Engauge 2025 – History/Memory/Archive
INDIVIDUAL FILM PROGRAM TICKETS:
- $15 General Admission
- $10 Student/Child/Senior
- $7 NWFF/SIFF/GI/PCNW member
INDIVIDUAL TICKETS TO SPECIAL EVENTS:
(Lori Goldston Performance)
- $18 General Admission
- $13 NWFF/SIFF/GI/PCNW member
FRIDAY DAY PASS:
(two film programs)
- $25 General
- $15 Student/Child/Senior
- $10 NWFF/SIFF/GI/PCNW member
SATURDAY DAY PASS:
(two film programs + one special event)
- $36 General
- $28 Student/Child/Senior
- $20 NWFF/SIFF/GI/PCNW member
FULL FESTIVAL PASSES:
(includes Lori Goldston Performance!)
- $70 General
- $50 Student/Child/Senior
- $35 NWFF/SIFF/GI/PCNW member
On Film
Screening on film!
About
These filmmakers mine the past in all its richness–using found footage, recovered audio, source footage, movement, re-creations, documentary evidence–to convey senses of beauty, sorrow, solace and resilience.
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.
NWFF patrons will be strongly encouraged 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. 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.
- 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 Full Festival Pass or Full Day Pass, we’ll be able to look you up at Will Call by the name you purchased under.
Films in this program:
Full Out
(Sarah Ballard | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 14:25 | USA)
In 19th century Paris at the Salpêtrière Hospital, patients were hypnotized on stage to reproduce the symptoms of hysteria for public audiences. Over a century later, high school cheerleaders are fainting en masse.
Wherever Street Piece
(Panu Johansson | b & w + sound | 16mm to digital | 8:49 | Finland)
This found footage film describes impersonal and fragmented memories that cannot be directly linked to the life of one particular individual, and documents the way these past realities – forgotten people in forgotten situations – blend together from the perspective of the present. Obviously not everything can be stored and passed on, but If we neglect the lessons of the past, are we also bound to repeat its mistakes?
I Was There
(Kamila Kuc | color + sound I Super 8 to digital | 12:25 | Poland/UK)
A haunting exploration of familial bonds, intergenerational memory, and the enduring impact of shared narratives, “I Was There” and filmmaker Kamila Kuc step into the emotional stream of inherited family history, as the lines between documentary, testimony, and fiction blur. Kamila performs acts of bearing witness not just for herself but also on behalf of her grandmother. Together, they testify to their experiences and the reverberations these stories have over time. “I Was There” is a palimpsest – a layered tapestry where past and present intertwine in the intimate process of activating memory and vulnerability as forms of resistance, honouring the testimonial object inherited from ancestors and the living connection that binds generations in the shared pursuit of justice and healing.
Lessons on Flight
(Cecilia Araneda | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 4:27 | Chile/Canada)
Shot on 16 mm film, eco-processed with olives and hand coloured on site in rural Chile, “lessons on flight” examines the flight patterns of the green-backed firecrown hummingbird.
Deep 1
(Philip Hoffman | b & w + sound, then silent | 16mm to digital | 15:00 | Canada)
Filmed over 2 years (2020-2022), at home and away, “Deep 1” is a diaristic meditation, flower/plant processed and decayed with hyacinth and lichen extract. Winged and four legged animals, both wild and domestic, traverse the frame marked by a hand-made practice. Filmed in Mount Forest, Ontario and Dawson City, Yukon.
Words Fly Back to the Black Earth
(Xiao Zhang | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 19:12 | China)
Framed as a dialogue with my grandmother, this film explores an alternative form of personal writing by Chinese women in the context of major political events—one that is both absent and abundant. A calling inhabits the blank pages, unfolding a secret writing of hers. The unseen written traces seep from the murmuring land, pushing through fragmented voices to become new forms—beings made material. The ‘blank’ becomes an image, carrying a search for agency: of land transformed, of women unheard, of voids rewritten. By breaking down linguistic structures, the film opens a space for imagining, reading, and performing, allowing for emergence.