After what I call a two-year pandemic pause, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival returns for its 25th year of showcasing the rich legacy of film history from the time before movies spoke. When I talked via Zoom with the festival’s Artistic Director, Anita Monga, on April 30 2022, we discussed the amazing range of the… Read More »
YAKUZA PRINCESS — Vicente Amorim Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. When I spoke to Vicente Amorim by Zoom on August 29, 2021, it was to talk abut his latest film, YAKUZA PRINCESS, a high-energy, fiendishly plotted martial arts fest starring MASUMI in her feature film acting debut. She plays a young woman living in Sao Paulo who discovers… Read More »
Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films talks paternal influences, cocktail-swilling elephants, and when a lobster is not a lobster.
Serge Bromberg, courtesy of the company he founded, Lobster Films, has been discovering and restoring films from the silent era through the 1960s for 25 years. The excuse for myinterview (I’ve wanted to talk to him for years) was his imminent appearance at the 20th anniversary of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, which had… Read More »
Anita Monga Unveils the 2012 SAN FRANCISCO SILENT FILM FESTIVAL
Anita Monga’s enthusiasm for silent film is infectious. When I spoke to her on July 3, 2012 about the 17th annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival, we started with why it was one of the few places to see what Victor Fleming and Ernst Lubitsch were up to before films began to speak. We went… Read More »
Anita Monga and the 2013 Silent Film Festival Winter Program
For Anita Monga, silent film is more than just a quaint curiosity. It’s as vibrant and immediate an art form as any other, as well as the mainspring of modern cinema. When I spoke to her on February 1, 2013, she pointed this out with something I had not thought of before. The first section… Read More »
Stephen Salmons and The 2003 SAN FRANCISCO SILENT FILM FESTIVAL
With co-founder Melissa Chittick, Steve Salmons started the San Francisco Silent Film Festival with a dream, excellent organizational skills, and a firm belief that there was a whole new audience just waiting to rediscover this exquisite art form. To judge by the the way the festival always packs the Castro Theater, a vintage silent movie palace seating… Read More »