(Hot Club of San Francisco | Photo courtesy of the Tower Theatre)

On Sunday, April 7 at 7:30pm the Tower Theatre Foundation invites you to celebrate imagination and innovation during the Hot Club of San Francisco’s Cinema Vivant. It’s an evening of vintage silent films accompanied by live gypsy swing! The musicians match every movement on screen with characteristic virtuosity, passion and humor; a setting reminiscent of a 1930s gypsy caravan on a French countryside.

Before World War I, European filmmaker Ladislaw Starewicz pioneered stop-action animation, a new medium of animation to illuminate his creative imaginings of the secret lives of ordinary objects. Two Starewicz films are featured in Cinema Vivant—The Cameraman’s Revenge, a piece about the marital troubles of beetles, and The Mascot, an adventure story about lost toys. American Charley Bowers revolutionized the industry in the 1920’s by combining animation with live action as featured in There It Is, a whimsical comedy about a mysterious occurrence investigated by Scotland Yard. The fusion of the inventive animation and comedy with the Django-Reinhardt inspired gypsy swing will provide an entertaining evening for all ages.

towertheatre.org • 541-317-0700