The San Francisco Film Preserve is using its inaugural Re:Vision: Festival of Restoration and Rediscovery to bring rarely screened films back to the Roxie Theater this week. The four-day festival runs Thursday, September 24, through Sunday, September 27, at the historic Mission District theater, with tickets priced between $10 and $20.
The lineup comprises 14 programs and films from 18 countries across 11 decades, according to SF/Arts. The festival opens Thursday at 7 p.m. with Angie Chen's 1985 Hong Kong independent film “My Name Ain't Suzie,” while the closing program on Sunday, September 27, features the 1944 Danish film “Melody of Murder,” according to San Francisco Chronicle reporting.
The programs range across Mexico, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Czechoslovakia, Guinea, Sudan and pre-Code Hollywood, according to the Chronicle. Each program is preceded by one or two preserved short films with curated introductions, and the features span the silent era through the 1980s.
A Preservation Organization Behind the Festival
The festival is curated by San Francisco Film Preserve, a nonprofit established in 2024 as a spinoff of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The organization was co-founded by Board President Robert Byrne and Executive Director Kathy Rose O'Regan and focuses on restoration, preservation, access and advocacy, according to the Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon.
What the Preserve's Work Includes
According to San Francisco Film Preserve, its mission encompasses restoration, preservation, access and advocacy—not just exhibition. The organization also says negatives and film prints from its restorations are housed in its collection at the Library of Congress. The broader preservation effort includes projects outside Re:Vision. As a separate local example, the National Film Preservation Foundation says the San Francisco Media Archive preserved the 1960 amateur film “Welcome San Francisco Movie Makers” in 2002 with NFPF-supported contributed services.
One of the preserve's most hands-on projects is Lewis Milestone's 1928 silent comedy “The Garden of Eden,” restored in 2025 in collaboration with the George Eastman Museum and the Library of Congress. The restoration reinserted footage that had previously been censored by Canadian authorities in Montreal, according to the Roxie Theater's program notes.
Rediscovered Voices From Africa and a Lost Feminist Psychodrama
Re:Vision also features Guinean director Mohamed Camara's 1997 feature “Dakan,” an acclaimed Guinean drama about gay lovers, co-presented in San Francisco with Frameline, as detailed by Beyond Chronicle. The Roxie also screens “The Dislocation of Amber,” according to DoTheBay.
The festival's closer, “Melody of Murder,” is a 1944 Danish film.
National Archives and a Hidden Jean Harlow
The National Film Preservation Foundation is co-presenting three short films at Re:Vision, including “Witch,” a 1973 exhibition film by Karen Loveland, according to the National Film Preservation Foundation. The 1929 short comedy “Weak But Willing” was preserved through NFPF and David Stenn funding and features an uncredited early performance by Jean Harlow, filmed barely a year into her Hollywood career.
The Roxie Theater at 3117 16th Street is hosting the entire festival, giving Bay Area audiences access to films that have otherwise been absent from local screens for at least five years, according to the Chronicle.
