What do I like about the San Francisco Silent Film Festival? Apart from the fabulous Castro cinema with its huge screen, gorgeous décor, perfect sightlines, and refreshingly sturdy balcony (for a cinema of its age)—hmmm ... everything. The people, the films, the mattresses. My revelatory … [Read more...] about 25 Years: Adventures from the Archives
25 Years: William Wyler’s Tokyo Holiday
The fun of a film festival is not only seeing the wonderful films, little-known ones in particular, but also meeting wonderful people. In the case of silent film festivals, we no longer get to see the film’s original casts or crew members because most of them died decades ago—still, unexpected and … [Read more...] about 25 Years: William Wyler’s Tokyo Holiday
25 Years: Forward into the Past*
When Melissa Chittick and I got up on the Castro Theatre stage to introduce Lucky Star at the first Silent Film Festival on July 14, 1996, Frank Borzage’s lost-until-1990 Janet Gaynor-Charles Farrell love story was sixty-seven years old, and I was thirty-eight. Today Lucky Star is ninety-three years … [Read more...] about 25 Years: Forward into the Past*
Soleil et Ombre
Musidora, like many of her female colleagues, is remembered primarily as an actress rather than a filmmaker. A producer and screenwriter, she was also director or codirector of four silent films, and some have credited her with an additional three. Her fame as Irma Vep, the anti-heroine of Louis … [Read more...] about Soleil et Ombre
Paul Miller
Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, is an artist and composer with an affinity for silent film. In 2004 he premiered his live remix of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation—Rebirth of a Nation— at New York’s Lincoln Center and has composed for Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Earth and Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of … [Read more...] about Paul Miller
Oakland Symphony
The Oakland Symphony is celebrated as one of the most distinct regional orchestras in the country, serving a diverse population through its unique convergence of artistic excellence, community service, and education programs. The Symphony aims to make classical music accessible to all members of the … [Read more...] about Oakland Symphony
Kevin Purrone
Kevin Purrone is an accomplished musician and educator, who performs both as a soloist and a collaborative artist. He has performed throughout the US and Europe at venues such as New York’s Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, Munich’s Herculessaal Hall, and Rotterdam’s De Kleine Zaal. His repertoire … [Read more...] about Kevin Purrone
Jim Riggs
When Jim Riggs's seventh-grade class took a field trip to a Lafayette residence that was home to a massive Wurlitzer, 13-year-old Riggs knew that the theater organ was his destiny. Riggs taught himself to play the intricate instrument, taking advantage of its ability to replicate the sound of a full … [Read more...] about Jim Riggs