QUOTES
"A one-stop shop for Seattle's cultural life" - Regina Hackett, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 2008
"Long before Starbucks and Microsoft put Seattle on the corporate map, the city was a haven for artists, musicians and moviemakers. Since 2003, the city has helped 62 independent films get made in the area, due largely to the Northwest Film Forum, a 12-year-old organization with nearly 1,000 members which aids local moviemakers in getting their movies made by co-producing projects through their "Start-to-Finish" program. This kind of support has brought many new moviemakers to the city and kept even more homegrown talents enthusiastic about shooting their films in Seattle." -MOVIEMAKER MAGAZINE, Winter 2007
"The medium is no longer the message. As [On the Boards] and Northwest Film Forum prove, mixing disciplines makes them stronger. Northwest Film Forum has turned into a hub that draws from visual art, theater, dance and music communities, recognizing the fluid new reality of contemporary art." - Regina Hacket, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER "Best of 2005" Issue: December 30 2005
"Seattle's cultural focal point... Increasingly, the forum is the dominant one-stop shop for the city's cultural life.... Something's happening here, and it feels like a real-deal cultural advance." - Regina Hackett, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER April 15 2005
"For many reasons - the automatic equation of the feature film format with Hollywood commercial product first among them - the U.S.'s non-profit funding world and the American independent filmmaking scene have acted like estranged cousins for the last two decades. Seattle's Northwest Film Forum is changing all of that with its 'Start to Finish' grant." - Scott Macaulay FILMMAKER MAGAZINE, January 2005
"What would Seattle be like without THE NORTHWEST FILM FORUM? This is a cruel question, for without it, Seattle's film community and its very film identity would be severely crippled - not a pretty scenario by any means. Founded in 1995 by Jamie Hook and Debbie Girdwood, built by tireless employees and scores of volunteers, the nonprofit NWFF is a jewel for Seattle; from its classes on film artistry, to its screenings of rare and underappreciated works, to its actual film production, Hook and Girdwood's creation has bloomed into the driving force for cinema in Seattle." - Bradley Steinbacher, THE STRANGER Oct 9, 2003
From THE STRANGER'S "10 Great Film Events"
Number 1: "Founding of the Northwest Film Forum (1996). From the dusty, depressed old relic that was the
Grand Illusion grew a thriving nexus of film production and programming that fundamentally changed
the focus of Seattle film, for the better." - Sean Nelson, THE STRANGER Feb 28 2002
"Seattle's jewel of a nonprofit film organization." - Bradley Steinbacher, THE STRANGER, May 13 2004
"On any given afternoon, you might find a group of actors rehearsing for a local production,
within earshot of a small class of students learning how to develop their own rolls of 8mm film.
A small library of film books sits on a cramped shelf near the studio's tiny den, where aspiring
auteurs hand out and dream of a Sundance premiere." - Jeff Shannon, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER,
Dec 11 2001