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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Festival 2024

April 10–14, 2024, at the Palace of Fine Arts

Coming in April!

The 27th San Francisco Silent Film Festival will take place at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco’s Marina District April 10–14. Live cinema in a new setting at a new time! We will announce the complete program in mid-February. Watch this space.

This beautiful Beaux Art structure was originally built for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. After the world’s fair closed in December, 1915, most of its buildings were demolished but the cherished Bernard Maybeck-designed Palace was preserved. Meant only to last for the duration of the fair, the Palace was completely reconstructed with more stable materials in the late 1960s. And in 1970, the 960-seat Palace of Fine Arts Theatre became part of the complex.

The image is from SFSFF’s restoration of
San Francisco, the Golden Gate City (1925)