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By Raúl Ayrala. Peninsula 360 Press
In 1978, more than five hundred rolls of Hollywood films were found buried in the "permafrost" (frozen ground) from a former hockey rink in Dawson City, Canada.
They were silent films from between 1903 and 1929, and had been deposited on site to stabilize the surface of the court. Due to the distance, the local cinema did not return copies to distributors as usual.
In 2008, in a film museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a 16-millimeter copy appeared - almost the original length - of a 1927 silent film that had been incomplete for decades. It was Metropolis, by Fritz Lang. A work of art that inspired the science fiction creations that came after: Blade Runner, Fahrenheit 451, Star Wars?
Part of Dawson City's treasure and rediscovered Metropolis scenes were restored. One of the festivals that showed Fritz Lang's expressionist gem is the second most important in the world: the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, whose 2024 edition begins this Wednesday, April 10.
Although there are only five days of celebration, the Silent Film Festival is a task that keeps the members of the organization that presents it busy throughout the year, because many of the films that are projected are restored by them themselves.
Some 75 percent of all silent films ever produced are lost; There is a significant amount of the rest found on YouTube, for example.
But the wonderful thing about this Festival is that the presentations are in a real movie theater, with the film restored and accompanied by live musicians. Just as a viewer had the experience of watching a silent film in the 1920s. And for those of us who still find it difficult to follow a sound projection in English, the best thing is that "intertitles" appear, descriptions of the action between scene and scene.
This year, the Festival starts on Wednesday the 10th at 7:30 p.m. with a rarity among rarities: The Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks, from 1926, and in Technicolor!
It was restored by MoMA "in the original color palette, inspired by the Dutch painterly masters."
It is no coincidence, then, that for the first time this year the Festival takes place in the cinema of the Palace of Fine Arts, very close to the Golden Gate Bridge. Its previous editions were at the Castro cinema, which unfortunately is no longer available because it is being converted into a venue for musical shows, not without controversy.
Between Thursday the 11th and Sunday the 14th, the performances begin at 11 or 10 in the morning depending on the day, and the last one is always at 8 at night.
There is great variety: humor with El Gordo y el Flaco -Laurel & Hardy-, Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr. and Charles Chaplin's brother, Syd, in Oh! What a nurse! (the man is little known, but notable for playing roles in which he dressed as a woman); international films such as the Soviet-Ukrainian The Opportunist from 1929 or the Swedish Haxan; and proto-Hollywood samples such as The Lady with Norma Talmadge or The Red Mark from 1928, which closes the Festival on Sunday at 8 pm.
Tickets cost between $18 and $25 depending on the film, and children under 12 are free. Passes can also be purchased at www.silentfilm.org or at the box office.
The Latin touch will be given by the Cochinita lunchbox, which will be offering Yucatecan food in front of the Festival on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
What: San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2024
Where: Palace of Fine Arts Cinema, 3601 Lyon Street, San Francisco Silentfilmfestival.org
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