The
San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) announced the complete
lineup for its 23rd edition. Adding a fifth day to the annual
celebration of art of live cinema (silent-era films with live musical
accompaniment), the festival will take place May 30 to June 3, 2018 at the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco.
The largest, most prestigious festival devoted to silent film in the Americas, SFSFF will present twenty-three programs, all with live musical accompaniment, including eleven recent film restorations. Ten of those restorations will make their North American premieres at the festival and four are SFSFF projects.
Films from nine countries will be represented at the festival (Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Sweden, USA, and the USSR), and more than 40 musicians from around the world will accompany the films. The musicians include: the Berklee Silent Film Festival (student composers, conductors, and players, from the Berklee College of Music in Boston), Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius (Germany), Sascha Jacobsen and the Musical Art Quintet (San Francisco), Stephen Horne (UK), Matti Bye Ensemble (quintet from Sweden and Finland), Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra (Colorado), Donald Sosin (New York), and Alicia Svigals (New York).
The 2018 San Francisco Silent Film Festival Awaard will be presented to Jon Wengström and the Swedish Film Institute at the premiere of the SFI’s new restoration of The Saga of Gösta Berling on Saturday, June 2, 7:00 pm. The film marks Greta Garbo’s first starring role!
The festival will begin on Wednesday, May 30 with a special presentation of Universal Pictures’ new restoration of Paul Leni’s 1928 The Man Who Laughs. Leni’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1869 novel about a man disfigured from childhood stands with the great masterworks of the silent era. This presentation also marks the world premiere of a commissioned score by Berklee College of Music’s Silent Film Orchestra.
To close the festival on Sunday, June 3, SFSFF will present the North American premiere of Cineteca di Bologna’s restoration (in collaboration with Cohen Film Collection) of Buster Keaton’s Battling Butler, which will be accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Keaton considered this sparkling comedy his personal favorite among his works.
Complete information is available at www.silentfilm.org
Based at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, the all-student BERKLEE SILENT FILM ORCHESTRA composes and performs under the leadership of Alison Plante.
Conductor, composer, pianist, and violinist GUENTER BUCHWALD is a pioneer of the renaissance in silent film music. He has provided live accompaniment for thousands of titles, playing at festivals worldwide from Berlin to Tokyo, both solo and with other musicians through his Silent Movie Music Company. Percussionist FRANK BOCKIUS joined Buchwald’s Silent Movie Music Company twenty years ago and has since performed for silent films around the world. Bockius will accompany Buchwald and several other performers this year.
Principally a pianist, STEPHEN HORNE often incorporates flute, accordion, and various other instruments into his performances, sometimes playing them simultaneously. Horne is considered one of the world’s leading silent film accompanists.
Led by bassist and composer Sascha Jacobsen, SASCHA JACOBSEN AND THE MUSICAL ART QUINTET also features Matthew Szemela and Michele Walther on violin, Keith Lawrence on viola, and Lews Patzner on cello. For his compositions, Jacobsen draws on a wealth of musical styles from classical to jazz.
Playing a variety of instruments that include piano, glockenspiel, violin, and percussion, the MATTI BYE ENSEMBLE is led by Matti Bye, silent-movie pianist at the Swedish Film Institute since 1989 and one of his country’s leading film composers. The ensemble members include Kristian Holmgren, Helena Espvall, Lotta Johannson, and Laura Naukkarinen.
Reviving the tradition of silent-film orchestras, MONT ALTO MOTION PICTURE ORCHESTRA culls historic libraries of music for live musical accompaniment. Rodney Sauer, Britt Swenson, David Short, Brian Collins, and Dawn Kramer have recorded and toured widely, creating vibrant and historically appropriate musical scores.
DONALD SOSIN scores silent films for major festivals, archives, and DVD recordings and is the resident accompanist at New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Violinist ALICIA SVIGALS is the world's leading klezmer fiddler, a founder of the Grammy-winning Klezmatics who she led for seventeen years, and a composer who was selected to be a 2014 MacDowell Fellow.
Preservationist SERGE BROMBERG is the founder of Paris-based Lobster Films, where he has collected and preserved thousands of titles. Bromberg travels the globe presenting rare films with a showman’s flair.
SFSFF 2018 Award recipient JON WENGSTRÖM is curator of the archival film collections at the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm.
This year’s Amazing Tales from the Archives presenters include: CYNTHIA WALK, Associate Professor Emerita, UC San Diego; MARTIN KOERBER, head of the department of Audiovisual Heritage at the Deutsche Kinemathek; SFSFF Board President and independent film preservationist ROBERT BYRNE and RUSSELL MERRITT, Professor in the Film Studies Department at UC Berkeley and member of the SFSFF board; ELŻBIETA WYSOCKA, head of film restoration and digital repository at Filmoteka Narodowa in Warsaw; and DAVIDE POZZI, Director at L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna.
The 23rd San Francisco Silent Film Festival will take place May 30-June 3, 2018 at the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco. For complete ticket information, please visit the San Francisco Silent Film Festival at silentfilm.org.
The largest, most prestigious festival devoted to silent film in the Americas, SFSFF will present twenty-three programs, all with live musical accompaniment, including eleven recent film restorations. Ten of those restorations will make their North American premieres at the festival and four are SFSFF projects.
Films from nine countries will be represented at the festival (Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Sweden, USA, and the USSR), and more than 40 musicians from around the world will accompany the films. The musicians include: the Berklee Silent Film Festival (student composers, conductors, and players, from the Berklee College of Music in Boston), Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius (Germany), Sascha Jacobsen and the Musical Art Quintet (San Francisco), Stephen Horne (UK), Matti Bye Ensemble (quintet from Sweden and Finland), Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra (Colorado), Donald Sosin (New York), and Alicia Svigals (New York).
The 2018 San Francisco Silent Film Festival Awaard will be presented to Jon Wengström and the Swedish Film Institute at the premiere of the SFI’s new restoration of The Saga of Gösta Berling on Saturday, June 2, 7:00 pm. The film marks Greta Garbo’s first starring role!
The festival will begin on Wednesday, May 30 with a special presentation of Universal Pictures’ new restoration of Paul Leni’s 1928 The Man Who Laughs. Leni’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1869 novel about a man disfigured from childhood stands with the great masterworks of the silent era. This presentation also marks the world premiere of a commissioned score by Berklee College of Music’s Silent Film Orchestra.
To close the festival on Sunday, June 3, SFSFF will present the North American premiere of Cineteca di Bologna’s restoration (in collaboration with Cohen Film Collection) of Buster Keaton’s Battling Butler, which will be accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Keaton considered this sparkling comedy his personal favorite among his works.
Complete information is available at www.silentfilm.org
SFSFF 2018 MUSICIANS
Based at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, the all-student BERKLEE SILENT FILM ORCHESTRA composes and performs under the leadership of Alison Plante.
Conductor, composer, pianist, and violinist GUENTER BUCHWALD is a pioneer of the renaissance in silent film music. He has provided live accompaniment for thousands of titles, playing at festivals worldwide from Berlin to Tokyo, both solo and with other musicians through his Silent Movie Music Company. Percussionist FRANK BOCKIUS joined Buchwald’s Silent Movie Music Company twenty years ago and has since performed for silent films around the world. Bockius will accompany Buchwald and several other performers this year.
Principally a pianist, STEPHEN HORNE often incorporates flute, accordion, and various other instruments into his performances, sometimes playing them simultaneously. Horne is considered one of the world’s leading silent film accompanists.
Led by bassist and composer Sascha Jacobsen, SASCHA JACOBSEN AND THE MUSICAL ART QUINTET also features Matthew Szemela and Michele Walther on violin, Keith Lawrence on viola, and Lews Patzner on cello. For his compositions, Jacobsen draws on a wealth of musical styles from classical to jazz.
Playing a variety of instruments that include piano, glockenspiel, violin, and percussion, the MATTI BYE ENSEMBLE is led by Matti Bye, silent-movie pianist at the Swedish Film Institute since 1989 and one of his country’s leading film composers. The ensemble members include Kristian Holmgren, Helena Espvall, Lotta Johannson, and Laura Naukkarinen.
Reviving the tradition of silent-film orchestras, MONT ALTO MOTION PICTURE ORCHESTRA culls historic libraries of music for live musical accompaniment. Rodney Sauer, Britt Swenson, David Short, Brian Collins, and Dawn Kramer have recorded and toured widely, creating vibrant and historically appropriate musical scores.
DONALD SOSIN scores silent films for major festivals, archives, and DVD recordings and is the resident accompanist at New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Violinist ALICIA SVIGALS is the world's leading klezmer fiddler, a founder of the Grammy-winning Klezmatics who she led for seventeen years, and a composer who was selected to be a 2014 MacDowell Fellow.
PRESENTERS AT SFSFF 2018
Preservationist SERGE BROMBERG is the founder of Paris-based Lobster Films, where he has collected and preserved thousands of titles. Bromberg travels the globe presenting rare films with a showman’s flair.
SFSFF 2018 Award recipient JON WENGSTRÖM is curator of the archival film collections at the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm.
This year’s Amazing Tales from the Archives presenters include: CYNTHIA WALK, Associate Professor Emerita, UC San Diego; MARTIN KOERBER, head of the department of Audiovisual Heritage at the Deutsche Kinemathek; SFSFF Board President and independent film preservationist ROBERT BYRNE and RUSSELL MERRITT, Professor in the Film Studies Department at UC Berkeley and member of the SFSFF board; ELŻBIETA WYSOCKA, head of film restoration and digital repository at Filmoteka Narodowa in Warsaw; and DAVIDE POZZI, Director at L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna.
The 23rd San Francisco Silent Film Festival will take place May 30-June 3, 2018 at the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco. For complete ticket information, please visit the San Francisco Silent Film Festival at silentfilm.org.
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