Robert Byrne, an East Bay film preservationist and President of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, was part of the team (along with David Kiehn, one of the founders of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum) behind the restoration of Twin Peaks Tunnel. This sponsored film from 1917 depicts a key moment in the development of the city of San Francisco.
In 2009, Byrne and Kiehn received a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation to restore and transfer the film from 28mm to 35mm.
On January 21, the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont will screen Twin Peaks Tunnel. Saturday’s screening is the world premiere of a recently completed restoration of the historic film, which has not been publicly shown in 95 years.
Read more about this event and the history behind the film at SF Gate, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle.
The fragment of film strip depicted to the right comes from the original 28mm print of Twin Peaks Tunnel. Coincidentally, the scene shown of the beginning of work on the tunnel at Market and Castro on December 5, 1914 was shot not far from the home of the annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival, which takes place every July at the Castro Theater in San Francisco.
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