San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2022 - 25th Anniversary Festival

After a two year drought, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival will return to the Castro Theater from May 5-11 to celebrate its 25th anniversary. With the festival extended to seven days it will be promising to be a great cinematic event. First off, you can get an early bird pass here. Go ahead, you know you want to!

This is not to say the festival disappeared due to COVID, like so many other festivals and film events, screenings and special programs were shifted online. Film restorations spearheaded by SFSFF were screened, special master classes by regular festival musicians and Amazing Tales From the Archives programs were made available. It's been wonderful, but, it will be great to be back at the Castro to settle in and experience films on the big screen and with live music. With COVID restrictions being lifted, one hopes the theater will be full of fans to enjoyed the shared fun. Masked or not, I plan to be there.

The full schedule of films will be announced later this month. Opening Night will be the San Francisco Silent Film Festival restoration of Erich von Stroheim's Foolish Wives. I am confident that a lot of thought went into the 25th anniversary programming and I am looking forward to the big reveal of the titles and the musicians who will be scoring them. I hope that we will see our regulars The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Stephen Horne, Donald Sosin, Frank Bockius and Guenter Buchwald (dare I hope for additional musical friends like Phillip Carli, and one wishes Neil Brand or John Sweeney?).

Look for more information as soon as it becomes available. See you in May!