Article by Marcus Siu

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is considered to be the largest and most prestigious film festival outside of Pordenone, Italy, for its genre, running nearly 30 years. They continue to present silent films as they are meant to be seen; with beautiful preserved prints on a big screen with live musical accompaniment. Even a person who has never experienced silent film before will be mesmerized and hooked. 

This year’s venue will have a new location, as the San Francisco Silent Film Festival moves from the Castro Theater to the Orinda Theater for this years festival.

For those visiting the Orinda Theater for the first time, it is worth noting that in 2023, the Time-Out website, based in France, listed the the theater as the 23rd most beautiful theater in the world. For San Franciscans, it maybe even easier to get to the new venue, as it is just a four minute walk (according to Googlemaps) from the Orinda BART station.

This year’s festival opens up Wednesday night with Charlie Chaplin’s “The Gold Rush”, which celebrates its 100th anniversary, with live musical accompaniment by the SF Conservatory of Music Orchestra with Timothy Brock conducting.

The festival concludes on Sunday with Buster Keaton’s 1925 “Go West”, which was also released the same year as “The Gold Rush” and is also celebrating its 100th anniversary with live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

Film restorers are critical to preserve the films for film festivals as well as for future generations. This is what Robert Harris and James Mockoski have been doing for decades.

If there was ever a Hall of Fame for film restorers, Robert Harris would be inaugurated in the first round. His credits include Abel Gance’s “Napoleon” (1927), “The Third Man” (1949), “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962), “Spartacus” (1960), “My Fair Lady” (1964), Vertigo” (1958), “Rear Window” (1954), “The Godfather” (1972), “The Godfather Part II” (1974).

James Mockoski, who has pretty much restored the entire Francis Ford Coppola American Zoetrope catalogue, including “The Godfather” (1972), “Apocalypse Now” (1979), “One From the Heart” (1981), “The Conversation” (1974), “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” (1988).

In addition, he also restored the Talking Heads “Stop Making Sense” for its 40th Anniversary just last year.

For this years festival, both Harris and Mockoski haves three films that need to be seen to be believed.

With the World Series fever over with, baseball will still be very much alive at the festival with the newly Harris-Mockoski restored “The New Klondike,” a 1926 baseball comedy, which was recently “lost”. It was directed by Lewis Milestone, who also received an Oscar four years later for directing “All Quiet on the Western Front” which also won Best Picture in 1930.

In addition to “The New Klondike,” include Cecil B. DeMille’s film, “The Affairs of Anatol” (1921) (starring Gloria Swanson) and “Beau Geste” (1926), the winner of Photoplay’s Medal of Honor, an Oscar precursor. Both films will have live musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Both were also restored by Harris and Mockoski.

The festival runs from Wednesday, November 12th thru Sunday, November 16th.