical partners

    • Visit

      • Plan Your Visit
      • Accessibility
      • COVID-19 Policy
      • Favorite Things
  • Support
    • SUPPORT SFSFF
    • Become a Member
    • Donate
    • SFSFF Preservation Fund
    • Grantors and Sponsors
    • Volunteer
  • Preservation
    • SFSFF Preservation

      SFSFF Preservation restores and preserves silent era films

      • The SFSFF Collection
      • Support Preservation
      • Film Loans
  • Library
    • Library

      • Browse the Library
        Read program articles from past SFSFF events
      • Our Musicians
        Learn about SFSFF’s incredible musicians
      • Screening Room
        Watch videos from SFSFF Preservation and past live events
      • Event Archive
        Explore past SFSFF events
Sign In Become a Member
Sign In

Essay

January 10, 2020 By kathy

Cinema’s First Virtuoso: Georges Méliès

A selection of Georges Méliès short films played throughout the festival. Special thanks to Lobster Films. On December 28, 1895, in the Grand Café on le boulevard des Capucines in Paris, a 34-year-old magician sat among the other 30-odd guests, which included the directors of the Folies Bergère … [Read more...] about Cinema’s First Virtuoso: Georges Méliès

Filed Under: Essay

January 10, 2020 By kathy

Chicago

An attractive and scantily clad woman with shiny bobbed hair lounges in her apartment, sipping a cocktail while listening to a Victrola recording of “Hula Lou.” It’s a typical setting for a modern woman of the 1920s—except, perhaps, for the man lying at her feet, dying of a gunshot wound. The … [Read more...] about Chicago

Filed Under: Essay

January 10, 2020 By kathy

Chaplin at Essanay

If the early slapstick comedy of the Keystone Film Company represents Charles Chaplin’s cinematic infancy, the films he made for the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company are his adolescence. The Essanays find Chaplin in transition, taking greater time and care with each film, experimenting with new … [Read more...] about Chaplin at Essanay

Filed Under: Essay

January 10, 2020 By kathy

Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness

Carrying 20,000 feet of undeveloped film from Isfahan in central Persia across the Mediterranean to Paris, Merian Coldwell Cooper and Ernest Beaumont Schoedsack already knew what was missing from their picture. After 18 months trekking around Eurasia, they had found a nomadic tribe to follow and … [Read more...] about Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness

Filed Under: Essay

January 10, 2020 By kathy

Champagne

Champagne is a romantic comedy about a millionaire’s decision to teach his frivolous “flapper” daughter (played by the effervescent comedy actress Betty Balfour) a lesson by feigning bankruptcy. Hitchcock saw it as a rags-to-riches story about a poor girl working in a Reims champagne factory and … [Read more...] about Champagne

Filed Under: Essay

January 10, 2020 By kathy

The Cave of the Spiderwomen

Surviving films from the silent era in China are rare. Destruction from wars, government censorship, neglect, and deterioration have taken a sizable toll, so the recent discovery of The Cave of the Spider Women (Pan si dong) from 1927 is a cause for celebration. Even missing its opening scene and a … [Read more...] about The Cave of the Spiderwomen

Filed Under: Essay

January 9, 2020 By kathy

The Cat and the Canary

In the 1920s, European directors streamed into Hollywood, infusing American films with their artistic sensibilities. They often created masterpieces that were beloved by those who saw film as an art form but that were frequently ignored by audiences. Few of those directors were successful in … [Read more...] about The Cat and the Canary

Filed Under: Essay

January 9, 2020 By kathy

Carmen

Carmen the tempestuous gypsy made her first appearance in an 1845 novella by Prosper Merimée, and this tale of the treacherous cigarette factory girl who discards her lover for a bullfighter has inspired countless operas, plays, ballets, musicals, and more than 30 films. Georges Bizet’s 1875 … [Read more...] about Carmen

Filed Under: Essay

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 39
  • Go to page 40
  • Go to page 41
  • Go to page 42
  • Go to page 43
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 48
  • Go to Next Page »

Footer

How can we help?

info@silentfilm.org 415-777-4908
MENUMENU
  • WRAPPER
        • True Art Transcends Time

        • ABOUT

        • About Us
        • Press
        • Resources
        • SOCIAL

        • Facebook
        • Twitter
        • Instagram
        • Subscribe

        • Photos by Pamela Gentile and Tommy Lau.
          Copyright © 2019 San Francisco Silent Film Festival Privacy Terms