Silent Film Festival Announces 2012 Line-up

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival has announced the line-up of films for their annual July event at the Castro Theater. And once again, they have put together a varied and interesting program.

The Festival opens with a special presentation of the air war epic, Wings, the first film to win an Academy Award — and ends with The Cameraman, Buster Keaton’s brilliant comedy about the business of making movies. In between, there is an international assortment of films from Sweden, Germany, Russia and China, as well as a couple of American-made films set in foreign locales.

Lulu’s wedding dance in Pandora’s Box
Image courtesy of the Louise Brooks Society

Buster Keaton, please meet Merrill Garbus

Buster Keaton gets a beat courtesy of the tUnE-yArDs’ Merrill Garbus

Just about every year for the last number of years, the San Francisco International Film Festival has shown a silent film accompanied by contemporary musicians performing an original score.

Among others, the SFIFF has presented 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916) with Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields, joined by Daniel Handler on accordion; The Lost World (1925) with the Cambodian pop group Dengue Fever; The Golem (1920) with Pixies front man Black Francis; The Phantom Carriage (1921) with the legendary Jonathan Richman; Street Angel (1928) with the alt rock American Music Club; Sunrise (1927) with Lambchop; and the Japanese silent, A Page of Madness (1926), with the indie band Superchunk.

Buster Keaton, please meet Merrill Garbus