** Directors Aaron Bourget (Time Well Spent), Tristan Seniuk (Float, which took home the audience award for best short at Local Sightings 2017), and Long Tran & Nikkia Atkinson (Dinosaurs in the Hood) will be in attendance with NW Film Center’s Ben Popp! **

The Best of the 44th Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival touring program presents a carefully selected cross-section of filmmaking from the Northwest. The Northwest Film Center presents this showcase to bring the filmmakers wider exposure while offering regional independent films to venues and audiences large and small.

PROGRAM:

Time Well Spent / Aaron Bourget / Seattle, WA
(ANI) A hard-working artist is unfairly critiqued. (1 min.)

Do We Leave This Here / Julia Hutchings / Vancouver, B.C.
(NAR) A Journalist travels to the Peace River Valley to speak to residents about their community, which will soon be erased after the completion of a dam downstream. (17 min.) * Judge’s Award: Best Drama

Dinosaurs in the Hood / Long Tran & Nikkia Atkinson / Renton, WA
(EXP) A cinematic adaptation of a spoken-word poem about negative representations of African-American men perpetuated by mass media. (4 min.)

Float / Tristan Seniuk & Volneak Sip / Seattle, WA
(NAR) Rocky Mang is a Cambodian hustler in 1990’s Seattle who spends his day slinging cheap cologne at the corner store between persistent attempts to convince a local barista to go on a date with him. (24 min.) * Judge’s Award: Special Mention

Vestibular Matching Soundtrack / McKenzie Blake / Beaverton, OR
(DOC) Advances in technology also create linguistic rifts. Having been born largely deaf, a cochlear implant has provided the director access to sound, but at what cost? (9 min.)

Lost Winds / Caryn Cline / Seattle, WA
(EXP) Plant materials taped directly onto the celluloid of 16mm film and optically printed create unique rhythms, patterns, and images. (3 min.)

CultureTrauma / Jodi Darby / Portland, OR
(DOC) Using clips from Hollywood cinema, religious films, newsreels, and home movies, a reflection on what it means to have come of age in the 1970’s United States. (11 min.) * Judge’s Award: Best Essay

A Mew Hope / David Koesters / Portland, OR
(NAR) A star fighter and her cat, who doubles as spaceship, must escape an army of soldiers in their own furry ships, or else face the wrath of pug planet. (5 min.)