The 17th Annual SF Silent Film Festival Begins Tonight
The 17th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival opens tonight at the city’s historic Castro Theatre, one of the last great American movie palaces. The four-day festival, which runs from July 12th through July 15th, will feature everything from full-length feature films to short one-reelers and even some foreign silents.
The festival will open with a presentation of the very first Best Picture Oscar winner, William A. Wellman’s 1927 war classic Wings. The film will be preceded by an introduction by William Wellman, Jr. and will feature live foley sound effects by Ben Burtt and live accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
San Francisco’s historic McRoskey Mattress Company will once again be the home of the opening night party, starting at 9:30pm that night.
Other notable films featured during the festival include:
- The Loves of a Pharaoh (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920)
- Mantrap (Victor Fleming, 1926)
- Irrepressible Felix the Cat! (1925–1929, introduced by Leonard Maltin)
- Pandora’s Box (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1929)
- The Mark of Zorro (Fred Niblo, 1920)
- The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)
- The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton, 1928)
For more information on the festival, including a full line-up and ticketing information, be sure to check out the festival’s website: www.silentfilm.org.
For real-time coverage of the festival follow @oldfilmsflicker on Twitter (look for tweets with the hashtag #yamsfsff). Also look forward to more coverage of the festival as it unfolds.
