Twenty-two live cinema programs—beautiful silent-era films with superb live musical accompaniment—at one of San Francisco’s most beloved landmarks! Cow Hollow Catering will run a concession stand in the Palace’s lobby, selling beverages (including sodas, wine, and beer) and snacks (including sandwiches, fruit and cheese plates, and delectable sweets) throughout the festival.

Festival Schedule:

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

7:30 PM: The Black Pirate

Douglas Fairbanks like you’ve never seen him before in this Technicolor restoration of the rousing yarn that set the standard for Hollywood pirate-adventure films. Ever lithe and charismatic, Fairbanks plays a nobleman disguised as a buccaneer who out-connives the most nefarious of high-seas villains in pursuit of justice. Restored by MoMA to its original color palette inspired by the Dutch masters, the film looks as if it were aged in a cask of time. It is quite simply, as the New York Times declared back in the day, “glorious.”

Live music by the Donald Sosin Ensemble

Composer/pianist Donald Sosin has been creating and performing silent film music for fifty years, playing for major festivals, archives, and DVD recordings. He has been resident accompanist at New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His scores are heard regularly on Turner Classic Movies and his music accompanies films on more than fifty DVD releases. Pianist Wayne Barker, percussionist Frank Bockius, violinist Guenter Buchwald, saxophonist Mas Koga, and bassist Sascha Jacobsen will join Sosin for The Black Pirate.

Tickets:
$25 general
$23 member
12 and under, free

Thursday, April 11, 2024

11am: Amazing Tales from the Archives

Live music by Stephen Horne

Our Amazing Tales program began in 2006 as a way to highlight the importance of film preservation and to provide insight into the remarkable work done by film archives around the world. Since then it has become one of the most highly anticipated programs in the festival. And it’s free!

Admission is Free

2:00 PM: Dancing Mothers plus the short film The Pill Pounder

Hitmaker Herbert Brenon gives this modern-family melodrama a polished sheen, and Clara Bow a show-stealing role. Alice Joyce is sublime as the wife and mother who dares to stake her own claim in the swirl of 1920s nightlife that has already ensnared her philandering husband and thrill-seeking daughter, while Bow effervesces as the Jazz Baby who needs saving from herself.

Live music by Wayne Barker

Wayne Barker has garnered acclaim both for his original compositions and live performances in the theater, including a Tony nomination for best original score on Peter and the Starcatcher. His numerous credits include piano scores for Beth Henley’s Laugh, an homage to silent-era slapstick; and Joe DiPietro’s Hollywood, centered around the 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor. He composed for Dame Edna Everage as well as appeared onstage as Master of the Dame’s Music for six years.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

4:15 PM: Oh! What a Nurse!

Older brother to Charlie, Syd had his own on-screen career making something of a minor specialty out of female impersonation. Here, as an ambitious cub reporter, he gets “all dressed up” to foil a plan to steal a young heiress’s fortune in a slapstick farce that originated in the highbrow minds of Robert E. Sherwood (The Best Years of Our Lives) and Bertram Bloch (Dark Victory).

Live music by Donald Sosin

Pianist Donald Sosin has been creating and performing silent film music for fifty years, playing for major festivals, archives, and DVD recordings. He has been resident accompanist at New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His scores are heard regularly on Turner Classic Movies and his music accompanies films on more than fifty DVD releases.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

6:00 PM: The Lady

One of the biggest stars of her day Norma Talmadge delivers a powerhouse performance as a music hall singer recalling a lifetime of heartbreak from a brothel in a squalid corner of Marseille. In a second collaboration with the actress, Frank Borzage, future director of 7th Heaven and Lucky Star, turns his gift for poignant romance toward a story about a mother’s greatest love.

Live music by Stephen Horne

Based at London’s BFI Southbank, Stephen Horne is considered one of the leading silent film accompanists working today and his music has met with acclaim worldwide. Principally a pianist, he often incorporates other instruments into his performances, sometimes playing them simultaneously. He has recorded music for DVD releases and television broadcasts of silent films and regularly performs internationally.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

8:15 PM: The Sea Hawk

Abducted by a band of brigands at the behest of his craven younger brother, Sir Oliver is soon lashed to the oars as a galley slave. But destiny has greater things in store. This big-budget, high-seas epic about an English baronet’s transformation into notorious corsair Sakr-el-Bahr, Scourge of Christendom, is based on the novel by Rafael Sabatini (Scaramouche, Captain Blood) and directed by Frank Lloyd (The Divine Lady, Mutiny on the Bounty) who insisted on shooting with real ships in the actual ocean.

Live Music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

Now celebrating its 30th year, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra revives the tradition of silent-film orchestras, scouring 1920s-era music libraries to create their signature witty, vibrant, and historically appropriate scores. Since their first performance in 1994, Mont Alto has recorded and toured widely and, all told, has compiled scores for more than 144 films. Led by composer and pianist Rodney Sauer, recipient of the Denver Film Festival’s 2023 David Shepard Career Achievement Award, the ensemble also includes Britt Swenson (violin), Brian Collins (clarinet), Yoriko Morita (cello), Bruce Barrie (cornet), and Nancy Sauer (guest Foley artist).

Tickets:
$25 general
$23 member
12 and under, free

Friday, April 12, 2024

11:00 AM: The Opportunist

With Ivan Sadovskyi, Luka Liashenko, Dora Feller, Dmytro Kapka
A small-time black-marketeer loathe to shed his capitalist ways tries to work the chaos of the Bolshevik takeover to his advantage. That he ends up in charge of a camel in a Red Army convoy is just one in a succession of absurdities as he’s buffeted by whoever are the currently prevailing idealogues. Hilariously insightful about ordinary people and the politically overzealous, it was naturally banned by Soviet apparatchiks.

Live music by Utsav Lal

Steinway’s Young Artist of 2010, Utsav Lal made his debut at the age of eighteen with his rendition of Indian ragas on the piano, stunning the world with his innovative handling of Hindustani classical music on a Western instrument. Often referred to as the “Raga Pianist,” he has gained international recognition, performing everywhere from Ireland to Singapore, Germany to Kuwait, and beyond.

Tickets:
$18 general
$16 member
12 and under, free

1:00 PM: East Side, West Side

Street thugs, scrappy immigrants, uptown swells, and a keen Irish bargeman who wants a better life for himself. Allan Dwan’s love letter to New York makes stops at the city’s storied spots, packing in all the color and verve of the place that by the ‘20s had already burnished its own mythology as somewhere anyone with a lot of grit and a bit of luck could rise from its bustling slums to its spacious drawing rooms.

Live music by Wayne Barker

Wayne Barker has garnered acclaim both for his original compositions and live performances in the theater, including a Tony nomination for best original score on Peter and the Starcatcher. His numerous credits include piano scores for Beth Henley’s Laugh, an homage to silent-era slapstick; and Joe DiPietro’s Hollywood, centered around the 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor. He composed for Dame Edna Everage as well as appeared onstage as Master of the Dame’s Music for six years.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

3:15 PM: Poil de Carotte

Based on Jules Renard’s autobiographical novel, Poil de Carotte is a child’s-eye view of a dysfunctional family set in a provincial French village where gossip reigns. Dubbed Carrot Top for his red hair and freckles, Franc?ois is unloved by his mother and neglected by his father. Director Duvivier’s (Pe?pe? le Moko) elegant use of special effects and color enhance this affecting, bittersweet tale.

Live music by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius

Based at London’s BFI Southbank, Stephen Horne is considered one of the leading silent film accompanists working today and his music has met with acclaim worldwide. Principally a pianist, he often incorporates other instruments into his performances, sometimes playing them simultaneously. He has recorded music for DVD releases and television broadcasts of silent films and regularly performs internationally.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

6:00 PM: Poker Faces

This delicious parlor room farce about a husband posing with a woman not his wife to get in good with his boss loudly echoes into the television living rooms of Rob Petrie and Darrin “Durwood” Stephens. Double-take maestro Edward Everett Horton is paired with Laura La Plante who matches his expressive dexterity scene by scene, demonstrating why she was one of Universal’s most valued stars.

Live music by the Guenter Buchwald Quartet

Conductor, composer, pianist, and violinist Guenter Buchwald is a pioneer of the renaissance in silent film music. He has accompanied silent films for thirty-eight years with a repertoire of more than three thousand titles and has conducted orchestras worldwide from Iceland to Romania, Tokyo to Zurich. In great demand as a composer, he has scored silent films as varied as Suzuki and Ota’s What Made Her Do It?, René Clair`s Paris qui dort, Chaplin´s Pawn Shop, and Murnau’s Nosferatu. A soloist known for his virtuoso improvisation, he has appeared regularly at film festivals in Berlin, Bonn, Bologna, Zurich, Pordenone, and Seattle. He is a lecturer at the Film Science Institute at the University of Zurich and resident conductor of the Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra for Silent Film in Concert. He is cofounder of the Silent Movie Music Company and is musical director of Bristol’s Slapstick Silent Film Festival in England. Buchwald will be joined by percussionist Frank Bockius, bassist Sascha Jacobsen, and saxophonist Mas Koga.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

8:15 PM: Häxan

Benjamin Christensen’s spectacle-laden masterwork transcends genre to trace the evolution of witchcraft from its pagan roots to the psychoanalyst’s couch. Ultimately a denunciation of witch-hunt hysteria, Häxan is a technical marvel, rife with lurid images of satanic orgies, sadomasochistic priests, and possessed nuns.

Live music by the Matti Bye Ensemble

The Matti Bye Ensemble seeks that magical, emotional alchemy between music and images, playing a wide variety of instruments that include piano, glockenspiel, violin, musical saw and percussion. It is led by award-winning film composer Matti Bye, who has accompanied silent movies at the Swedish Film Institute’s since 1989. In addition to Bye, the ensemble members include Kristian Holmgren, Lotta Johansson, and Laura Naukkarinen.

Tickets:
$25 general
$20 member
12 and under, free

Saturday, April 13, 2024

10:00 AM: The Laurel and Hardy Show!

The Boys are back—and just as bent on destruction as ever in these three recently restored side-splitters from 1928: You’re Darn Tootin’ (d. E.L. Kennedy), Two Tars (d. James Parrot), The Finishing Touch (d. Clyde Bruckman, Leo McCarey)

Live music by Donald Sosin and Frank Bockius

Composer/pianist Donald Sosin has been creating and performing silent film music for fifty years, playing for major festivals, archives, and DVD recordings. He has been resident accompanist at New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His scores are heard regularly on Turner Classic Movies and his music accompanies films on more than fifty DVD releases.

Tickets:
$18 general
$16 member
12 and under, free

12:00 PM: Hell’s Heroes

The oft-filmed story of three bad men suffering the ravages of hell to save an orphaned infant gets perhaps its most eloquent iteration in this late silent-era version by a director on the cusp of a great career. Shot under grueling conditions in the Mojave, Hell’s Heroes was also released as a sound film and made an impression as both.

Live music by Guenter Buchwald and Mas Koga

Conductor, composer, pianist, and violinist Guenter Buchwald is a pioneer of the renaissance in silent film music. He has accompanied silent films for thirty-eight years with a repertoire of more than three thousand titles and has conducted orchestras worldwide from Iceland to Romania, Tokyo to Zurich. In great demand as a composer, he has scored silent films as varied as Suzuki and Ota’s What Made Her Do It?, René Clair`s Paris qui dort, Chaplin´s Pawn Shop, and Murnau’s Nosferatu.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

2:00 PM: I Was Born, But…

The first of Ozu’s films to garner the top spot in Kinema Junpo’s annual poll of best pictures, I Was Born, But… has also become a favorite for modern audiences. Two precocious young brothers jockey for position in the pecking order of their new neighborhood while at the same time having to adjust to an unsettling truth about their father’s less than exalted place in the wider world. Warm, funny, yet tinged with melancholy, it augurs many Ozu masterworks to come.

Live music by Utsav Lal

Steinway’s Young Artist of 2010, Utsav Lal made his debut at the age of eighteen with his rendition of Indian ragas on the piano, stunning the world with his innovative handling of Hindustani classical music on a Western instrument. Often referred to as the “Raga Pianist,” he has gained international recognition, performing everywhere from Ireland to Singapore, Germany to Kuwait, and beyond.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

5:00 PM: The Street

The film that lent its name to an entire German genre is Karl Grune’s landmark contribution to cinema’s decoupling from stage-bound drama. An Expressionist-style city built entirely in the studio becomes the setting for a grim warning about succumbing to temptations of the urban night, and the first Strassenfilm. Watch for Nosferatu’s Max Schreck in an allegorical subplot about a blind man who loses track of a young child on these same perilous streets.

Live music by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius

Conductor, composer, pianist, and violinist Guenter Buchwald is a pioneer of the renaissance in silent film music. He has accompanied silent films for thirty-eight years with a repertoire of more than three thousand titles and has conducted orchestras worldwide from Iceland to Romania, Tokyo to Zurich. In great demand as a composer, he has scored silent films as varied as Suzuki and Ota’s What Made Her Do It?, René Clair`s Paris qui dort, Chaplin´s Pawn Shop, and Murnau’s Nosferatu.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

7:00 PM: Sherlock Jr.

A lovelorn projectionist-slash-janitor dreams himself into the movies as a debonair, crack detective, but to get the girl in either realm he must unmask his unworthy rival. Keaton melds the magic of vaudeville with the magic of the movie camera for what is essentially one long gasp-inducing chase to the finish. Once you catch your breath, you’ll find yourself asking, wait, what, how’d he do that?

Live music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

Now celebrating its 30th year, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra revives the tradition of silent-film orchestras, scouring 1920s-era music libraries to create their signature witty, vibrant, and historically appropriate scores. Since their first performance in 1994, Mont Alto has recorded and toured widely and, all told, has compiled scores for more than 144 films. Led by composer and pianist Rodney Sauer, recipient of the Denver Film Festival’s 2023 David Shepard Career Achievement Award, the ensemble also includes Britt Swenson (violin), Brian Collins (clarinet), Yoriko Morita (cello), Bruce Barrie (cornet), and Nancy Sauer (guest Foley artist).

Tickets:
$25 general
$23 member
12 and under, free

8:45 PM: The Joker

Nordisk’s lavish, last hurrah before the Danish studio went bust is a sparkling comedy of intrigues featuring an all-star European cast led by English actors Henry Edwards and Miles Mander. Under the cover of Nice’s carnival festivities, a sleazy lawyer blackmails a noblewoman with a cache of indiscreet love letters, but the suave confidence man of the title has a thing for the lady’s attractive sister and sets his own plan in motion.

Live music by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius

Based at London’s BFI Southbank, Stephen Horne is considered one of the leading silent film accompanists working today and his music has met with acclaim worldwide. Principally a pianist, he often incorporates other instruments into his performances, sometimes playing them simultaneously. He has recorded music for DVD releases and television broadcasts of silent films and regularly performs internationally.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

Sunday, April 14, 2024

10:00 AM: The Gorilla

When a hard-nosed detective and his bumbling sidekick arrive at a crime scene to investigate the murder of a miserly millionaire, they encounter a mansionful of the usual suspects. Recently found at the Cineteca Milano, this entry in the Old Dark House genre boasts as much humor as horror and its success inspired two sound remakes and a host of imitations.

Live music by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius

Based at London’s BFI Southbank, Stephen Horne is considered one of the leading silent film accompanists working today and his music has met with acclaim worldwide. Principally a pianist, he often incorporates other instruments into his performances, sometimes playing them simultaneously. He has recorded music for DVD releases and television broadcasts of silent films and regularly performs internationally.

Tickets:
$18 general
$16 member
12 and under, free

12:15 PM: The Kid Brother

In riffing on Henry King’s bucolic masterpiece, Tol’able David, Harold Lloyd ended up with a masterpiece of his own, though his is back-to-back with witty gags. Lloyd is the black sheep in a family of burly men and responsible for all the “woman’s work” on the farm. When a medicine show—and a pretty girl—come to town, he finally gets to prove his manly mettle, never surrendering an iota of his goshdarn sweetness.

Live music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

Now celebrating its 30th year, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra revives the tradition of silent-film orchestras, scouring 1920s-era music libraries to create their signature witty, vibrant, and historically appropriate scores. Since their first performance in 1994, Mont Alto has recorded and toured widely and, all told, has compiled scores for more than 144 films. Led by composer and pianist Rodney Sauer, recipient of the Denver Film Festival’s 2023 David Shepard Career Achievement Award, the ensemble also includes Britt Swenson (violin), Brian Collins (clarinet), Yoriko Morita (cello), Bruce Barrie (cornet), and Nancy Sauer (guest Foley artist).

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

2:30 PM: The Phantom Carriage

A husband and father in the grip of a terrible addiction is shown the error of his ways during a midnight ride with the grim reaper. A tour-de-force of nonlinear storytelling and a showcase of deft in-camera double-exposures, Sjöström’s drama about redeeming the unredeemable is part of the film canon for good reason and has influenced filmmakers from Ingmar Bergman to Stanley Kubrick. Never once does the great Sjöström, who also stars, let his virtuosity as director or actor overwhelm emotional truth.

Live music by the Matti Bye Ensemble

The Matti Bye Ensemble seeks that magical, emotional alchemy between music and images, playing a wide variety of instruments that include piano, glockenspiel, violin, musical saw and percussion. It is led by award-winning film composer Matti Bye, who has accompanied silent movies at the Swedish Film Institute’s since 1989. In addition to Bye, the ensemble members include Kristian Holmgren, Lotta Johansson, and Laura Naukkarinen.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

5:00 PM: The Devious Path

Beautiful, rich, and married, Brigitte Helm is restless. When she’s offered entry into a glamorous demimonde, she defies her controlling husband and leaps in. For this portrait of a marriage under strain, the acclaimed Austrian director applies his incisive eye for telling detail in the performances as well as in the shimmery world of sophisticated amusements.

Live music by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius

Conductor, composer, pianist, and violinist Guenter Buchwald is a pioneer of the renaissance in silent film music. He has accompanied silent films for thirty-eight years with a repertoire of more than three thousand titles and has conducted orchestras worldwide from Iceland to Romania, Tokyo to Zurich. In great demand as a composer, he has scored silent films as varied as Suzuki and Ota’s What Made Her Do It?, René Clair`s Paris qui dort, Chaplin´s Pawn Shop, and Murnau’s Nosferatu.

Tickets:
$20 general
$18 member
12 and under, free

8:00 PM: The Red Mark

A pickpocket has finally earned his release from the South Seas penal colony ruled with calculated cruelty by Monsieur De Nou, but Bibi Ri won’t return to Paris without his girl. When De Nou, known for dispatching all problems via guillotine, claims her as his own, only one terrible outcome seems possible. Stunning photography, potent compositions, and a chilling performance by Gustav von Seyffertitz as the mercilessly corrupt governor make this recently restored jewel a must-see—even before the dramatic plot twist.

Live music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

Now celebrating its 30th year, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra revives the tradition of silent-film orchestras, scouring 1920s-era music libraries to create their signature witty, vibrant, and historically appropriate scores. Since their first performance in 1994, Mont Alto has recorded and toured widely and, all told, has compiled scores for more than 144 films. Led by composer and pianist Rodney Sauer, recipient of the Denver Film Festival’s 2023 David Shepard Career Achievement Award, the ensemble also includes Britt Swenson (violin), Brian Collins (clarinet), Yoriko Morita (cello), Bruce Barrie (cornet), and Nancy Sauer (guest Foley artist).

Tickets:
$25 general
$23 member
12 and under, free

Fest Date: April 10 - 14, 2024

Location: Palace of Fine Arts Theatre - 3301 Lyon Street San Francisco, CA 94123

Click here for more information.