The
San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) has announced the complete
lineup of films 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.
May 30, 7:00 pm | Opening Night
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
111 minutes | $24 general / $22 member
USA, 1928, d. Paul Leni
Cast: Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin, Julius Molnar, Olga Baclanova
Spellbinding in its visual acuity and psychological depth, director Paul Leni’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1869 novel about a man disfigured from childhood stands with the great masterworks of the silent era.
Live musical accompaniment by Berklee Silent Film Orchestra
Restoration by Universal Pictures
May 30, 9:00 pm | Opening Night Party
120 minutes | $25 general / $20 member
Combo Film and Party: $45 general / $37 member
Special added program May 30, 3:00 pm: Jon Wengström of the Swedish Film Institute (this year’s SFSFF Award recipient) will present an illustrated lecture with rare Greta Garbo footage at the PFA, Berkeley with Stephen Horne on piano. Info: bampfa.org
May 31, 10:00 am
Amazing Tales from the Archives
100 minutes | Free
Join us for another edition of our popular free program—a behind-the-curtain look at the international preservation scene! Sharing their amazing preservation tales are Deutsche Kinemathek’s Martin Koerber, who, with Weimar film scholar Cynthia Walk, will talk about the complete reworking of E.A. Dupont’s The Ancient Law (screening on Sunday); Davide Pozzi from L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, whose Kinemacolor presentation will examine the first successful color process for motion pictures; and Elżbieta Wysocka of Filmoteka Narodowa, with SFSFF’s Robert Byrne and Russell Merritt, will share the detective story that led to the rediscovery and restoration of Richard Oswald’s German version of The Hound of the Baskervilles (screening on Saturday).
Live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin
May 31, 1:00 pm
SOFT SHOES
45 minutes / with short: 62 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
USA, 1925, d. Lloyd Ingraham
Cast: Harry Carey, Lillian Rich, Paul Weigel, Francis Ford
Harry Carey plays small-town sheriff Pat Halahan, who comes into an inheritance and travels to San Francisco to collect. All hell breaks out in the crime-ridden metropolis, but Sheriff Pat holds his own, gets the girl, and saves the day!
With short: Detained (1924, d. Scott Pembroke, starring Stan Laurel, 17 m.)
Live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin
Soft Shoes restoration funded through a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation with additional funding from the SFSFF Film Preservation Fund. Film restored by by SFSFF in partnership with Národní Filmový Archiv (Prague) and is based on the nitrate print preserved at the archive.
May 31, 2:45 pm
MASTER OF THE HOUSE
DU SKAL ÆRE DIN HUSTRU
107 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Denmark, 1925, d. Carl Th. Dreyer
Cast: Johannes Meyer, Astrid Holm, Mathilde Nielsen, Karin Nellemose
Several years before his piercing drama The Passion of Joan of Arc, Danish master Carl Th. Dreyer made this exquisite comedy. When downsized husband Viktor (Johannes Meyer) becomes an autocrat at home, his wife Ida (Astrid Holm) and wily family nanny Mads (Mathilde Nielsen) turn the tables, deftly puncturing Viktor’s sense of entitlement and restoring domestic equilibrium.
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne
Print courtesy of the Danish Film Institute
May 31, 5:15 pm
AN INN IN TOKYO
TÔKYÔ NO YADO
80 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Japan, 1935, d. Yasujirô Ozu
Cast: Takeshi Sakamoto, Yoshiko Okada, Chôko Iida, Tomio Aoki
Ozu’s poetic masterpiece follows a single father (Takeshi Sakamoto) who wanders the industrial outskirts of Tokyo looking for work with his two young boys in tow. The story is told with great delicacy and humor, the characters drawn with such vivid humanity, that, like most of Ozu’s oeuvre, Inn bristles with life-affirming truth.
Live musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius
Print courtesy of Janus Films
May 31, 7:15 pm
PEOPLE ON SUNDAY
MENSCHEN AM SONNTAG
73 minutes | $24 general / $22 member
Germany, 1930, d. Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann
Years before their eventual Hollywood successes, a group of young German filmmakers took to the streets of Berlin to create “a film without actors.” A descendant of the “city symphony” films of the 1920s, People follows a coterie of city dwellers (an appealing cast of non-professionals) who go on a weekend outing. In its blending of fiction and documentary, the film is both charming and lyrical—and a breathtaking portrait of Weimar Berlin on the cusp of the rise of the Nazis.
Live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Print courtesy of Deutsche Kinemathek, with permission of Janus Films
May 31, 9:15 pm
THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS
GARDIENS DE PHARE
83 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
France, 1929, d. Jean Grémillon
Cast: Paul Fromet, Geymond Vital, Genica Athanasiou, Gabrielle Fontan, Maria Fromet
A raging sea strands a man and his son in a lighthouse off the coast of Brittany in this silent French masterpiece. As the film unfolds it becomes apparent that the son is suffering from rabies and getting progressively worse. Based on a one-act play created for the Théâtre du Grand Guignol, director Grémillon limns the horrific psychological details without resorting to guignolesque excess.
Live musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius
Print courtesy of National Film Centre of Tokyo
June 1, 10:00 am
GOOD REFERENCES
60 minutes | $14 general / $12 member
USA, 1920, d. Roy William Neill
Cast: Constance Talmadge, Vincent Coleman, Ned Sparks, Nellie P. Spaulding
One of the brightest comedic stars of the silent era, Constance Talmadge plays a penniless, yet cheerful single gal who can’t find work because of her lack of references—until she impersonates a sick friend and gets a job as secretary to an elderly socialite. And then things really go downhill!
Live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin
Restoration by UCLA Film and Television Archive from an original nitrate print discovered at the Národni Filmový Archiv in Prague
June 1, 12:00 noon
THE OTHER WOMAN’S STORY
65 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
USA, 1925, d. B.F. Stanley
Cast: Alice Calhoun, Robert Frazer, Helen Lee Worthing, Gertrude Short
Robert Marshall’s dying utterance seems to point to Colman Colby (Robert Frazer) as his killer. Colby is arrested and at trial all testimony points to his guilt. But as the jury deliberates, the unfairly named “other woman” (Helen Lee Worthing) sets out to prove his innocence.
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne
Restoration by SFSFF using materials preserved at the Library of Congress, Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation with funding by David Stenn
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne
June 1, 2:00 pm
SILENT AVANT-GARDE
70 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
From the collection of Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Films
Included in this program of films from the extraordinary Unseen Cinema collection: Anémic Cinéma (1924-26, Marcel Duchamp); [Pas de deux] Looney Lens (1924, Fox Movietone); a Slavko Vorkapich montage with four sequences (1928–34); A Bronx Morning (1931, Jay Leyda); The Life and Death of 9413–A Hollywood Extra (1927, Robert Florey); Hände (1927, Mikos Bandy and Stella F. Simon); and 1931 Mexican footage by Sergei Eisenstein.
Live musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble
Prints courtesy of Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894-1941, a collaborative film preservation and restoration project by Anthology Film Archive, New York, and Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt-am Main, with generous support by Cineric, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, and Film Preservation Associates
Live musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble
June 1, 4:15
ROSITA
90 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
USA, 1923, d. Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Mary Pickford, Holbrook Blinn, Irene Rich
Mary Pickford brought German director Ernst Lubitsch to Hollywood to direct her in Rosita, his first American film and their only collaboration. Pickford plays a Seville street singer who catches the eye of the comically lecherous Spanish king. MoMA’s restoration has returned this legendary film to a form as close as possible to its original release.
Live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Restoration by MoMA with funding provided by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation, Mary Pickford Foundation, RT Features, and The Film Foundation
June 1, 6:30 pm
MOTHER KRAUSE’S JOURNEY TO HAPPINESS
MUTTER KRAUSENS FAHRT INS GLÜCK
133 minutes | $24 general / $22 member
Germany, 1929, d. Piel Jutzi
Cast: Alexandra Schmidt, Holmes Zimmermann, Ilse Trautschold
Mother Krause shares a tenement apartment in Berlin’s Wedding district with her grown children, a shady lodger, his prostitute lover, and her child. She ekes out a living by selling newspapers, but when son Paul drinks up her earnings, desperation sets in. This Weimar masterpiece inspired R.W. Fassbinder’s 1975 Mutter Küsters’ Fahrt zum Himmel.
Restoration by the Munich Film Archive who reconstructed the film combining materials from the only remaining nitrate prints. The print has original intertitles in Berliner dialect.
Live musical accompaniment by Sascha Jacobsen and the Musical Art Quintet
June 1, 9:30
POLICEMAN
KEISATSUKAN
121 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Japan, 1933, d. Tomu Uchida
Cast: Eiji Nakano, Isamu Kosugi, Taisuke Matsumoto
One of the few pre-WWII films of Tomu Uchida to survive reveals the Japanese director’s astonishing range. A stylish crime drama melding the fast pace of Hollywood with the fluid, evocative camerawork of the Germans is a gripping story of two childhood friends who grow to be on opposite sides of the law.
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne
Print courtesy of the National Film Centre of Tokyo
June 2, 10:00 am
NO MAN’S GOLD
65 minutes | $14 general / $12 member
USA, 1926, d. Lewis Seiler
Cast: Tom Mix, Tony the Horse, Eva Novak, Frank Campeau, Michael D. Moore
Tom Mix was the first authentic cowboy to become a Hollywood Western star, appearing in nearly 300 films—almost all silent. One of the best titles Mix made for Fox Films, No Man’s Gold is a fast-paced actioneer featuring adventure, romance, and gorgeous Death Valley and Alabama Hills locations.
Live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin and Frank Bockius
Print courtesy of Národní Filmový Archiv in Prague
June 2, 12:00 noon
MARE NOSTRUM
111 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
USA, 1926, d. Rex Ingram
Cast: Alice Terry, Antonio Moreno
Espionage, romance, and submarine warfare come together in this story, loosely based on Mata Hari, from the author of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Filmed in director Rex Ingram’s Nice studio and on Mediterranean locations, John Seitz’s luminous photography is shown to full effect in this tinted print.
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius
June 2, 2:45 pm
TRAPPOLA
52 minutes, with short: 62 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Italy, 1922, d. Eugenio Perego
Cast: Leda Gys, Suzanne Fabre, Gian Paolo Rosmino, Claudio Mari, Carlo Reiter
This effervescent comedy features one of the first starring roles for Leda Gys, Italy’s most-loved diva. Here she plays the irrepressible Leda Bardi, who goes from orphan to film star, poking gentle fun at convent life, movie production, and screen goddesses along the way.
With short: San Francisco, 1906 (newly discovered post-Earthquake footage!), screening in conjunction with Silver Shadows and the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Live musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Print courtesy of Cineteca Italiana, Milano
June 2, 4:45 pm
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
DER HUND VON BASKERVILLE
65 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Germany, 1929, d. Richard Oswald
Cast: Carlyle Blackwell, Alexander Murski, Livio Pavanelli, Fritz Rasp
SFSFF is pleased to return Richard Oswald’s German version of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles to the Sherlockian canon. Long considered lost, this version was the last silent Sherlock Holmes film ever made and is considered the most important Hound produced in Europe.
Live musical accompaniment by the Guenter Buchwald Ensemble
SFSFF restoration in partnership with Filmoteka Narodowa – Instytut Audiowizualn (Poland), based on film materials conserved at the archive.
June 2, 7:00 pm
THE SAGA OF GÖSTA BERLING
GÖSTA BERLINGS SAGA
200 minutes | $24 general / $22 member
Sweden, 1924, d. Mauritz Stiller
Cast: Lars Hanson, Greta Garbo, Sven Scholander, Ellen Hartman-Cederström
Along with Victor Sjöström, Mauritz Stiller was a leading force behind the golden age of Swedish cinema. And his discovery of the young Greta Gustafsson gave the world the dazzling film star Greta Garbo! This is Garbo’s first starring role and she is radiant opposite the superb Lars Hanson as the defrocked minister.
Live musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble
Restoration by the Swedish Film Institute
>>Preceding the screening, the 2018 SFSFF Award will be presented to Jon Wengström and the Swedish Film Institute. >>There will be a 30-minute intermission at approximately 8:45 pm
June 3, 10:00 am
SERGE BROMBERG PRESENTS
65 minutes | $14 general / $12 members
A selection of short silents from Lobster Films—including several in 3D!
Included are Georges Méliès’s Robinson Crusoe (1902) and The Merry Frolics of Satan (1906); and in 3D, a Lumière Brothers stereoscopic selection and accidental 3Ds by Georges Méliès—The Oracle of Delphi (1903), The Infernal Cauldron, and The Mysterious Retort (1906). Plus, a stereoscopic demonstration from 1900, and a surprise or two!
Live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin
June 3, 12:00 noon
A THROW OF DICE
PRAPANCHA PASH
74 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
India, 1929, d. Franz Osten
Cast: Seeta Devi, Humansu Rai, Charu Roy
Inspired by a tale in the Mahabharata, A Throw of Dice tells the story of two kings vying for the hand of a young woman. Filmed entirely on location in India, the film features Indian screen legends in the starring roles, a cast of more than 10,000 extras, and stunning visuals that capture exquisite landscapes.
Live musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius
Print courtesy of the British Film Institute
June 3, 2:15 pm
THE ANCIENT LAW
DAS ALTE GESETZ
129 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Germany, 1923, d. E.A. Dupont
Cast: Henny Porten, Ruth Weyher, Hermann Vallentin, Ernst Deutsch
Ancient Law takes on the theme of Jewish assimilation in 19th-century Europe as it contrasts the closed world of shtetl life with liberal society. With its depiction of a rabbi’s son who breaks with family tradition to become an actor, this 1923 film was clearly the inspiration for the 1927 American film The Jazz Singer.
Live musical accompaniment by the Donald Sosin Ensemble with Alicia Svigals
Restoration by Deutsche Kinemathek
June 3, 5:30 pm
FRAGMENT OF AN EMPIRE
OBLOMOK IMPERII
109 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
USSR, 1929, d. Fridrikh Ermler
Cast: Fiodor Nikitin, Yakov Gudkin, Liudmila Semionova, Vaelerii Solotsov
A shell-shocked World War I soldier regains his memory after ten years and returns home to St. Petersburg, finding peace and justice but also heart-wrenching change. An exhilarating hymn of solidarity, this masterpiece has long been available only in truncated prints missing its most celebrated imagery—until now!
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius
Restoration by SFSFF, EYE Filmmuseum, and Gosfilmofond of Russia, based on materials preserved by EYE Filmmuseum and Cinémathèque Suisse
June 3, 8:00 pm
BATTLING BUTLER
74 minutes | $24 general / $22 member
USA, 1926, d. Buster Keaton
Cast: Buster Keaton, Snitz Edwards, Sally O'Neil, Walter James
This sparkling comedy has Keaton as a wealthy fop who takes a high-end camping trip, meets a country girl, falls in love, and proposes marriage. When her he-man father won’t consent to a union with such a weakling, Buster masquerades as a prizefighter (who happens to share his name) to win the day.
Live musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Restoration by Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Cohen Collection
May 30, 7:00 pm | Opening Night
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
111 minutes | $24 general / $22 member
USA, 1928, d. Paul Leni
Cast: Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin, Julius Molnar, Olga Baclanova
Spellbinding in its visual acuity and psychological depth, director Paul Leni’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1869 novel about a man disfigured from childhood stands with the great masterworks of the silent era.
Live musical accompaniment by Berklee Silent Film Orchestra
Restoration by Universal Pictures
May 30, 9:00 pm | Opening Night Party
120 minutes | $25 general / $20 member
Combo Film and Party: $45 general / $37 member
Special added program May 30, 3:00 pm: Jon Wengström of the Swedish Film Institute (this year’s SFSFF Award recipient) will present an illustrated lecture with rare Greta Garbo footage at the PFA, Berkeley with Stephen Horne on piano. Info: bampfa.org
May 31, 10:00 am
Amazing Tales from the Archives
100 minutes | Free
Join us for another edition of our popular free program—a behind-the-curtain look at the international preservation scene! Sharing their amazing preservation tales are Deutsche Kinemathek’s Martin Koerber, who, with Weimar film scholar Cynthia Walk, will talk about the complete reworking of E.A. Dupont’s The Ancient Law (screening on Sunday); Davide Pozzi from L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, whose Kinemacolor presentation will examine the first successful color process for motion pictures; and Elżbieta Wysocka of Filmoteka Narodowa, with SFSFF’s Robert Byrne and Russell Merritt, will share the detective story that led to the rediscovery and restoration of Richard Oswald’s German version of The Hound of the Baskervilles (screening on Saturday).
Live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin
May 31, 1:00 pm
SOFT SHOES
45 minutes / with short: 62 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
USA, 1925, d. Lloyd Ingraham
Cast: Harry Carey, Lillian Rich, Paul Weigel, Francis Ford
Harry Carey plays small-town sheriff Pat Halahan, who comes into an inheritance and travels to San Francisco to collect. All hell breaks out in the crime-ridden metropolis, but Sheriff Pat holds his own, gets the girl, and saves the day!
With short: Detained (1924, d. Scott Pembroke, starring Stan Laurel, 17 m.)
Live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin
Soft Shoes restoration funded through a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation with additional funding from the SFSFF Film Preservation Fund. Film restored by by SFSFF in partnership with Národní Filmový Archiv (Prague) and is based on the nitrate print preserved at the archive.
May 31, 2:45 pm
MASTER OF THE HOUSE
DU SKAL ÆRE DIN HUSTRU
107 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Denmark, 1925, d. Carl Th. Dreyer
Cast: Johannes Meyer, Astrid Holm, Mathilde Nielsen, Karin Nellemose
Several years before his piercing drama The Passion of Joan of Arc, Danish master Carl Th. Dreyer made this exquisite comedy. When downsized husband Viktor (Johannes Meyer) becomes an autocrat at home, his wife Ida (Astrid Holm) and wily family nanny Mads (Mathilde Nielsen) turn the tables, deftly puncturing Viktor’s sense of entitlement and restoring domestic equilibrium.
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne
Print courtesy of the Danish Film Institute
May 31, 5:15 pm
AN INN IN TOKYO
TÔKYÔ NO YADO
80 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Japan, 1935, d. Yasujirô Ozu
Cast: Takeshi Sakamoto, Yoshiko Okada, Chôko Iida, Tomio Aoki
Ozu’s poetic masterpiece follows a single father (Takeshi Sakamoto) who wanders the industrial outskirts of Tokyo looking for work with his two young boys in tow. The story is told with great delicacy and humor, the characters drawn with such vivid humanity, that, like most of Ozu’s oeuvre, Inn bristles with life-affirming truth.
Live musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius
Print courtesy of Janus Films
May 31, 7:15 pm
PEOPLE ON SUNDAY
MENSCHEN AM SONNTAG
73 minutes | $24 general / $22 member
Germany, 1930, d. Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann
Years before their eventual Hollywood successes, a group of young German filmmakers took to the streets of Berlin to create “a film without actors.” A descendant of the “city symphony” films of the 1920s, People follows a coterie of city dwellers (an appealing cast of non-professionals) who go on a weekend outing. In its blending of fiction and documentary, the film is both charming and lyrical—and a breathtaking portrait of Weimar Berlin on the cusp of the rise of the Nazis.
Live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Print courtesy of Deutsche Kinemathek, with permission of Janus Films
May 31, 9:15 pm
THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS
GARDIENS DE PHARE
83 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
France, 1929, d. Jean Grémillon
Cast: Paul Fromet, Geymond Vital, Genica Athanasiou, Gabrielle Fontan, Maria Fromet
A raging sea strands a man and his son in a lighthouse off the coast of Brittany in this silent French masterpiece. As the film unfolds it becomes apparent that the son is suffering from rabies and getting progressively worse. Based on a one-act play created for the Théâtre du Grand Guignol, director Grémillon limns the horrific psychological details without resorting to guignolesque excess.
Live musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius
Print courtesy of National Film Centre of Tokyo
June 1, 10:00 am
GOOD REFERENCES
60 minutes | $14 general / $12 member
USA, 1920, d. Roy William Neill
Cast: Constance Talmadge, Vincent Coleman, Ned Sparks, Nellie P. Spaulding
One of the brightest comedic stars of the silent era, Constance Talmadge plays a penniless, yet cheerful single gal who can’t find work because of her lack of references—until she impersonates a sick friend and gets a job as secretary to an elderly socialite. And then things really go downhill!
Live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin
Restoration by UCLA Film and Television Archive from an original nitrate print discovered at the Národni Filmový Archiv in Prague
June 1, 12:00 noon
THE OTHER WOMAN’S STORY
65 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
USA, 1925, d. B.F. Stanley
Cast: Alice Calhoun, Robert Frazer, Helen Lee Worthing, Gertrude Short
Robert Marshall’s dying utterance seems to point to Colman Colby (Robert Frazer) as his killer. Colby is arrested and at trial all testimony points to his guilt. But as the jury deliberates, the unfairly named “other woman” (Helen Lee Worthing) sets out to prove his innocence.
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne
Restoration by SFSFF using materials preserved at the Library of Congress, Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation with funding by David Stenn
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne
June 1, 2:00 pm
SILENT AVANT-GARDE
70 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
From the collection of Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Films
Included in this program of films from the extraordinary Unseen Cinema collection: Anémic Cinéma (1924-26, Marcel Duchamp); [Pas de deux] Looney Lens (1924, Fox Movietone); a Slavko Vorkapich montage with four sequences (1928–34); A Bronx Morning (1931, Jay Leyda); The Life and Death of 9413–A Hollywood Extra (1927, Robert Florey); Hände (1927, Mikos Bandy and Stella F. Simon); and 1931 Mexican footage by Sergei Eisenstein.
Live musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble
Prints courtesy of Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894-1941, a collaborative film preservation and restoration project by Anthology Film Archive, New York, and Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt-am Main, with generous support by Cineric, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, and Film Preservation Associates
Live musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble
June 1, 4:15
ROSITA
90 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
USA, 1923, d. Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Mary Pickford, Holbrook Blinn, Irene Rich
Mary Pickford brought German director Ernst Lubitsch to Hollywood to direct her in Rosita, his first American film and their only collaboration. Pickford plays a Seville street singer who catches the eye of the comically lecherous Spanish king. MoMA’s restoration has returned this legendary film to a form as close as possible to its original release.
Live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Restoration by MoMA with funding provided by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation, Mary Pickford Foundation, RT Features, and The Film Foundation
June 1, 6:30 pm
MOTHER KRAUSE’S JOURNEY TO HAPPINESS
MUTTER KRAUSENS FAHRT INS GLÜCK
133 minutes | $24 general / $22 member
Germany, 1929, d. Piel Jutzi
Cast: Alexandra Schmidt, Holmes Zimmermann, Ilse Trautschold
Mother Krause shares a tenement apartment in Berlin’s Wedding district with her grown children, a shady lodger, his prostitute lover, and her child. She ekes out a living by selling newspapers, but when son Paul drinks up her earnings, desperation sets in. This Weimar masterpiece inspired R.W. Fassbinder’s 1975 Mutter Küsters’ Fahrt zum Himmel.
Restoration by the Munich Film Archive who reconstructed the film combining materials from the only remaining nitrate prints. The print has original intertitles in Berliner dialect.
Live musical accompaniment by Sascha Jacobsen and the Musical Art Quintet
June 1, 9:30
POLICEMAN
KEISATSUKAN
121 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Japan, 1933, d. Tomu Uchida
Cast: Eiji Nakano, Isamu Kosugi, Taisuke Matsumoto
One of the few pre-WWII films of Tomu Uchida to survive reveals the Japanese director’s astonishing range. A stylish crime drama melding the fast pace of Hollywood with the fluid, evocative camerawork of the Germans is a gripping story of two childhood friends who grow to be on opposite sides of the law.
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne
Print courtesy of the National Film Centre of Tokyo
June 2, 10:00 am
NO MAN’S GOLD
65 minutes | $14 general / $12 member
USA, 1926, d. Lewis Seiler
Cast: Tom Mix, Tony the Horse, Eva Novak, Frank Campeau, Michael D. Moore
Tom Mix was the first authentic cowboy to become a Hollywood Western star, appearing in nearly 300 films—almost all silent. One of the best titles Mix made for Fox Films, No Man’s Gold is a fast-paced actioneer featuring adventure, romance, and gorgeous Death Valley and Alabama Hills locations.
Live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin and Frank Bockius
Print courtesy of Národní Filmový Archiv in Prague
June 2, 12:00 noon
MARE NOSTRUM
111 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
USA, 1926, d. Rex Ingram
Cast: Alice Terry, Antonio Moreno
Espionage, romance, and submarine warfare come together in this story, loosely based on Mata Hari, from the author of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Filmed in director Rex Ingram’s Nice studio and on Mediterranean locations, John Seitz’s luminous photography is shown to full effect in this tinted print.
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius
June 2, 2:45 pm
TRAPPOLA
52 minutes, with short: 62 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Italy, 1922, d. Eugenio Perego
Cast: Leda Gys, Suzanne Fabre, Gian Paolo Rosmino, Claudio Mari, Carlo Reiter
This effervescent comedy features one of the first starring roles for Leda Gys, Italy’s most-loved diva. Here she plays the irrepressible Leda Bardi, who goes from orphan to film star, poking gentle fun at convent life, movie production, and screen goddesses along the way.
With short: San Francisco, 1906 (newly discovered post-Earthquake footage!), screening in conjunction with Silver Shadows and the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Live musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Print courtesy of Cineteca Italiana, Milano
June 2, 4:45 pm
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
DER HUND VON BASKERVILLE
65 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Germany, 1929, d. Richard Oswald
Cast: Carlyle Blackwell, Alexander Murski, Livio Pavanelli, Fritz Rasp
SFSFF is pleased to return Richard Oswald’s German version of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles to the Sherlockian canon. Long considered lost, this version was the last silent Sherlock Holmes film ever made and is considered the most important Hound produced in Europe.
Live musical accompaniment by the Guenter Buchwald Ensemble
SFSFF restoration in partnership with Filmoteka Narodowa – Instytut Audiowizualn (Poland), based on film materials conserved at the archive.
June 2, 7:00 pm
THE SAGA OF GÖSTA BERLING
GÖSTA BERLINGS SAGA
200 minutes | $24 general / $22 member
Sweden, 1924, d. Mauritz Stiller
Cast: Lars Hanson, Greta Garbo, Sven Scholander, Ellen Hartman-Cederström
Along with Victor Sjöström, Mauritz Stiller was a leading force behind the golden age of Swedish cinema. And his discovery of the young Greta Gustafsson gave the world the dazzling film star Greta Garbo! This is Garbo’s first starring role and she is radiant opposite the superb Lars Hanson as the defrocked minister.
Live musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble
Restoration by the Swedish Film Institute
>>Preceding the screening, the 2018 SFSFF Award will be presented to Jon Wengström and the Swedish Film Institute. >>There will be a 30-minute intermission at approximately 8:45 pm
June 3, 10:00 am
SERGE BROMBERG PRESENTS
65 minutes | $14 general / $12 members
A selection of short silents from Lobster Films—including several in 3D!
Included are Georges Méliès’s Robinson Crusoe (1902) and The Merry Frolics of Satan (1906); and in 3D, a Lumière Brothers stereoscopic selection and accidental 3Ds by Georges Méliès—The Oracle of Delphi (1903), The Infernal Cauldron, and The Mysterious Retort (1906). Plus, a stereoscopic demonstration from 1900, and a surprise or two!
Live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin
June 3, 12:00 noon
A THROW OF DICE
PRAPANCHA PASH
74 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
India, 1929, d. Franz Osten
Cast: Seeta Devi, Humansu Rai, Charu Roy
Inspired by a tale in the Mahabharata, A Throw of Dice tells the story of two kings vying for the hand of a young woman. Filmed entirely on location in India, the film features Indian screen legends in the starring roles, a cast of more than 10,000 extras, and stunning visuals that capture exquisite landscapes.
Live musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius
Print courtesy of the British Film Institute
June 3, 2:15 pm
THE ANCIENT LAW
DAS ALTE GESETZ
129 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
Germany, 1923, d. E.A. Dupont
Cast: Henny Porten, Ruth Weyher, Hermann Vallentin, Ernst Deutsch
Ancient Law takes on the theme of Jewish assimilation in 19th-century Europe as it contrasts the closed world of shtetl life with liberal society. With its depiction of a rabbi’s son who breaks with family tradition to become an actor, this 1923 film was clearly the inspiration for the 1927 American film The Jazz Singer.
Live musical accompaniment by the Donald Sosin Ensemble with Alicia Svigals
Restoration by Deutsche Kinemathek
June 3, 5:30 pm
FRAGMENT OF AN EMPIRE
OBLOMOK IMPERII
109 minutes | $17 general / $15 member
USSR, 1929, d. Fridrikh Ermler
Cast: Fiodor Nikitin, Yakov Gudkin, Liudmila Semionova, Vaelerii Solotsov
A shell-shocked World War I soldier regains his memory after ten years and returns home to St. Petersburg, finding peace and justice but also heart-wrenching change. An exhilarating hymn of solidarity, this masterpiece has long been available only in truncated prints missing its most celebrated imagery—until now!
Live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius
Restoration by SFSFF, EYE Filmmuseum, and Gosfilmofond of Russia, based on materials preserved by EYE Filmmuseum and Cinémathèque Suisse
June 3, 8:00 pm
BATTLING BUTLER
74 minutes | $24 general / $22 member
USA, 1926, d. Buster Keaton
Cast: Buster Keaton, Snitz Edwards, Sally O'Neil, Walter James
This sparkling comedy has Keaton as a wealthy fop who takes a high-end camping trip, meets a country girl, falls in love, and proposes marriage. When her he-man father won’t consent to a union with such a weakling, Buster masquerades as a prizefighter (who happens to share his name) to win the day.
Live musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Restoration by Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Cohen Collection
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