New film fest at Roxie Theater showcases restored cinema

By James Ambroff-Tahin

“The Garden of Eden,” a silent rom-com from 1928, will screen Sunday at the Roxie Theater. 

Courtesy of San Francisco Film Preserve

When the San Francisco Film Preserve opened two years ago and began its work to restore and preserve old movies, the organization started thinking of ways to spotlight its mission for the general public.

The result is a new festival starting Thursday, one that celebrates the work of archives and archivists worldwide with 14 screenings of films that span decades, borders and film genres.

“It’s all fine and dandy restoring a film, putting it in an archive, but if it doesn’t get in front of eyeballs what’s the point?” said SFFP Executive President Kathy Rose O’Regan.

“In San Francisco, there’s lots of great rep programming and lots of cinemas around The City, but there’s no film festival dedicated specifically to archives, archival works, works made in different eras,” she said. “We decided that we would capitalize on that gap.”

SFFP will fill that gap Sept. 24-27 when it unveils Re:Vision — Festival of Restoration and Rediscovery at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Each screening will highlight one feature film as well as one short piece that complements the marquee work.

The mission is “to bring attention to all the wonderful work being done in archives worldwide and the magnificent pieces of moving image that people are working hard to provide access to,” O’Regan said.

There are currently more than 40 film titles in SFFP’s collection, which were acquired mostly through international channels.

“A lot of times, a film comes through conversations with other members of the moving-image archiving industry, so at conferences, festivals and events we have been approached by a number of European archives who know we restore works,” said O’Regan, who is a native of Ireland.

A still from “The Garden of Eden,” a silent rom-com from 1928, which will screen Sunday, Sept. 27, at the Roxie Theater. Courtesy of the San Fransico Film Preserve.

“European archives often have materials, particularly from the silent era, in their collections that are from American production,” she said. “So we have partnered quite regularly with European archives to restore American works back to the big screen.”

Personal connections through working relationships have also contributed to SFFP’s film accession process, but sometimes the addition of a film to the collection can simply be due to a genuine love for the work.

While the organization might choose to focus on acquiring the works of a particular filmmaker, for instance, “sometimes, it’s just movies that we have a real gra for, as we say in Ireland,” O’Regan said, using the Irish Gaelic word for love.

“The Garden of Eden” (1928) — directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Louise Dresser, Corinne Griffith and Lowell Sherman — is one of those films the SFFP found so enchanting that it added the work to its collection.

Film restorers don’t have living cinematographers and directors of works from the silent-screen era as resources for such important tasks as balancing colors and textures, or getting the right luminosity of a film as it was originally intended.

O’Regan said that with “The Garden of Eden,” SFFP got lucky and found elements that were in conditions it could work with.

“Two elements were at the Library of Congress, and one was at the George Eastman Museum in upstate New York, and we were able to compare these elements to each other in software we use,” O’Regan recounted.

“The George Eastman Museum’s print was in pristine condition, but for a few small areas of the film, where frames were missing, we pulled material from the Library of Congress that was in worse condition and decomposing,” she said. “Then, we were able to match the luminosity and contrast quality to make it less noticeable that we were combining sources.”

The delightful restored rom-com will screen Sunday at 3:40 p.m., accompanied by the San Francisco-based Club Foot Orchestra, which will perform an original score it composed for the film.

The orchestra takes its name from an experimental nightclub that existed in Bayview in the 1980s. Founder Richard Marriott, who lived upstairs from the club, created the orchestra in 1983, initially as a house band.

That year, the orchestra began performing shows at San Francisco clubs such as the On Broadway Theater and Mabuhay Gardens, and it went on tour in Europe.

During that period, Marriott saw “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” a German Expressionist movie from 1919, and it sparked his desire to compose scores for silent films. His orchestra’s new direction took it to venues that include Lincoln Center, the Smithsonian, SF Jazz and its home at the Castro Theater.

“There was something about the way it was photographed and the shadows and the subversive theme that made me want to accompany that — or I should say, I wanted that film to accompany us,” Marriott said. “We premiered ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ at the Mill Valley Film Festival in 1987. Then, we followed that up with ‘Nosferatu,’ ‘Metropolis,’ ‘Pandora’s Box,’ ‘Hands of Orlac,’ ‘Legong Dance of the Virgins.’”

Marriott said the score he composed for “The Garden of Eden” is melodic and full of leitmotifs that express characters, movements or philosophical ideas. He said he used a palette of sounds that would have existed in popular or classical music from 1928, with hints of Duke Ellington, New Orleans jazz and Igor Stravinsky.

Calling “The Garden of Eden” a wonderful, wacky film, Marriott said the movie and the quintet he leads for the performance will put people in a very good mood.

“It’s a whole kaleidoscope of different sounds, different emotions and some very virtuosic musicians,” Marriott said. “It's like what we really demand of art — something that is thoughtful, that causes people to reflect deeply, but something that is also entertaining and perhaps makes people get a hit of serotonin.”

First published at the San Fransisco Examiner, September 21, 2026

 

The making of John Coltrane into a jazz legend

By Ria Andriani

John Coltrane’s legacy in jazz still lives a century on. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images: PoPsie Randolph)

In the world of jazz, the name John Coltrane inspires reverence.

He forged a path from drug addiction to artistic and spiritual transcendence, cementing his reputation through his trademark "sheets of sound" and a lifelong search for universal truth.

By the time he died aged 40 in 1967, he had left a legacy few musicians could rival.

"The music of John Coltrane has become a key pillar in the language and aesthetic of jazz," says Eric Ajaye, presenter of Jazz Legends on ABC Jazz.

To mark the centenary of Coltrane's birth on September 23, 1926, Ajaye follows Trane's journey from "just another tenor saxophonist" to one of the most mythical figures in Jazz's history.

In just over a decade, Coltrane became a leading figure in the artistic movement that characterised the 1960s.

Developing his signature 'sheets of sound'

Trane's first horn was the clarinet, an instrument he quickly mastered as a teenager growing up in North Carolina, according to Ajaye.

To avoid being conscripted during World War II, he enlisted in the navy, where the "top brass" quickly drafted him into one of Pearl Harbor's swing bands.

In 1945, Coltrane met bebop legend Charlie "Bird" Parker, whose main instrument was the alto saxophone.

"Bird hit me right between the eyes," he would later claim.

To avoid competition, Trane settled on the tenor sax while Bird reigned supreme on the alto sax.

Coltrane also became obsessive about his practice routine, known in jazz as "shedding".

"In the late '40s and early '50s, Trane's shedding habits were the talk of the town," Ajaye says.

Coltrane's marathon practice sessions helped forge his signature “sheets of sound” style. 
(Flickr Creative Commons: William Claxton)

"Fellow sax player Jimmy Heath even famously remarked that Coltrane would practice 25 hours a day."

When coupled with his heroin and sugar addiction, Trane's habit became destructive.

But the rigorous practise also laid the foundation for Trane's signature "sheets of sound", a playing technique Ajaye describes as "an unrelenting waterfall of notes in a tone that was full and fiery".

In other words, he could play a lot of notes very quickly.

Coltrane developed and perfected the technique with two of his most influential collaborators: Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk.

The collaborations that forged John Coltrane

When Coltrane auditioned for Miles Davis's new quintet in 1955, "the trumpeter wasn't expecting to be blown away", Ajaye says, despite Davis having a reputation for spotting "diamonds in the rough".

Under Davis, Coltrane's musicianship blossomed.

Although Davis was the yin to Coltrane's yang, the pair's relationship was also marked by drug abuse and violence.

Davis fired Trane twice, including after an incident in 1956 in which he physically struck him, before being stopped by pianist Thelonious Monk.

Later that year, Trane accepted an offer to collaborate with Monk throughout 1957, while also releasing his debut solo album.

Trane kicked his drug addiction in 1957, while his first wife, Naima, converted to Islam.

Between his stints with Miles Davis's quintet, John Coltrane worked on and released albums under his own
name including Blue Train. (Blue Note Records)

The process marked a spiritual awakening for Coltrane, and he refocused on his musicianship, "seeking to completely immerse himself in the saxophone like it was a form of baptism," Ajaye says.

He rejoined Davis's band in 1958 and played a pivotal role in the recording of Davis's seminal album Kind of Blue.

The journey to A Love Supreme

During the final decade of his life, Trane became a mystical and philosophical leader as well as an accomplished avant-garde musician.

He released some of his most influential albums under his own name, including Blue Train, Giant Steps and A Love Supreme.

He also established a harmonic approach that became known as the "Coltrane changes".

Ajaye explains what this is:

"Popular songs, generally speaking, are centred around a single key, which dictates the chords that can be used within the key. Coltrane, however, [substituted] a tune's chords with similar sounding harmony that allowed him to bridge or jump to different keys."

Giant Steps, which Ajaye calls "a musical maze of a song", contains numerous key changes and an extremely fast tempo.

"In Giant Steps, his sheets of sound are put to the ultimate musical test," Ajaye says.

Trane later swapped his tenor horn for a higher-sounding soprano saxophone, which he said, "was actually so much closer to me in my ear" and assembled a band that became known as the "Classic Quartet".

Comprising Coltrane on saxophone, McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums, the players "had that fire in their playing, as well as a devotion to Coltrane's ideas of pushing the boundaries", Ajaye explains.

Coltrane also signed with Impulse!, a recording house that became known for showcasing jazz that was fearless, bold and new.

The Classic Quartet showed Coltrane at the height of his powers, culminating in the release of one of jazz's best-selling albums of all time, A Love Supreme, in 1965.

The album marked Coltrane's "ultimate expression of his faith through music", Ajaye says.

"It's one of the most honest musical performances put to tape, with a beauty and appeal that is timeless," jazz historian Michael Cuscuna says in the album's reissue notes.

For Ajaye, the album's power extends beyond the music itself. He remembers the visceral feeling of holding a physical copy of the record, which he owns on vinyl.

"This is a record made at a time when the concept of an album was still a critical and cultural foundation in art," he says.

Nowadays, it takes more than music to sustain audience's attention.

But with A Love Supreme, Ajaye says, "all you need is the words, the cover, and the music.

"Because the audience Coltrane was after was you".

While A Love Supreme was not Coltrane's final album, it marked the end of an era. The Classic Quartet was disbanded soon after its release.

Beyond Jazz's shackles

In the final years of his life, Coltrane continued searching for universal truths through several spiritual and religious traditions.

His music became increasingly experimental as he "continued to free himself of jazz's shackles."

John Coltrane's spiritual search for universal truth led to musical experimentation on his final albums. 
(Wikipedia: Hugo Van Gelderen)

He moved in completely new directions through "ambitious sessions like Ascension, Om, and his final LP, Expression", Ajaye says.

Coltrane died of liver cancer. The news shocked many in the jazz community, as only a handful of people knew of his illness.

His erstwhile bandleader Davis famously said: "Coltrane's death took everyone by surprise. I knew he hadn't looked too good, but I didn't know he was that sick, or even sick at all."

Coltrane left a pioneering legacy that continues to shape jazz musicians today, including American saxophonists Branford Marsalis and Kamasi Washington, among others.

As Ajaye argues, Coltrane's belief that "the saxophone, harmony, and improvisation became merely vehicles in a quest to better oneself in seeking enlightenment" remains central to his enduring influence.

First published at ABC News, September 23, 2026

Harper Lee first edition novel found in Oxfam shop

By Aurelia Foster

London

The book has since been acquired by the British Library and will join its national collection

A rare first edition of the novel To Kill A Mockingbird has been found among items donated to Oxfam, according to the charity.

The copy of Harper Lee's seminal 1960 work was discovered in a box of American books given to the charity's bookshop in Portobello Road, west London.

It has since been acquired by the British Library and will join its national collection.

Shop manager Olivia Haysman-Walker, who identified the copy as being a first US edition, said the book could easily have been missed. "There were lots of books to work through in the donation, but we recognised To Kill A Mockingbird and thought it was worth taking a closer look."

She added: "We realised quite quickly that we had something really special.

"The dust jacket showed its age, and although it was worn around the edges, the pages inside were in beautiful condition.

"It's amazing to think that this book has passed through our Oxfam bookshop and into the national collection at the British Library.

"It really has been quite a journey, and it's a lovely reminder, during Second Hand September, of the kind of treasures that can be hiding among the shelves and donations in our shops."

Second Hand September is Oxfam's annual campaign encouraging people to buy second-hand.

The dust jacket "showed its age" but the pages inside were in "beautiful condition", Olivia Haysman-Walker said

Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning book tells the story of lawyer Atticus Finch as he defends Tom Robinson, a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman.

Her story of racial injustice and childhood innocence, set in Alabama in 1934, has sold more than 40 million copies around the world and has been translated into 40 languages.

The US novelist, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, died in 2016 at the age of 89.

First published at BBC News, September 22, 2026

Extraordinary Islamic items from Sydney suburbs at Powerhouse Parramatta opening

By Declan Bowring

Tarik Hussein says as far he knows, he and his father-in-law are the only people who make kanuns in Australia.  
(ABC News: Declan Bowring)

Tarik Hussein thinks there were only 10 kanuns in Australia when he began playing in 2006.

The Sydney musician and engineer says he grew up playing the piano and guitar, and discovered the kanun when he was 17 years old.

The kanun is a precursor to the piano, played by plucking 78 strings with the fingers while it lays across the player's lap.

The kanun is a centuries-old instrument from the Middle East.  (ABC News: Declan Bowring)

Mr Hussein says it is impossible to find kanuns in Australia, so when he started teaching the instrument, he needed to get them imported from Türkiye.

He says because the instruments are generally quite old and rare, they would often get damaged in transit or wear out quickly.

"They would have a lot of issues with the skin tearing and the bridge collapsing," he says.

Tarik Hussein and his father-in-law learned how to build kanuns by pulling one apart. (ABC News: Declan Bowring)

To avoid this, Mr Hussein resolved to become the only maker of kanuns in Australia, enlisting the help of his father-in-law, who had a functioning home workshop and a passion for challenging craft projects.

"His woodworking skills helped me to maintain the instruments and repair the instruments," Mr Hussein says.

"And then I thought to challenge him and ask if he'd be willing to try to make one together."

Mr Hussein said making a kanun was something of a close-guarded secret among the makers in Türkiye, so they reverse-engineered his favourite one.

"He pretty much pulled my favourite one completely apart. It was actually very heartbreaking to see," he said.

"We came up with something that I would say is quite unique. It's not the same as what you'd get overseas.

"It's more, it's more of an Australian version of the kanun."

The kanun is seen as a forerunner to the piano. (ABC News: Declan Bowring)

Mr Hussein says as far as they can tell, they are the only kanun makers in Australia.

But they do this as a labour of love, not as a commercial outfit.

"We spend more than a year or two per instrument,"  Mr Hussein said.

"Then, seeing my students' face light up when I tell them that this is something that we built here, and they're going to learn on that. That really brings me joy."

Exceptional stories in items in the suburbs

Mr Hussein and his father-in-law's personal connection with kanuns features in a new film series launching with a festival marking the opening of Powerhouse Parramatta on November 7.

The series of short films, called Moments in Waiting, is by western Sydney artist Khaled Sabsabi and focuses on significant objects from the Islamic world found in Sydney's suburbs.

Western Sydney artist Khaled Sabsabi produced the film collection Moments in Waiting.  (ABC News: Jade Barker)

Mr Sabsabi says he found the extraordinary in the ordinary after a series of public call-outs over the past few years.

"It is about not just the objects, but also the stories that are contained within those objects," he said.

"It's a way to bring out these stories and share them with broader Australian communities."

Mr Sabsabi says Mr Hussein's story shaped up as a modern Australian experience of migration and cultural diversity.

"We come together and, from various places, we bring our technologies, our stories, our being, to shape a modern contemporary Australian identity," he said.

Mr Hussein will also perform on his kanun with the Three Rivers Ensemble during the opening festival.

The recently announced festival spans 179 events across four weekends in November, including a talk by veteran astronaut Charles F Bolden Jr, a major performance by a Torres Strait Island group for the first time outside of the islands, and a Diwali day party.

A collection that rivals a museum

Among the stories in Moments in Waiting is a decree from the Ottoman Empire written in four languages that found its way to Australia when the owner fled the early 1990s war in Bosnia.

The series also features an entire home in Bonyrigg in Sydney's south-west that at one point served as a mosque and produced the Australian Muslim Times.

Mohamad Ali has an extensive collection of calligraphic manuscipts.  (Supplied: Powerhouse Parramatta)

There's also a collection of more than 100 calligraphic manuscripts of the Koran that rivals any Australian museum collection, owned by Sydney teacher Mohamad Ali.

Mr Ali said he had extensively collected vinyl, cassettes and T-shirts of artists such as Madonna, Prince and Eurythmics before finding an interest in Islam in his 20s, when he saw an exhibition by Persian-born collector Nasser David Khalili.

He became fascinated with the intricate work of calligraphers, who would likely have taken years to write a 600-page Koran.

"For them, it was a journey — a spiritual journey,"  Mr Ali said.

Some of the manuscripts in Mohamad Ali's collection go back 1,200 years. (Supplied: Powerhouse Parramatta)

"I just wanted to learn a little bit more about the scribing process … but then that led me to a greater understanding, or a deeper understanding, of what my own personal faith was about."

Mr Ali's extensive collection goes as far back as the 8th century, encompassing many Islamic empires and dynasties.

He hopes the story of his collection will go beyond the Islamic community and create a greater appreciation for the cultural impact of Islam on the world, in art and education.

"Islam's got a lot, and has always had a lot, to contribute to the world's existence," Mr Ali said.

First published at ABC News, September 22, 2026