By Noma Faingold

After graduating from art school at the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology in Ireland (now called Atlantic Technological University Galway), Kathy Rose O’Regan wasn’t sure what she would do with her degree in fine art printmaking.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life,” she said.

After moving to San Francisco, O’Regan spent most of her 20s bouncing around in forgettable jobs, especially bartending.

“I knew I had to figure it out, because I didn’t want to stay in the service industry,” she said.

Her lifelong passion for cinema eventually led her to a couple of film-related internships, including at Oddball Films, an archival and historical resource known around the world. Located in the Mission District, Oddball Films was founded by the late Stephen Parr, an avant-garde film and video producer.

O’Regan did not see herself as a filmmaker, but she found her very specific niche in the industry: preservation and restoration.

“I realized that it was a track that could make me really happy and a really stimulating way of working,” she said.

She enrolled in an intensive, year-long program at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, to earn a certification in film restoration and preservation.

Upon her return to San Francisco, she lived in the Mission before moving to the Outer Sunset District with her husband, George Fox, 16 years ago.

After a number of years working at such local non-profit organizations as the Bay Area Video Coalition and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (which debuted in 1996), O’Regan, 42, is now the executive director of the San Francisco Film Preserve (SFFP), founded by Robert Byrne, currently the hands-on board president. A spinoff of the S.F. Silent Film Festival, SFFP was formed just two years ago and is presenting its first film festival, called Re:Vision – Festival of Restoration and Rediscovery, held at the Roxie Theater, Sept. 24-27.

SFFP takes its four-pronged mission of restoration, preservation, access and advocacy seriously. Each objective is being realized with the launch of Re:Vision.

“There’s no point to restoring film if you don’t show it to anybody,” O’Regan said.

The festival, celebrating the work of archives and archivists around the world, will offer 14 programs, each containing both a restored feature film and a short. Re:Vision will showcase films from 18 countries, representing a wide variety of eras, styles and genres (including queer cinema).

O’Regan’s favorite selection in Re:Vision is “My Name Ain’t Suzie,” from 1985, screening on opening night. Directed by Angie Chen, the film, set in the late 1950s and the 1960s, is centered around sex workers in Hong Kong.

“Aesthetically, it’s divine – the color profile, the cinematography,” O’Regan said. “It’s fast-paced in some ways, but it’s also a meditative look at female autonomy. The themes are very important, but it’s also an incredibly entertaining movie. The music is great. The performances are wonderful. The sets are just a riot of color.”

To bring the film to a San Francisco audience, SFFP worked with small U.S. distributor Kani Releasing (specializing in underseen Asian cinema) and Celestial Pictures. Chen will introduce “My Name Ain’t Suzie” via video message.

One of the restoration projects spearheaded by SFFP is the 1928 silent romcom, “The Garden of Eden,” being screened the afternoon of Sept. 27, with live accompaniment by the Club Foot Orchestra. The stylish, provocative Jazz Age comedy, directed by Lewis Milestone, was a big production filmed toward the end of the silent era.

“It’s a delightful film,” O’Regan said. “It’s very forward-looking.”

The restoration process is almost always a long, arduous process. It is costly, as well (as much as $50,000). It starts with research and requesting whatever materials might be available through archivists, including the U.S. Library of Congress and the George Eastman Museum. Essentially, SFFP goes through material frame by frame and works with lab technicians to create a full restoration.

“Our aim is always to bring a film back as close as possible to how it would have appeared to audiences on its original release,” O’Regan said.

They have been working on restoring several short films, from the silent era and beyond. O’Regan may have experienced the pinnacle of her career on June 20 of this year, when the SFFP restoration project, “Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans,” the 1927 Academy Award winning (the first ceremony) romantic drama, directed by F.W. Murnau of Germany and starring Janet Gaynor, premiered on opening night of the 40th Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in the Piazza Maggiore in Bologna, Italy. More than 7,000 spectators watched on a giant outdoor screen, while listening to an orchestra play a new score composed and conducted by Timothy Brock.

O’Regan, who worked on “Sunrise” for two years, was emotional when she introduced the film that evening.

“It was astonishing seeing a sea of people watching this 100-year-old film. I started crying as soon as I got off stage,” she said. “People were thanking us for the restoration afterwards. For some, it was the first time they’d ever seen a silent film. There’s nothing quite like seeing a silent movie with an orchestra. It’s very powerful.”

O’Regan said there is great demand around the world to show “Sunrise.” There are already 14 bookings at festivals and independent screenings. She promises the masterpiece will come to San Francisco in the near future.

Re:Vision – Festival of Restoration and Rediscovery, is being presented by the San Francisco Film Preserve at the Roxie Theater, Sept. 24-27. Find more information at filmpreserve.org and roxie.com.