Local Sightings 2022 – Living Experiments [Hybrid]
Watch online: Sep. 16–25
Watch in person: Sep. 21 at 7:30pm
Watch in person: Sep. 21 at 7:30pm
Click for Accessibility Info
Ticketing, concessions, cinemas, restrooms, and our public edit lab are located on Northwest Film Forum’s ground floor, which is wheelchair accessible. All doors in Northwest Film Forum are non-motorized, and may require staff assistance to open. Our upstairs workshop room is not wheelchair accessible.
We have a limited number of assistive listening devices available for programs hosted in our larger theater, Cinema 1. These devices are maintained by the Technical Director, and can be requested at the ticketing and concessions counter. Also available at the front desk is a Sensory Kit you can borrow, which includes a Communication Card, noise-reducing headphones, and fidget toys.
The Forum does NOT have assistive devices for the visually impaired, and is not (yet) a scent-free venue. Our commitment to increasing access for our audiences is ongoing, and we welcome all public input on the subject!
If you have additional specific questions about accessibility at our venue, please contact our Patron Services Manager at cris@nwfilmforum.org. Our phone number (206-329-2629) is voicemail-only, but we check it often.
Made possible due to a grant from Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, in partnership with Sensory Access, our Sensory Access document presents a visual and descriptive walk-through of the NWFF space. View it in advance of attending an in-person event at bit.ly/nwffsocialnarrativepdf, in order to prepare yourself for the experience.
⚠️ Covid-19 Policies ⚠️
NWFF patrons will be required to wear masks that cover both nose and mouth while in the building. Disposable masks are available at the door for those who need them. We are not currently checking vaccination cards. Recent variants of COVID-19 readily infect and spread between individuals regardless of vaccination status.
Read more about NWFF’s policies regarding cleaning, masks, and capacity limitations here.
About
To be alive is to try. To take form and dissolve. In Living Experiments, plant matter, tech clutter, bodies, and buildings collide—abstracting movement, sound, space, and time.
Header photo credit: Garden Haiku, dir. Caryn Cline
BUY TICKETS HERE
Co-presented by Engauge Experimental Film Festival!
Celebrating sprocket-driven, artist-made work, Engauge is an annual film showcase of new works that originated on analog film. The 2022 edition of the festival takes place Nov. 2–5 at Northwest Film Forum, with 16mm and/or 35mm film prints screening in nearly every showcase of short films. Engauge is a program of Interbay Cinema Society.
Co-presented by Velocity Dance Center!
FAQ: How do I watch online?
- Purchase your ticket through Northwest Film Forum’s Eventive virtual cinema. A free Eventive login is required.
- From the Eventive virtual catalog page, purchased tickets will appear under “My Content Library” under your user menu (upper-right). From the Eventive festival landing page, they will appear under “My Tickets” on the site’s menu bar (at top).
- Your confirmation email will also route you back to these pages to watch. (Can’t find it? Check spam!)
- If all else fails, please contact paul@nwfilmforum.org
FAQ: How do I watch in-person?
- Purchase your ticket through Brown Paper Tickets; come to the show!
- You can also purchase a ticket on the day of the screening at Northwest Film Forum’s box office (1515 12th Ave, Seattle).
- If you have purchased a Hybrid or In-Person-Only Festival Pass, we’ll be able to look you up at Will Call by the name you purchased under.
Films in this program:
Garden Glimpses
(Caryn Cline, WA, 2022, 6 min, nonverbal)
World Premiere!
** Featuring a live score by drummer Dan Sasaki at the in-person screening! **
Garden Glimpses, inspired by Marie Menken’s “Glimpse of the Garden,” is the second in a series of films about artists of the everyday. Camera double exposures capture the colors and textures of landscape architect Keith Geller’s Seattle garden on an early summer day.
a valley myth
(Corrie Befort, WA, 2022, 6 min, nonverbal)
Seattle Premiere!
Cold work and dark cattle, many things to form a valley.
Bad Neighborhoods
(Webster Crowell, WA, 2021, 2 min, nonverbal)
The architecture of the urban world, while responsive and living in its own right, is not necessarily hospitable.
Safe and Seen on 82nd
(Dawn Jones Redstone, Annie Tonsiengsom, OR, 2021, 4 min, nonverbal)
World Premiere!
As Unit Souzou’s taiko drum tracks pound in the foreground, a pedestrian of Asian descent in Portland, OR struggles to be seen. The struggle is both metaphorical and literal, as their walk traverses Portland’s Jade District, where pedestrian safety suffers from the neglect of infrastructural racism. Growing increasingly frustrated, our character’s anger reaches an internal fever pitch before entering a transformative emotional turning point and joyful release.
Thoughts on Time & Lessons Learned
(Victor Anthony Martin, WA, 2022, 9 min, in English)
World Premiere!
An experimental audio/visual diary consisting of a group of people discussing their thoughts regarding time, aging, and lessons learned.
Animal in Ascension
(Ian Clark, OR, 2022, 5 min, in English)
Northwest Premiere!
** This film is exclusive to the in-person screening! **
An inter-dimensional fever dream about DMT in the margins of human perception.
Untwined
(Joshua Kong, WA, 2022, 6 min, in English)
World Premiere!
Untwined is a dance film highlighting the transformative choreography of Bennyroyce Royon alongside four students with no formal dance training, who struggle with daily insecurities until they are transformed by the healing force of a Banyan tree. Individually and collectively weaving through pain, self-doubt, and inner conflicts, they arrive at their own growth and connectivity.
This is Concrete II
(Kent Colony, WA, 2022, 3 min, in English)
Seattle Premiere!
Experimental Seattle-based performance and dance company MALACARNE responds to the architecture and history of the decommissioned Georgetown Steam Plant in this excerpt from a five hour durational dance piece exploring relationship to bodies and time.
Made on a Mac
(Sophie Heyman, OR, 2022, 3 min, in English)
World Premiere!
When a library of over 2,000 stock images, thumbnails, and sound bites were inexplicably imported onto the filmmaker’s laptop, what started off as a found footage project on the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement became a piece about being corrupted.
THE CALLING
(Jeff Schick, WA, 2021, 7 min, in English)
Woven with undertones of Greek mythology, this genre-bending screen dance is an allegory for the power struggle between the divine feminine and masculine energies.
Amulet
(Ruth Hayes, WA, 2022, 2 min, nonverbal)
Northwest Premiere!
The bells, or koudounia, that goats and sheep in Crete traditionally wore served as amulets to ward off evil spirits. Still in use, they also help shepherds know where their flocks are and what they are doing. Animated to a track composed of koudounia samples, this film’s abstract imagery originated in cameraless techniques that include stencil and bleach on 16mm color stock, and cyanotype.
Window Circumstance
(Sierra Grove, WA, 2022, 3 min, nonverbal)
Seattle Premiere!
Window Circumstance is an experimental film poem that creates a parallel between windows, vision, and cinema. The viewer is invited to reflect on the act of filmmaking as a rectangular container for one’s experience of reality.
Garden Haiku
(Caryn Cline, WA, 2022, 1 min, nonverbal)
World Premiere!
Handmade 16mm phytography sequences interact with a homegrown haiku inspired by spring in the filmmaker’s garden.
Festival Directory
⚠️ Please note: NWFF patrons will be required to wear masks that cover both nose and mouth while in the building. We are not currently checking vaccination cards.
Presented by Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum, the 25th Annual Local Sightings Film Festival is a virtual-and-in-person showcase of creative communities from throughout the Pacific Northwest. The 2022 program, which runs from September 16–25, features a competitive selection of curated short film programs and feature films, inviting regional artists to experiment, break, and remake popular conceptions around filmmaking and film exhibition.
Local Sightings champions emerging and established talent, supports the regional film industry, and promotes diverse media as a critical tool for public engagement.