Essay

Eighty years after Bardelys the Magnificent’s 1926 premiere, a cellar in France yielded a nearly complete print of John Gilbert’s final film with King Vidor. Considered lost, the film had come at the peak of the actor’s popularity. Prior to Bardelys the Magnificent, Gilbert had been one of the … [Read more...] about Bardelys the Magnificent

You can read the program essay for our 2017 screening of The Adventures of Prince Achmed here On the morning of Sunday May 2, 1926, a frantic Carl Koch scoured the streets of Berlin looking for a replacement projector lens. Back at the Volksbuehne theater, he had left behind house conductor … [Read more...] about The Adventures of Prince Achmed

Presenters: Robert Byrne, Stefan Drössler, Bruce Goldstein, Thierry Lecointe, and Hisashi Okajima FLIPPING OVER EARLY CINEMA A virtually unknown Parisian entrepreneur inadvertently saved a piece of early cinema with his small business making flipbooks from the films of the Gaumont company, … [Read more...] about Amazing Tales from the Archives 2019

Presenters: Serge Bromberg, Robert Byrne, Bryony Dixon, Jennifer Miko DETECTING SHERLOCK Preservationist and president of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival board of directors, Robert Byrne has been collaborating with the Cinémathèque Française on restoring William Gillette’s Sherlock … [Read more...] about Amazing Tales from the Archives 2015

Presenters: Robert Byrne and Céline Ruivo Céline Ruivo discusses PHONO-CINÉMA-THÉÂTRE Curator of the film collection at the Cinémathèque française, Céline Ruivo has been instrumental in the restoration of the sound components of Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, an attraction at the Paris Exposition … [Read more...] about Amazing Tales from the Archives 2013

Featuring the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation On July 9, 1937, a storage building rented by the Fox Film Corporation in Little Ferry, New Jersey exploded, shooting flames higher than 100 feet into the air. The fire destroyed 42 individual vaults containing the majority of the … [Read more...] about Amazing Tales from the Archives 2008

Presenters Patrick Loughney, George Eastman House Mike Mashon, The Library of Congress Rob Stone, UCLA Film and Television Archive In March 1898, the pamphlet Une nouvelle source de l’histoire: création d’un dépôt de cinématographie historique began to circulate around Paris. Written by … [Read more...] about Amazing Tales from the Archives 2007

Special Guests Patrick Loughney (George Eastman House), Mike Mashon (Library of Congress), Mona Nagai (Pacific Film Archive), Peter Limberg (Haghefilm Conservation) The San Francisco Silent Film Festival operates on the principle that it’s imperative we engage with our heritage, and that one way … [Read more...] about Amazing Tales from the Archives 2006