SUMMER 2007
MAY 25-32
NWFF and Seattle International Film Festival present
ALTERNATE CINEMA
(Various Directors)
The Dutch call it exploding cinema; the French the avant-garde; in Seattle we call it Alternate Cinema. A collection of features and shorts, which aim to push the boundaries of traditional film culture, this year's selections explore unconventional modes of visual, aural and emotional landscapes. Yet when we examine these works, they seem more and more to be in tune with ourselves, with our thoughts, and with the very medium itself. Estaban Sapir's The Aerial combines expressive elements of the silent era and graphic elements of comic books to comment on the state of our media culture. One11 and 103, the legendary John Cage's sublime dance of camera, light and sound, makes its Seattle premiere. SIFF Tributee Anthony Hopkins makes his directorial debut with the daring Slipstream, and Jiska Rickels 4 Elements presents an evocative meditation on mankind's timeless and often precarious connection to the natural world. Esther B. Robinson's A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory documents a man who, while on the surface just another nameless member of the Warhol factory, was himself an editor, filmmaker, light designer, lover and son. The above is just a sampling of these invigorating and exciting selections from some of cinema's most daring filmmakers.
CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE SCHEDULE
JUNE 1 - 7, Fri - Thurs at 7 & 9:15PM (plus Sat at 11PM, no Fri 9:15 or 11pm screening)
SEATTLE PREMIERE!
THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI
(Mitsuru Meike, Japan, 2005, 35mm, 90 min)
A riotous amalgam of political satire, apocalyptic comedy and steamy erotica, THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI is a wildly entertaining example of the Japanese "pink film" (pinku eiga) genre, a popular form of erotic soft-core cinema. Titillation is, of course, a primary goal, but due to Japan's censorship codes (no depiction of genitalia or penetration is allowed), creative storytelling is also important. When both factors are present, as in this memorably nutty offering, the result is particularly pleasurable. Sachiko Hanai (Emi Kuroda) is an escort who specializes in teacher-student scenarios (the film's delightfully fitting original title was "Horny Home Tutor: Teacher's Love Juice"). One day, after an energetic tutoring session, Sachiko adjourns to a nearby cafe. An argument between two men escalates, and she is shot between the eyes. Miraculously only dazed, she grabs a mysterious cylinder from the cafe floor with a clone of George W. Bush's finger. And then things get really weird! Sachiko discovers odd psychic abilities and begins to imagine various theories of the universe and multivalent philosophical speculations, all to the throb of techno. While she pursues arcane post-structuralist knowledge and has intellectual intercourse with a political philosopher, a consortium of bad guys chase her in the hopes of recovering "the cylinder." Raunchy and hilarious in equal measures, THE GLAMOUROUS LIFE comes across as a mixture of Robert Aldrich's apocalyptic KISS ME DEADLY and DEBBIE DOES DALLAS.
"Entertaining and unusual" -Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
JUNE 8 - 10, Sat & Sun at 7 & 9:15 PM
>A TRIO OF CONCERT FILMS featuring
20th ANNIVERSARY SCREENING!
SIGN O' THE TIMES
Sponsored by KBCS Radio
(Prince, USA, 1987, 35mm, 84 min)
SIGN O' THE TIMES is the kind of concert film that only Prince (writer and director) could have made. Filmed at the Rotterdam Music Hall and in his hometown of Minneapolis, Prince doesn't limit himself to concert movie conventions. Instead he combines his energetic performance footage with narrative vignettes, dance interludes and even a music video featuring Sheena Easton. Strangely enigmatic, characteristically compact and always decked out in the most colorful bizarre outfits, Prince displays his undeniable talent for both songwriting and performing. Songs in the film include "U Got the Look," "Little Red Corvette" and "Hot Thing."
JUNE 11 - 13, Mon - Wed at 7 & 9:15 PM
30th ANNIVERSARY SCREENING!
ABBA: THE MOVIE
(Lasse Hallstrom, Sweden/Australia, 1977, 35mm, 96 min) Revisit the sweet harmonies and infectious charms of Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, and Anni-Frid! In one of his first films, director Lasse Hallstrom (CHOCOLAT) follows the fun-loving Swedish pop sensation, ABBA, on an Australian tour at the height of the group's success. Great concert performances including the hits "Take a Chance on Me," "Fernando," "Dancing Queen," "Mamma Mia" and others are intercut with reactions from adoring fans, backstage footage, and a subplot about a radio disc jockey desperately trying to catch up to the super group for an interview. ABBA: THE MOVIE is rarely screened and not available on home video. Don't miss the catchy music, outrageous stage costumes, and, according to the 1977 press, the "sexiest bottom in Europe!"
JUNE 15 - 21, Fri - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM (plus Sat & Sun at 5 PM)
A TRIO OF CONCERT FILMS featuring
40th ANNIVERSARY SCREENING
DON'T LOOK BACK
Sponsored by Emerald City Guitars, KEXP, and Easy Street Records
(D.A. Pennebaker, USA, 1967, 35mm, 96min)
D.A. Pennebaker's cinema verite account of Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of England has long been regarded as a landmark film. Pennebaker edited twenty hours of film down to the 90-minute final version. The result not only captured Dylan at a crucial moment in his career (he had just "gone electric") but also proved that the behind-the-scenes life of the rock star was as compelling as what he did on stage. The film is an intimate portrait of Dylan; we see him drunk in hotel rooms, wrangling with Joan Baez and berating the press. He tells one Time Magazine journalist, "I know more about what you do just by looking at you than you'll ever be able to know about me." DON'T LOOK BACK captures the twenty-three year-old Dylan, an enigmatic combination of talented performer and restless individual -- a man who refuses to acknowledge or accept the labels put on either himself or his music.
"Easily one of the best documentaries on any subject ever made, it is also one of the most cinematically influential." -Craig Marine, San Francisco Examiner
JUNE 22-28, Fri - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM - Additional dates added!
JUNE 29-JULY 1, Fri - Sun at 9:15 PM
JULY 2, 3, 5 (Mon, Tues, Thurs) at 7 & 9:15 PM
30th ANNIVERSARY SCREENING
NEW 35MM PRINT
SPECIAL GUEST PANEL FOR SATURDAY, June 23 7pm SCREENING
NWFF and Langston Hughes African American Film Festival present
KILLER OF SHEEP
(Charles Burnett, USA, 1977, 35mm, 96min)
At last, one of the most important independent and African-American films of the 20th Century has found a distributor. This underground gem, by director Charles Burnett, was placed among the first fifty films entered in the National Film Registry and declared a national treasure. In 2002, the National Society of Film Critics selected the film as one of the "100 Essential Films" of all time. Due to music licensing complications, the film was rarely screened and even then on worn 16mm prints. KILLER OF SHEEP has now been fully restored for its 30th anniversary. Witness its frank, neo-realistic depiction of black life in Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood in the mid-70s as the film follows Stan from his job at a slaughterhouse to his life at home. Constantly frustrated by money troubles, he manages to find solace in simple pleasures fixing up an old car, slow dancing with his wife in the kitchen, or quietly holding his daughter.
"The highest example of contemporary black life put on cinema." -Armond White, Film Comment
"The film of the season, if not the year, is a Southern California slice-of-life from 1977 that hasn't aged a day... A stirring and sophisticated evocation of working-class Watts." -Nathan Lee, The Village Voice
"Free of ghetto cliches that fill the movies made by people who have never lived in one, KILLER OF SHEEP is a strongly individual portrait of black, working class America." -Seattle P-I
"Burnett uses the film language of experimental documentaries for his urban pastoral--an episodic series of scenes that are sweet, sardonic, deeply sad, and very funny." -Seattle Weekly
SPECIAL GUESTS - SATURDAY June 23, 7pm
- Dr. Angela Gilliam - anthropologist, author, and professor at Evergreen State College
- Eddie Hill - filmmaker and producer
- Sandra D. Jackson-Dumont - Deputy Director of Education and Public Programs, Seattle Art Museum
About our sponsor
Langston Hughes African American Film Festival - Bridging communities and culture through the experience of cinema
As a program of the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center in Seattle's vibrant Central District neighborhood, the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival supports community building by providing opportunities for artists and audiences to connect using the medium of film as a catalyst for dialogue that leads to social change.
The festival creates year round opportunities to enhance media literacy, self-reflection, and community discussion. By creating the shared experience of films that are by and about black people, the festival is a creative and collaborative opportunity to build our collective cultural competency across the aisle and across neighborhoods in greater Seattle
JUNE 29 - JULY 1, Fri-Sun at 2 PM
SWASHBUCKLERS MARATHON!
THE SEA HAWK
Sponsored by Broadway Market Video
(Michael Curtiz, USA, 1940, 35mm, 127 min)
This is it -- the ultimate Errol Flynn pirate movie! The film opens with a high-octane high-seas battle, as debonair English patriot and gentleman pirate Geoffrey Thorpe (Flynn) and his band of buccaneers overtake and sink a Spanish ship. Amidst the mayhem, the dashing Thorpe meets, rescues and falls in love with the beautiful but snobbish niece of the Spanish Ambassador (the lovely Brenda Marshall). Unrequited love leaves him temporarily tongue-tied, but he's soon back in fighting form sailing to the New World to steal more treasure from Spain and reroute it back to the English Crown. Of course, he must win the heart of the beautiful girl as well! THE SEAHAWK was nominated for four Academy Awards, including one for the majestic, soaring score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
"Flynn's most sophisticated and startling film." -Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
JUNE 29 - JULY 1, Fri-Sun at 4:30 PM
SWASHBUCKLERS MARATHON!
Community B-B-Q on Friday at 6 PM, after the 4:30 PM screening
THE CRIMSON PIRATE
Sponsored by Broadway Market Video
(Robert Siodmak, USA, 1952, 35mm, 104 min)
See Burt Lancaster in his acrobatic glory in this lighthearted and lusty Technicolor adventure. Lancaster plays the dashing El Vallo (a.k.a. "The Crimson Pirate") who must persuade his merry band of buccaneers to venture into the gunrunning business after they overtake a Spanish galleon full of munitions. Of course, the Crimson Pirate needs to make sure that the arsenal finds its way into favorably rebellious hands as well! Lancaster, a circus acrobat before he became a movie star, performs all his own eye-popping stunts, as does his co-star and real-life circus buddy Nick Cravat. The beautiful Eva Bartok, looking and sounding like a young Geena Davis, plays Lancaster's love interest, Consuelo.
"Brave, vigorous, handsome, and an actor of great range, Lancaster never yielded in his immaculate splendor, proud to be a movie actor. He was one of the great stars. Perhaps the last." -David Thomson, film critic
JUNE 29 - JULY 1, Fri-Sun at 7 PM
SWASHBUCKLERS MARATHON!
Community B-B-Q on Friday at 6 PM, before 7 PM screening
KING SOLOMON'S MINES
Sponsored by Broadway Market Video
(Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton, USA, 1950, DVD, 101 min)
This is the "Great White Hunter" tale to top all others, and by far the best screen adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's African adventure novels (there have been three). Stewart Granger gives an unforgettable performance as Allan Quatermain, a burnt out explorer who is reluctantly persuaded to accompany an Englishwoman (Deborah Kerr, never looking more beautiful) deep into uncharted Africa to search for her missing husband. Animal stampedes, magnificent Watusi dance scenes, gorgeous African scenery and, of course true love, ensue. Shot in Technicolor on magnificent locations, with a cast of hundreds of native performers and tribesmen, this film is equal parts ripping adventure yarn, love story, and indelible document of a vanished Africa. KING SOLOMON'S MINES won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Color, and Best Film Editing, and was nominated for Best Picture.
"In the end you begin to accept it all... You watch things hunting and being hunted, reproducing, killing and dying, it's all endless and pointless, except in the end one small pattern emerges from it all, the only certainty: one is born, one lives for a time then one dies, that is all..." -lead character Allan Quatermain.
"[KING SOLOMON'S MINES] is what hooked me on movies in my own childhood." -Jack Matthews, New York Daily News
JUNE 29 - JULY 15, Daily at 7 & 9:15 PM (no screenings July 12)
DIRECTOR IN ATTENDANCE!
Opening night party after the 9pm screening with live music by TODAY!
TODAY! features Maggie Brown, Dayna Hanson, Paul Moore and Dave Proscia
WALKING TO WERNER
(Linas Phillips, USA, 2006, BETA SP, 93min)
Werner Herzog once walked 500 miles from Munich to Paris to see his dying mentor, film historian Lotte Eisner. Inspired by the great director's approach to life and art, Northwest filmmaker Linas Phillips decides to pay tribute to his hero by walking all the way from Seattle to Herzog's house in Los Angeles. WALKING TO WERNER is a funny and inspiring first-person account of his struggles, encounters, questions and revelations during his journey. The trials of walking alone along treacherous highways, the personal stories and encouragement from the roadside characters he meets, and a message from Herzog himself transform the pilgrimage into something bigger than a tribute to his mentor. Along the exhausting trek, Phillips begins to see the world -- and himself -- for the first time. The documentary captures beautiful West Coast landscapes and weaves Herzog's observations about life, dreams, cinema and "ecstatic truth" into Phillips moments of childish wonder, hysterical madness, crushing doubt, and enlightened triumph. This remarkable personal film is ultimately beyond description; it blends art and life, exploring an unknowable truth while revealing something of the spirit of searching and the true meaning of journeys, big or small.
WINNER, Special Jury Prize - 2006 Seattle International Film Festival
JULY 6 - July 12, Fri - Thurs at 6:30 & 9 PM (plus Sat & Sun at 4 PM)
NEW 35MM PRINT
RAISE THE RED LANTERN
(Zhang Yimou, China, 1991, 35mm, 125min)
Part of China's legendary "Fifth Generation," Zhang Yimou (RED SORGHUM, JU DOU) is known for his visual simplicity, his obsession with the symbolism of the color red, and his passionate defense of women, who have faced hardship throughout Chinese history. He's also known for his work with actor Gong Li. Here she stars as a young woman who, having attempted a few terms at college in the 1920s, accepts the opportunity to become one of a wealthy businessman's four wives. Her stepmother warns, "You'll be his concubine." To which Gong's Song Lian coolly replies, "Let me be a concubine. Isn't that a woman's fate?" But is it? More than a hindsight avowal of feminism, RAISE THE RED LANTERN reviews various responses to the exploitation of femininity, and the power that lies in ritual. Though its story is specific to the period (each wife's status is measured by how often she can get the Master to order her into his bed at night), the film is a bitter commentary on continuing tensions between the sexes.
"A film of voluptuous physical beauty and angry passions." -Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times
"A brave, passionate and highly entertaining work of art." -Richard Corliss, Time
JULY 13 - July 19, Fri-Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM (plus Sat & Sun at 3 & 5 PM)
L'ICEBERG
(Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy, Belgium, 2006, 35mm, 84 min)
Come celebrate Bastille Day with this French language comedy that pays homage to both Marcel Marceau and Jacques Tati. With the innocent zest that once characterized silent movies, L'ICEBERG boldly revives the tradition of physical comedy in a story that puts playful slapstick and winsome pantomime in place of dialogue. One night, the manager of a fast-food restaurant gets trapped in the walk-in freezer one, spurring unbidden arctic fantasies which propel her to a new renegade life in the North. What results is a poetic, melancholy and also optimistic comedy in the style of Buster Keaton. (In French with English subtitles)
WINNER - Best Actress, Seattle International Film Festival
WINNER - Audience Award, Seattle International Film Festival
"Physical comedy in cinema so rarely rises above a kind of kick-the-cajones mediocrity, so Iceberg is a more than a welcome breath of fresh air." -Slant Magazine
JULY 16, Mon at 8 PM (no discounts)
THIRD EYE CINEMA AND NWFF PRESENT
THE FILMS OF BARBARA IRELAND
Barbara Ireland is a Seattle filmmaker who began making films at the age of eight. Eventually earning a degree from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, her films range from a lyrical documentary on the early-80s punk scene, to Fellini-esque B&W shorts, to exotic Sky Cries Mary music videos, to documentaries on the Cirque du Soleil and bipolar creativity. Her film SECRETS is a surrealistic journey into one woman's subconscious, won the Juries Choice award from the New York University Film Festival as well as awards from the Ann Arbor and Malta International Film Festivals.
JULY 17, Tues at 8pm
FILMMAKER'S SALOON
The Contra Body and the Camera Body:
A Discussion with Dance Filmmakers
Admission: $3 WigglyWorld Members / $5 General Public
(no advance registration required)
NWFF's quarterly Filmmaker's Saloon:
A panel discussion and socializing event for the local film and dance community
Like perfect tango partners, dance and film are art forms that mingle and flirt with surprising grace. But finding the rhythm to make a successful dance film is a challenging venture. With tonight's saloon we'll explore issues that are unique to the genre of dance film. What inspires dance films? What perspective do dancers have when they approach filmmaking? How do cinematographers and film directors find a mutual language with dancers to cross the boundaries of each medium?
At this Filmmaker's Saloon, we'll examine the unique challenges that dancers face using film and what challenges filmmakers face with dance as the subject. Hear from both sides - we'll have filmmakers and dancers of many levels here to talk about their experience with making dance films. Come see samples of dance films made by local artists, discuss the intentions of dance filmmakers, understand the unique exhibition opportunities, and hear stories from the production set of dance films.
Panelists include: Ben Kasulke (cinematographer), Adam Sekuler (director, NWFF program director), Marissa Neiderhauser (dancer, choreographer, director), plus more. Moderated by Dayna Hanson (producer, filmmaker, and experimental stage artist).
JULY 18-19, Wed - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM
TATI TURNS 100 featuring
JOUR DE FETE
(Jacques Tati, 1949, 35mm, 80 min)
Tati's acclaimed first feature stars the director as Francois, a postman living in the rural French countryside. Francois's humiliating interactions with the villagers he serves inspires a disastrously comic quest to modernize his delivery methods. Based on an earlier short film by Tati, JOUR DE FETE was one of the first French films to be shot in color. However, the film was first released in black-and-white after technical problems forced Tati to abandon his color version. In the 1990s, a color version was discovered, restored and released.
JULY 20-26, Fri - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM
DIRECTOR IN ATTENDANCE OPENING NIGHT!
OPENING NIGHT *FREE* TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
Live performance after Friday 9:15 PM show by David Bavas
JUNE & JULY
(Brady Hall, USA, 2006, DVCam from 35mm, 85min)
Winner of our Local Sightings Film Festival, JUNE & JULY turns the twenty-something independent film formula on its ear. Inseparable fraternal twins June (Bernadette Culvo) and July Shauer (Nathan Williams) are lifelong residents of a depressed small town. Sprung into action by the death of their mother, June hatches a plan to leave her brother and dull rural life in search of adventure and excitement in the big city. July, unaware of June's plan, continues to enjoy the simplicity his quaint town has to offer. Before announcing her departure, a house-party fight exposes June's mysterious supernatural physiology her inability to incur serious pain. Later, while searching for the link between her curious capacity and her past, June discovers an old photograph that leads the pair on a road trip to unravel the secrets of their family and genetic history. Injecting drama with humor and a bit of science fiction, JUNE & JULY is a bittersweet portrait of an unusual pair of siblings and the story of their divergent paths. Great music supports this beautifully shot exploration of an enigmatic family, in what can only be called a marvelous vision from the Northwest.
Screens with Local Sightings winning short WHAT'S IN THE BARN? Filmmakers present Friday night.
"June & July unquestionably gathers mystery and emotion. The film's ending is especially creative and satisfying." -Tom Keogh, Seattle Times
JULY 23, Mon at 8 PM
SEARCH AND RESCUE
NWFF's quixotic enthusiasm for 16mm film -- a medium that, let's face it, is about as au currant as cuneiform -- continues! This program provides a rare opportunity to examine the present by watching how it was perceived in the past. Each film -- newsreels, scientific demonstrations, civics lessons, history tutorials, and instructions for living is a naked testament to the ideas they attempted to grasp, and the eras and circumstances in which they were produced. This quarter's program is predicated on the philosophy that this cinematic flotsam is the raw stuff of American history. It is with this in mind that we present a new selection of great 16mm artifacts abandoned at the dumpster, but lovingly rescued by Northwest Film Forum.
This quarter's program features the 1964 film NOTHING BUT A MAN.
From American Visions:
Nothing But a Man stared Abbey Lincoln, who still sings. And Ivan Dixon, who now directs. In 1965 it won the Venice Film Festival's City of Venice award for best film, as well as the best film award at the San Giorgio Festival. But for all its artistic and critical successes, this 92-minute feature film by Michael Roemer and Robert Young, which helped give rise to the independent feature film movement of the 1960s, had its troubles from the start and never received popular acclaim.
Shooting the story of a young 1960s Southern black man's search for dignity and respect, in the 1960s, with a racially mixed cast, proved difficult. "We gave up the idea of filming in the South. We were even run out of Mississippi," says Roemer. "We shot south of the Mason-Dixon Line - in New Jersey."
For the same reasons, the film's distribution was limited primarily to art theaters in white areas of the North. Many African Americans never got to see the film, which, according to publicist Sam Mattingly, "deals with myriad issues which continue to plague the black community even today."
JULY 25-26, Wed - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM
TATI TURNS 100 featuring
MR. HULOT'S HOLIDAY
(Jacques Tati, France 1953, 35mm, 85 min)
In his first appearance as Mr. Hulot, Tati created a sensation as the bumbling tourist who terrorizes a French seaside resort. This film established Tati's international reputation and earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Story, Writing and Screenplay.
"An extraordinary melange of slapstick comedy (often veering towards the surreal) and visual poetry, Mr. Hulot's Holiday paints a portrait of French middle-class life which is both charming and cruel. It shows not only Tati's flair for comedy (which is virtually unsurpassed in French cinema) but also his particular talent for observation. There is so much detail and content in this film that it is impossible to take it all in and appreciate Tati's genius by watching the film just once." -James Travers, Films de France.com
JULY 27 - AUGUST 2, Fri - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM (plus Sat & Sun at 3 & 5 PM)
THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT
Sponsored by the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival, ACLU of Washington, Amnesty International Puget Sound, and The Innocence Project Northwest
DARRYL HUNT'S ATTORNEY MARK RABIL IN ATTENDANCE FRI & SAT!
Q&A with Washington state criminal defense attorney Robert Flennaugh II on Friday, July 27
Q&A with Washington state trial lawyer Jeff Grant on Saturday, July 28
Panel discussion hosted by Langston Hughes African American Film Festival after 7:00 show on August 2
(Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, USA, 2006,35mm, 106 min)
THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT documents a brutal rape/murder case in the American South. It offers a deeply personal story of a wrongfully convicted man, Darryl Hunt, who spent twenty years in prison for a crime he did not commit. In 1984, a young white newspaper reporter, Deborah Sykes, was raped, sodomized and stabbed to death just blocks from where she worked in Winston-Salem, NC. Based on an identification made by a former Ku Klux Klan member, a 19-year-old black man, Darryl Hunt, was charged. Although no physical evidence linked him to the crime, Hunt was convicted by an all white jury, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The film chronicles this capital case from 1984 through 2004. With personal narratives and exclusive footage from two decades, the directors frame the judicial and emotional responses to this chilling crime -- and the implications surrounding Hunt's conviction -- against a backdrop of class and racial bias in America. This unique look at one man's loss and redemption challenges the assumption that all Americans have the right to unbiased justice.
WINNER, Best Documentary - 2006 Seattle International Film Festival
"A powerful and unsettling chronicle... A quietly damning portrait of a North Carolina community divided by a horrific crime and its racially charged aftermath, with a laser-like intensity that will have audience's blood boiling." -Justin Chang, Variety
"Hunt's graciousness offers a more profoundly uplifting message about the resiliency of the human spirit than any of the dramatic features [at Sundance]." -Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune
Panelists on August 2 include:
Jeff Ellis: Jeff Ellis is a criminal defense attorney, law professor, and the president of the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Currently, a significant portion of his practice involves working to overturn wrongful convictions and sentences.
Silja Talvi: Silja Talvi is a full-time, investigative journalist and essayist, and a senior editor for the political monthly magazine, In These Times. Her book, /Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System/, will be out November 1, 2007, reflecting hundreds of interviews and nearly two years of national and international travel to women's jails and prisons. Silja's articles on social issues--with a particular emphasis on criminal justice, ethnicity and gender--have garnered 12 Society of Professional Journalists regional awards in the Pacific Northwest, as well as four consecutive PASS awards from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency for excellence in magazine journalism, and a 2006 national New American Media award for immigration-related reporting. Her work appears in numerous book anthologies including: Body Outlaws, The W Effect: Bush's War on Women, Prison Nation, as well as the forthcoming books, Prison Profiteers and It's So You, celebrating the intersection of feminism and fashion.
Born in Helsinki, Finland, Silja moved to the U.S. in 1977, to live in Hollywood, California, and then to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she earned her B.A. in Ethnic Studies and her M.A. in Women's Studies. These days, Silja lives in Seattle's Central District with her eccentric cat, Mange.
Jeffery P. Robinson: Jeff Robinson, a shareholder at Schroeter, Goldmark & Bender, is a criminal defense attorney in Seattle, Washington. After graduation from Harvard Law School in 1981, he worked as a Seattle-King County Public Defender and Assistant Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Washington before joining Schroeter, Goldmark & Bender in 1988. He teaches Trial Advocacy at the UW Law School, and is also a member of the faculty of the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Jeff is also a past president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
JULY 28, Sat at 7 & 8:30 PM
FROM THE TSARS TO THE STARS: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema
COSMIC VOYAGE
(Vasili Zhuravlev, USSR, 1936, 35mm 70 min)
The first Soviet sci-fi movie since the spectacularly popular AELITA: QUEEN OF MARS in 1924, this is the effects-filled story of Pavel (Sergei Komarov, who also appeared in Pudovkin's DESERTER and Barnet's OUTSKIRTS), a renegade space traveler. His voyage to the moon — he's fed up with the restrictions imposed by the "Moscow Institute for Interplanetary Travel" — offers a startlingly realistic technological prophecy. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a seminal space-travel theoretician, served as the production's science consultant (he was also the author of the film's source novel, OUTSIDE THE EARTH) and drew up more than 30 detailed blueprints for the "rocketplane" featured in the film. There may be a rocket named after Stalin, but the film still resounds with anti-doctrinal individualism, doubtlessly accounting for Ukrainian-born Soviet filmmaker Zhuravlev's sporadic post-COSMIC VOYAGE output.
Silent with Russian intertitles and English translation, with pre-recorded score.
JULY 28, Sat at 11PM
FROM THE TSARS TO THE STARS: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema
SPECIAL LATE NIGHT SCREENING!
BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN
(Francis Ford Coppola, USA, 1963, 16mm, 90 min)
In this visually spectacular outer space adventure, two post-nuclear nations race against the clock to reach the planet Mars and claim dominance over a world beyond imagination. Commissioned by drive-in legend Roger Corman, directed by Francis Ford Coppola (his first film!) BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN was derived from the Soviet sci-fi epic HEAVENS CALL. The duo added new scenes to the original, re-wrote the dialogue and literally re-edited the whole thing to create this drive-in favorite!
JULY 29, Sun at 7 & 9:15 PM
FROM THE TSARS TO THE STARS: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema
HEAVENS CALL
(Mikhail Karyukov and Aleksandr Kozyr, USSR, 1959,35 mm, 80 min)
A tale of two rival space probes, headed for Mars and the moon, that crash-land on a nearby asteroid, HEAVENS CALL features spectacular spacescapes, as well as a prescient prediction of the Earth's orbit cluttered by man-made satellites. Roger Corman helped himself to the film's plot and footage for the 1963 opus BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN, but core elements of the story (noble Russian cosmonauts helping stranded American astronauts) were unacceptable for US audiences during the Cold War, and the film was reconfigured into a cheesy drive-in movie. The pro-Russian elements were replaced with monsters by one of Corman's trusted directors -- an ambitious young director named Thomas Colchart, better known these days as Francis Ford Coppola.
JULY 31, Tues at 8 PM
THE SECOND ANNUAL KARAOKE CHALLENGE
NWFF and Three Dollar Bill Cinema once again challenge Seattle filmmakers to take a stab at creating goofy, tongue-in-cheek karaoke videos for their favorite songs, then belt it out loud while enjoying their favorite libations. Content is open to interpretation; each submission must have a designated singer for the screening which takes place on July 31 at Northwest Film Forum. The project is open to all levels of skills and experience. Submissions are due by June 30th . Send to: Northwest Film Forum, c/o Adam Sekuler, 1515 12th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122. For more info email Adam Sekuler at adams@nwfilmforum.org.
Rules: 1). Songs must be no longer than five minutes 2). Acceptable formats are mini-DV, DVD, BetaSP, or if you're feeling ambitious, Super-8 and 16mm 3). Include title, filmmaker's name and contact info with submission.
AUGUST 1-2, Wed - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM
TATI TURNS 100 featuring
MON ONCLE
(Jacques Tati, France, 1958, 35mm, 110 min)
Tati's second Mr. Hulot film finds our hapless hero in suburbia, unwelcome in the ultra-high tech and fully automated household of his sister, brother-in-law and nephew. Mr. Hulot's influence on his nephew causes his brother-in-law so much concern that to distance the two he finds a job for Hulot at his plastics factory, with predictably hilarious results. Mon Oncle won a raft of international prizes, including the Special Jury Prize at Cannes and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
"Mr. Hulot's second screen appearance was enough to put him among the immortals." -Faber Companion to Foreign Film
AUGUST 3, Fri at 7 & 9:15 PM
FROM THE TSARS TO THE STARS: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema
PLANET OF STORMS
(Pavel Klushantsev, USSR, 1961, 35mm, 83 min)
"Working from a dullish source — a novel by the Soviet sci-fi eminence Aleksandr Kazantsev — director Klushantsev overpowers the party-line dialogue with excellent effects. Upon arrival to Venus, cosmonauts find furious volcanoes and sundry prehistoric beasts (a cackling, swooping pterodactyl is most memorable)." -Robert Skotak
NOTE: Large portions of the film were cannibalized by producer Roger Corman to make VOYAGE TO A PREHISTORIC PLANET (1965, Curtis Harrington) and later, VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1966, Peter Bogdanovich), a version which included additional scenes with Mamie van Doren.
Screens with CAMERAMAN'S REVENGE
AUGUST 3 - 9, Fri - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM (plus Sat & Sun at 3 & 5 PM)
FROM THE DIRECTOR OF L'HUMANITE
FLANDERS
(Bruno Dumont, France, 2006, 35mm, 91 min)
Grand Prize winner at Cannes, FLANDERS is a masterful story told with stark, powerful images of the northern French countryside and its people as they become embroiled in a distant, nameless war. In his brutal minimalist style, Dumont reveals profound emotions of love, camaraderie and abandonment. He contrasts the barbaric, confusing and perhaps meaningless events of the battlefield with the pain of survival and escape felt by those who return home. With its gestures to Iraq and North Africa underpinned by allusions to the local scars of World War I, FLANDERS is a savage, confrontational work.
"FLANDERS makes antimilitary and anti-occupation statements with clear parallels to the situation in Iraq. With a brilliant severity, it is Dumont's most accomplished work since LA VIE DE JESUS." -Howard Feinstein, Filmmaker Magazine
"Bruno Dumont returns to the form his admirers love in FLANDERS a somber, beautifully acted reflection on the barbarity of war and the bestiality of man which only enormous compassion can redeem." -Deborah Young, Variety
AUGUST 4, Sat at 7 & 8:30 PM
FROM THE TSARS TO THE STARS: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema
EVENINGS ON A FARM NEAR DIKANKA
(Aleksandr Rou, USSR, 1961, 35 mm, 69 min)
"A glorious excursion into Technicolor fantasy and a film that remains very true to the spirit of Russian/Ukrainian literary master Nikolai Gogol, EVENINGS ON A FARM is one of the most beautiful works in the rich strain of Russian cinematic fantasy. The tale of a blacksmith (Aleksandr Khvylya) from a darkened village sent on an endless quest on Christmas Eve by his beloved Oksana (L. Myznikova) -- ends in St. Petersburg with a stop along the way for a conference with the devil. The story has been filmed a few times throughout Russian film history, but never with so much charm and such rich feeling for the satiric, folkloric power of the source material." -Kent Jones
NOTE: Based on Gogol's 1832 collection of short stories, this story is so well known in Russia that it has recently been adapted into a series of video games.
AUGUST 5, Sun at 7 & 9 PM
FROM THE TSARS TO THE STARS: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema
AMPHIBIAN MAN
(Gennadi Kazansky and Vladimir Chebotaryov, USSR, 1961, 35mm, 95 min)
AMPHIBIAN MAN is one of the most beloved of all Russian films (65 million admissions in 1962, which roughly translates into 520 million American box-office dollars today). It's a tall tale about handsome, water dwelling gilled mutant Ichtyandr (Vladimir Korenov). His father has replaced Ichtyandr's faulty lung with the gills of a young shark. The story unfolds in a coastal locale among pearl divers, rogues and salty old seamen. When Ichtyandr saves a local fisherman's daughter (Anastasiya Vertinskaya) from a shark attack, he falls in love with her and wants to give up the water for a life on land. The film is perhaps the ultimate product of the late 50's-early 60's Soviet political "thaw." This enchanting hybrid of THE LITTLE MERMAID and THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON brims with surreal Latin song-and-dance numbers and Russian stars in brownface (shot on beautiful Cuban locations) that you must see to believe. Korenov and Vertinskaya (who went on to play Ophelia in Kozintsev's HAMLET and the Princess in Bondarchuk's WAR AND PEACE) both became huge Soviet stars as a result of this film's massive success. -Robert Skotak
"A dizzy morph from a CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON template to a forecast of EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, all shot in rich tropical greens... and fueled by mad-scientist ideas of a class-free 'underwater republic.'" -Michael Atkinson, Village Voice
AUGUST 7, Tues at 8pm
NWFF and Third Eye Cinema present:
VANISHING RUINS: VISIONS OF DETROIT
FILMMAKER IN ATTENDANCE!
Third Eye Cinema presents two new films capturing the tragic urban beauty of Detroit, Michigan. The filmmakers evoke the history of a place haunted by the ghosts of the past and the uncertainties of the present using the small gauge intimacy of Super 8mm film. I PITY THE FOOL is Brent Coughenour's ambitious, feature-length experimental narrative investigating the clues to a mystery both epic and accidental. In Coughenour's words, "As a city dismantles itself, clues to its past resurface. Collections of scraps sifted from rubble - an archeology of unanswered questions combine to tell a surrogate narrative filled with missing pieces and forgotten motives, old letters, photographs, and home movies. Fractured moments occurring on one summer day, maybe two, echo events from thirty years earlier." The feature presentation will be preceded by Detroit-based filmmaker Jack Cronin's sublime INVISIBLE CITY, a poetic document of fleeting and fugitive urban space and time.
AUGUST 8-9, Wed - Thurs at 7 & 9:30 PM
TATI TURNS 100 featuring
PLAYTIME
(Jacques Tati, France, 1967, 35mm, 126 min)
Mr. Hulot finds himself lost in the maze of a fully modernized and dehumanized Paris, stuck with a gaggle of American tourists (English dialogue was contributed by Art Buchwald), mindlessly sightseeing in the dubiously sight-worthy city. Shot over the course of three years on a set the size of small city built on the outskirts of Paris, the film ran tremendously over budget, and its subsequent commercial failure caused Tati's financial ruin. However, it is now recognized as a masterpiece and the fulfillment of Tati's extraordinary vision.
"It is a film which comes from another planet where they make films differently. Playtime is perhaps Europe of 1968 filmed by the first Martian filmmaker." -François Truffaut
AUGUST 10, Fri at 6 & 9:15 PM
FROM THE TSARS TO THE STARS: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema
SOLARIS
(Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR, 1972, 35mm, 165 min)
Scientist Chris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) is sent to a space station whose inhabitants have been performing a series of experiments in an attempt to make contact with the strange planet known as Solaris. When he arrives, he believes that most of the crew has gone mad, until he's visited by an apparition: his former lover Hari (Natalia Bondarchuk), who had committed suicide long ago. Thus he learns the secret of Solaris and its ocean, which creates "copies" of real people, "simulacra made not of ordinary matter but of neutrinos which are modeled by the thinking ocean out of the human subconscious. They are a physical embodiment of all the temptations, desires and suppressed guilt that torment the human mind." -Maya Turovskaya
AUGUST 10-16, Fri - Thurs at 6:30 & 9:15 PM (plus Sat & Sun at 4 PM)
BAMAKO
Sponsored by KBCS Radio and Jubilee Northwest
Special panel after 6:30 screening on August 16
(Abderrahmane Sissako, Mali/France, 2006, 35mm, 118 min)
In the courtyard of a house in Mali, an unusual trial is taking place. The plaintiff is African civil society and the defendants are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), accused of responsibility for Africa's woes. Witnesses give evidence of the consequences of World Bank and IMF intervention in Africa, stating that vital resources go towards repaying never-ending debts rather than essential services. As the trial proceeds, we observe the breakdown of the marriage between Mel (Assa Maga), a beautiful singer, and the unemployed, despondent Chaka (Ticoura Traor).Their fates and those of the others going about their lives in the bustling courtyard are inextricably linked to the trial. BAMAKO's images are invariably arresting, though the camera rarely leaves the courtyard. When it does, Sissako treats us to a delightful pastiche of a Western shootout, which has a startling connection to the trial. This is an impassioned, intelligent and unforgettable film from one of Africa's most gifted directors.
"BAMAKO is a work of cool intelligence and profound anger, a long, dense, argument that is also a haunting visual poem." -A.O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES
Special panel after 6:30 screening on August 16:
Michael Righi teaches Economics and International Political Economy
at Bellevue Community College. He has been a long term Seattle
activist working with the Jubilee Northwest Coalition on debt
cancellation, and speaking on issues of the debt, the role of the
IMF, and the injustice of the international economy.
Meredith Fort is a PhD student in public health at the University of
Washington and she works with Health Alliance International on its
advocacy and communication initiatives. She was co-editor for the book
Sickness and Wealth: the Corporate Assault on Global Health (2004).
She has spent seven of the past 10 years working in Guatemala to
support organizing efforts for primary health care and has also been
involved with
activist work around treatment access and debt cancellation.
Wendy Johnson is a family practitioner and activist physician who has
been involved domestically in the struggle for universal access to
equitable health care, immigrant rights and living wage laws. She
has worked and volunteered internationally with Doctors for Global
Health in Chiapas, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti and Chile.
She has worked with Health Alliance International since 2004,
starting in Mozambique and is currently the Director of New
Initiatives at the Seattle office.
AUGUST 11, Sat. at 3 PM
THE LAST SLIDE PROJECTOR
(Paige Sarlin, USA, 2007, BETA, 59min)
A HOME MOVIE DAY MEMORIAL
If you grew up before PowerPoint, you've surely spent at least a few hours in a darkened room as someone clicked through a carousel of slide transparencies and, probably, bored you. But as they say, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. When artist/filmmaker Paige Sarlin heard that Eastman Kodak was bowing to the digital age and halting its production of slide projectors in 2004, she began a project that resulted in the documentary film THE LAST SLIDE PROJECTOR. Screening followed by curated selection of local personal slide shows.
AUGUST 11, Sat at 7 & 9:30 PM
FROM THE TSARS TO THE STARS: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema
TO THE STARS BY HARD WAYS
NEW 35MM PRINT!
(Richard and Nikolai Viktorov, USSR, 1981, 35mm,118 min)
Boldly going where no man has gone before, the starship Pushkin finds an abandoned vessel in deep space filled with the decaying bodies of humanoids. There is, however, one surviving member of the crew, a gynoid (female android) named Niya who seeks the help of earthlings to restore her now severely polluted home planet of Dessa to its natural splendor. Pitched exclusively to a teenage audience and unashamed of it, this delirious space adventure features bionic women, cosmic mercenaries, and the most embarrassing guy-in-a-suit robot to never utter "Danger, Will Robinson." After the fall of the USSR, it inevitably became a cult hit among the Russian hipster set. In 2001, under the supervision of the director's son, the film enjoyed a full restoration and was saved after nearly being lost. -Robert Skotak
NOTE: The original version of the film (pre 2001) is known to MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000 fans as HUMANOID WOMAN, and was written by renowned science-fiction author Kir Bulychev, whose novel ONE HUNDRED YEARS AHEAD was the basis of the Russian mini-series GUEST FROM THE FUTURE.
AUGUST 12, Sun at 7 & 9:15 PM
FROM THE TSARS TO THE STARS: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema
FIRST ON THE MOON
(Alexei Fedorchenko, Russia, 2005, 35mm, 76 min)
"Think it was Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin? Well, think again, because as Alexei Fedorchenko's unsettling debut film reveals, a Soviet cosmopilot, Ivan Kharlamov, actually went there and back in 1938. He piloted his experimental, and highly secretive craft to the moon, returning to the Earth in Chile, from where he undertook an arduous journey across the Pacific, through China and Mongolia and finally into Mother Russia itself. FIRST ON THE MOON is a touching expression of unfettered utopian spirit - a sense of the limitless possibilities of human ingenuity and imagination - that characterized many people's vision of the Soviet experiment before its grim realities settled in. -Kent Jones
FIRST ON THE MOON won Best Documentary at the Venice Film Festival, despite the faux content.
"Fedorchenko's first feature is a crafty mock documentary positing a super secret Soviet space landing that predates the American giant leap by thirty years. Mixing real and phony archival footage, and fictitious present-day interviews with one of the figures involved in the project, First on the Moon is part intriguing, textured experiment in the ersatz, part spoof of Soviet propaganda films, and part sinister drama of Stalin-era repression." -George Kaltsounakis
"Inventive, slickly made... While Western audiences may chuckle at the deftly executed mimicry of Soviet kitsch, viewers from Eastern Europe will feel the darker undertow." -Leslie Felperin, Variety
AUGUST 15-16, Wed - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM
TATI TURNS 100 featuring
TRAFFIC
(Jacques Tati, France, 1971, 35mm, 96 min)
Tati's final feature film is a prescient study of man's absurd love affair with the automobile. Mr. Hulot is back as the inventor of an ultramodern camper who encounters mounting obstacles as he tries to get his invention to an auto show in Amsterdam.
"Splendidly funny...exuberantly entertaining...TRAFFIC is a hilarious highway odyssey, a panorama that unfolds around Mr. Hulot." -Vincent Canby
AUGUST 17 - AUGUST 23, Fri - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM (plus Sat & Sun at 3 & 5 PM)
BELLE DE JOUR
(Luis Buñuel, France, 1967, 35mm, 101 min)
Sverine (a radiant, ice-cold Catherine Deneuve) is the wife of a young doctor who has neglected both her and their marriage. Tired of her mundane bourgeois life, she takes a day job at a high-class brothel where she services a series of odd men with highly eccentric fetishes (including one with a coffin fixation). Sverine enjoys this double life until one of her customers becomes obsessed with her and wants to kill her husband. She becomes torn between living as an abandoned housewife and as an upper-class prostitute. Although she tries to stop the murder, her efforts are curiously half-hearted. In this comic meditation on erotic obsession and ambiguity, Buñuel and screenwriter Carrire don't provide any certainty on what is real and what (like Sverine's masochistic fantasies) is only imagined. They also delve deeply into the tension between middle-class values and the irrational forces that seethe underneath. With lush color cinematography by Sacha Vierny and couture by Yves Saint Laurent, BELLE DE JOUR is as glamorous as it is perverse. The film suffered a strange fate after its initial release; the producers mysteriously withdrew it from circulation for decades. Finally, Miramax (with the help of Martin Scorsese) got the film out of limbo for restoration and release allowing a new generation to discover this subversive erotic fantasy.
"This silly little masterpiece regards Deneuve as the goddess of light she really was -- a figment of our collective appetite for the unreal." -The Village Voice
AUGUST 17-23, Fri - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM
BELLE TOUJOURS
(Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal/France, 2006, 35mm, 70 min)
Nearly 40 years after BELLE DE JOUR, this film is a de facto sequel to Louis Buñuel's masterpiece. Michel Piccoli reprises his role as Henri Husson, the man who was obsessed with the bourgeois housewife/prostitute Sverine (Bulle Ogier stands in for Catherine Deneuve). Seeing her through a crowd one day, he makes it his mission to contact her. Husson and Sverine can be seen, not as a nostalgic elegy, but as an affirmation of life-long passion, curiosity, iconoclasm, and irreverence, where the insightful, tongue-in-cheek mind games of Buñuel have been transformed into an altogether different kind of psychological deconstruction, one that faithfully -- and exquisitely -- resonates within Oliveira's own recurring expositions on aging, vitality, self-awareness, and memory.
"Oliveira's short but sweet rumination on growing old and the fading of sexual desire is not only high-concept, but one of his most watchable." -Variety
AUGUST 24-30, Fri - Thurs at 7 & 9:15 PM (plus Sat & Sun at 3 & 5 PM)
YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
(Keven McAlester, USA, 2005, 35mm, 92 min)
Keven McAlester says of his award winning documentary, "I started out thinking I was making ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, but I ended up with something more like BEING THERE." Shot by cinematographer Lee Daniel (SLACKER, DAZED AND CONFUSED, BEFORE SUNSET), the film tells the story of Austinite Roky Erickson, undeniably one of the greatest singer-songwriter, guitar player and harmonica-wailers of all time, and Janis Joplin's chief influence. The singer and founding member of the 13th Floor Elevators was talented but unpredictable. After entering an insanity plea in 1969 for a marijuana arrest, Roky was sent to a mental hospital for three years where he was surrounded by the worst violent and mentally ill criminals. To the great dismay of his fans, he became a recluse. Featuring interviews with Billy Gibbons, Thurston Moore, and Patti Smith, YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME is a devastating exploration of the life of one of rock's most infamously tragic figures.
"YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME is still a great meld of rock history, the sociological and familial impacts of mental disability and some courtroom intrigue." -Film Threat
AUGUST 27 - SEPTEMBER 2, Mon-Sun at 5 PM
365 PLAYS/365 DAYS FILM CHALLENGE
Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks worked on a project (365 Plays/365 Days) in which she wrote one play every day for a whole year. The world premiere of 365 Days/365 Plays is being presented by 52 Seattle artists and performing groups over a period of one year in a wide range of theaters and other locations. NWFF took Seattle's participation in 365 Plays/365 Days as a launching point to turn film into an ephemeral medium. NWFF is asking local filmmakers to interpret the plays in film form knowing that each film will screen on the day it was written and each program concludes with a ceremonial burning of the filmmaker's own work. More information about this program can be found on the web at www.365seattle.com
AUGUST 29, Wed at 5 PM
NWFF's SECOND ANNUAL SEATTLE BIKE-IN
Pedal to Cal Anderson Park for NWFF's second annual Seattle Bike-In, a celebration of biking and cinema! This year our filmic homage to bikes is a collectively made feature length film (read below for details)! Learn how to ride safely on city streets, how to navigate bike trails across the state, how to advocate for transportation alternatives, and how to donate your old bike to a good cause. Enjoy live music, a community potluck, and advice from neighborhood bike-friendly businesses, bicycle art from local artists, and more!
Details about the Bicycle Feature Film Challenge
PICK UP INSTRUCTIONS AT NWFF ON JULY 24 at 8 PM
Men and women, girls and boys: Gather to create Seattle's first-ever Feature Film Challenge! Contestants will work with pieces of a divvied up plot. Each segment will be a five-minute film. When strung together, these seemingly stand-alone short films will fuse together to comprise an organic whole. Just imagine your romantic exposition juxtaposed with your neighbor's chronicle of revenge, which precedes your cousin's contemplation on the destruction of the Earth by wicked mankind! We'll see a tale of love, of loss, and -- most importantly -- a tale about the importance of alternative transportation and responsible transportation-oriented, community-driven development!
Artists and amateurs alike will have the unique ability to experience first-hand the entire creative process, from conception, to production, to exhibition.
