San Francisco Silent Film Festival Email Format
Movies, Videos and SoundCalifornia, United States0-1 Employees
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. Throughout the year, SFSFF produces events that showcase important titles from the silent era, often in restored or preserved prints, with live musical accompaniment. Each presentation exemplifies the extraordinary quality that Academy Award-winning film historian Kevin Brownlow calls “live cinema.” Since its founding in 1996, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival has become an internationally renowned destination for filmmakers, scholars, and movie lovers. In the last 19 years, SFSFF has presented more than 150 rare and classic silent films, all with live music performed by the most accomplished composers and musicians in the field, including the Matti Bye Ensemble, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Alloy Orchestra, Stephen Horne, Donald Sosin, and Günter Buchwald. Every year the Festival brings authors, archivists, and filmmakers to the stage to help audiences appreciate the history, preservation, and continuing influence and importance of these early works of cinema art. SFSFF has commissioned new scores that have set a standard for excellence in film accompaniment; has published over 140 original essays; and has supported film preservation efforts by exhibiting major restorations, as well as by direct funding and a fellowship for emerging archivists.