Calendar
Seattle Web Fest 2016
More info available at seattlewebfest.com
Mar 12, 2016
Seattle Web Fest is a free one-day film festival featuring web-based fiction & non-fiction series from Seattle and around the world. We celebrate independent television by curating a selection of amazing shows for theatrical presentation while hosting panels & workshops from industry professionals.
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum
New digital restoration!
Mar 13 - Mar 14, 2016
(Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan, 1939, DCP, 142 min)
This achingly gorgeous emotional epic from the incomparable Kenji Mizoguchi is one of the triumphs of Japanese cinema. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum follows the journey of a young actor who breaks away from his wealthy kabuki troupe family to marry his parents’ former servant; cruelly estranged, he and his wife descend into poverty and disillusionment on society’s margins.
Here Come the Videofreex
Seattle premiere! Introduction by Robin Oppenheimer on 3/13!
Mar 13 - Mar 16, 2016
(Jon Nealon, Jenny Raskin, United States, 2015, 79 min)
It may be hard to believe, but there was a time when new media technology wasn’t immediately branded for mass consumption. In 1969, a pair of proto-documentarians stumbled upon a new invention: security cameras. Pop off the mount, and there you go: portability, playback, and a storytelling device that even broke hippies can afford. Enter the Videofreex. A NY video co-op conceived at Woodstock, which would go on to promote video for the people, by the people, generations before the advent of social media as we know it. This documentary by Jon Nealon and Jenny Raskin draws heavily on original Videofreex footage from the late 60s and early 70s, as the co-op intimately records a country wracked by change.
Madam Phung's Last Journey
Seattle premiere!
Mar 13, 2016
(Nguyễn Thị Thấm, Vietnam, 2014, 87 min)
A former monk who left monastic life because "I saw beautiful fags praying, and felt like running away," Madam Phung is a canny businesswoman who got her start as a singer, and saved her money in the form of gold bars she would bury in the ground. Now she is something of a den mother to her largely transgender troupe - berating them when they drink or fight too much, warning them to stay out of trouble, and dealing with local police and occasionally hostile locals when necessary.
Wings of Desire
Co-presented with SIFF
Mar 17, 2016
(Wim Wenders, Germany, 1987, DCP, 128 min)
Wings of Desire marked Wenders’s homecoming and was his first German film after eight years in America. The main characters are guardian angels— benevolent, invisible beings in trench coats—who listen to the thoughts of mortals and attempt to comfort them. One of them, Damiel (Bruno Ganz), wishes to become human after he falls in love with the beautiful trapeze artist Marion (Solveig Dommartin). Peter Falk, playing himself, helps Damiel during his transformation by introducing him to life’s little pleasures.
Mekong Hotel
Please join us for drinks and discussion hosted by Jay Keuhner at the Cloud Room post-screening on March 24th! Discussion will take place after 8:00PM screening of Cemetery of Splendor.
Mar 18 - Mar 24, 2016
(Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand, 2012, Blu-ray, 61 min)
Fans of the Palme d’Or-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives will surely remember the name Weerasethakul, whose newest feature is a portrait of a guesthouse on the river dividing Thailand from Laos, populated by ghosts and fragments of lives.
Trapped
Seattle Premiere Introduction by #ShoutYourAbortion founder Amelia Bonow
Mar 18 - Mar 28, 2016
(Dawn Porter, 2016, United States, 81 min)
Trapped follows the struggles of the clinic workers and lawyers who are on the front lines of a battle to keep abortion safe and legal for millions of American women. The film recently won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Social Impact Filmmaking at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
Cemetery of Splendor
Seattle premiere! Plus, screenings of Mekong Hotel on March 18th & 24th. Please join us for post-screening drinks and discussion hosted by film writer Jay Kuehner at the Cloud Room on March 24th!
Mar 18 - Mar 24, 2016
(Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2015, Thailand, 122 min)
With his unparalleled grasp on the mysteries of memory, dream and myth, Apichatpong Weerasethakul is considered a leading voice in world cinema. His latest begins when soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school.
Jim Henson Classics: Fraggle Rock and Dinosaur Train
Free screening! Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Jim Henson Company
Mar 19, 2016
Puget Soundtrack: Ecstatic Cosmic Union presents The Dark Crystal
Live score!
7pm happy hour in the lobby with DJ Explorateur
Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Jim Henson Company
Mar 19, 2016
Seattle duo Ecstatic Cosmic Union make self-described “soundtracks for mind-movies” -- layered synth drones for innerspace exploration and lofi cosmic dub to fuel dance parties in the outer realms. Given the chance to create a soundtrack for an existing film, the Jim Henson fantasy The Dark Crystal was their top choice.
The Dying of the Light
Seattle premiere!
Mar 20, 2016
(Peter Flynn, United States, 2015, DCP, 94 min)
After more than a century of film, American cinemas are rapidly abandoning 35mm projection and going digital. Small screens around the country are closing down, and film projectors and projectionists put out of commission. In The Dying of the Light, Peter Flynn documents a handful of experts and enthusiasts who are trying to preserve cinema’s original medium, if only in memory.
Dance Film Salon: Another Telepathic Thing
Work-in-progress screening at 3:30, film screening at 4:30, followed by happy hour
Mar 20, 2016
(Jonathan Demme, United States, 2015)
Missing People
Seattle premiere!
Mar 20, 2016
(David Shapiro, United States, 2015, 81 min)
A mystery about an art collector, an outsider artist, and an unsolved murder, Missing People occupies the troubled and enigmatic mind of Martina Batan, a Manhattan art curator. Martina’s lifelong demon is the unsolved 1978 murder of her younger brother, Jeff. At the time, Martina was 18 years old. The violent death drove the beautiful art student into a life of insomnia, loneliness, and obsessive compulsion. Among her obsessions: the collecting of artwork by the deceased, critically underappreciated New Orleans painter Roy Ferdinand.
Sister Spit
Featuring Jezebel Delilah X, Denise Benavides, Cassie Sneider, Julia Serano, Nikki Darling, Virgie Tovar, and Juliana Delgado Lopera
Mar 22, 2016
Sister Spit began in San Francisco in the 1990s as a weekly, girls-only open mic that was an alternative to the misogyny-soaked poetry open mics popular around the city (and the nation) at that time. Inspired by two-bit punk bands who managed to go on the road without hardly knowing how to play their instruments, Sister Spit became the first all-girl poetry roadshow at the end of the 90s, and toured regularly with such folks as Eileen Myles, Marci Blackman, Beth Lisick and Nomy Lamm.
Notebook on Cities and Clothes
Co-presented with SIFF
Mar 24, 2016
(Wim Wenders, West Germany/France, 1989, DCP, 81 min)
This “diary film,” as Wenders calls it, investigates the similarities of filmmaking craft to that of the Tokyo-based fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, who, in the early 1980s, shocked and revolutionized the fashion world. Wenders shot the film mainly on his own, as a one-man crew. During the production, which stretched over a year, Yamamoto and Wenders became friends.
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
Mar 25 - Mar 27, 2016
(Chloe Zhao, 2015, United States, 94 mins)
Songs My Brothers Taught Me is a compelling and complex portrait of modern day life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that explores the bond between a brother (John Reddy) and his younger sister (Jashaun St. John), who find themselves on separate paths to rediscovering the meaning of home.
I Knew Her Well
New digital restoration!
Mar 25 - Mar 28, 2016
(Antonio Pietrangeli, Italy, 1965, DCP, 115 min)
An under appreciated masterpiece from the era of Italian Neorealism, I Knew Her Well is a must-see for the exquisite leading performance of Stefania Sandrelli. The film is an intimate portrait of her character: a beautiful and innocent would-be starlet. From the provinces to Rome she works the D-Circuit of fame, surrounded by press-agents and pimps, washouts and cads. In this heady swirl of good and (mostly) evil, she is neither incriminated nor innocent.
The Lost Arcade
Northwest premiere!
Mar 27, 2016
(Kurt Vincent, United States, 2015, 79 min)
The Lost Arcade, a documentary about the closing of Manhattan’s last video game arcade, could easily fall into the trap of nostalgic cool. There’s a fashion to that former scene and those past decades that rings true with today’s hegemony of hip. After all, the lost arcade is discussed in darkened rooms, on dark sidewalks, within dim and lonely studios. Arcades are campy, obsessive, loud, colorful, and removed from the mainstream.
Sex & Broadcasting
Mar 30, 2016
(Tim K Smith, United States, 2014, 78 min)
WFMU is the longest running freeform radio station in the United States. This documentary charts the strange and colorful history of one of the most fiercely independent media institutions in the country. In addition to capturing the station’s many personalities and shows, such as Tom Scharpling’s “The Best Show,” the documentary follows a nail-biting fundraiser for a much-needed new antenna and transmitter.
Festival of (In)Appropriation
RESCHEDULED (changed from original date 3/2) Curated by Jaimie Baron, Lauren Berliner, and Greg Cohen
Mar 30, 2016
Whether you call it collage, compilation, found footage, détournement, or recycled cinema, the incorporation of already existing media into new artworks is a practice that generates novel juxtapositions and new meanings and ideas, often in ways entirely unrelated to the intentions of the original makers. Such new works are, in other words, “inappropriate.” This act of (in)appropriation may even produce revelations about the relationship between past and present, here and there, intention and subversion, artist and critic, not to mention the "producer" and "consumer" of visual culture itself. Fortunately for our purposes, the past decade has witnessed the emergence of a wealth of new audiovisual elements available for appropriation into new works. In addition to official state and commercial archives, resources like vernacular collections, home movie repositories, and digital archives now also provide fascinating material to repurpose in ways that lend it new meaning and resonance.
Until the End of the World (Director's Cut)
Co-presented with SIFF
Mar 31, 2016
(Wim Wenders, Germany/France/Australia, 1991, DCP, 295 min)
Until the End of the World is “the ultimate road movie,” a journey around the globe, a modern-day odyssey—and it certainly bears similarities to Homer’s saga. However, the aim of this journey is the spiritual reconciliation between an obsessed father and his lost son, and, in Until the End of the World, Penelope decides to set out in pursuit of Odysseus.
2016 Seattle Deaf Film Festival
Tickets & information available at www.seattledeaffilmfestival.com Visit us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter
Apr 01, 2016
April 1st - 3rd
Deaf Spotlight’s Seattle Deaf Film Festival promises a full weekend of films about, for, and by the Deaf community. All will be in English subtitles and accessible to the public. Local and international films will be spotlighted, including documentary, drama/suspense, action, and comedy. In addition, The Tribe, a silent film (drama) by a Ukrainian filmmaker, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, will be featured at the festival.
Open Screenings at the Film Forum
Feb 09 - Feb 06
* FEB. 6th OPEN SCREENING CANCELED FOR INCLEMENT WEATHER *
Are you a local filmmaker looking to share your work? Seeking feedback on your film? Want to see what other people are currently working on? Come join us for our monthly opening screening! Hang out with new and established filmmakers and experience films being made right here in our community.
Open Script Read
Free event!
Happy Hour: 6:30pm
Readings: 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Jun 29 - Apr 04, 2016
***Nov 28th Open Script Read has been canceled. Stay tuned for future dates!
Join Northwest Film Forum for a regular Open Script Read! Local screenwriters and filmmakers may submit 10 pages of their original work in order to hear a live table read, with an ensemble of professional actors, and get feedback from both actors and other participants.
They Will Have to Kill Us First
Seattle premiere!
Apr 04 - Apr 06, 2016
(Johanna Schwartz, United Kingdom, 2015, 105 min)
In 2012, jihadists took control of northern Mali. They imposed one of the harshest interpretations of sharia law, and crucially for Mali, they banned music – radio stations destroyed, instruments burned and Mali’s musicians faced death. Overnight, Mali’s musicians were forced into hiding or exile where many remain even now.
Richard Beymer’s Before the Big Bang
Co-presented with Seattle Art Museum
Apr 06, 2016
Screening at Seattle Art Museum
This funny, spiritually questing, absolutely unique film chronicles the sixteen-year efforts of actor-filmmaker Richard Beymer (West Side Story, Twin Peaks) and novelist Rudy Wilson (The Red Truck) to make a film of Wilson’s book.
The Seattle Process with Brett Hamil
Superproducer Erik Blood will DJ the lobby prefunc
Apr 07, 2016
Northwest Film Forum and Brett Hamil present Seattle’s only intentionally funny political talk show: The Seattle Process with Brett Hamil. It’s a mudpie lobbed into the halls of power with the comedian, writer and host of My YouTube Channel Where I’m The Big Important Guy Who Gets To Say What’s What. Each episode features interviews with high-profile politicians, activists and artists plus standup comedy, sketches, videos and surprises.
Notfilm
Seattle premiere!
Apr 08 - Apr 11, 2016
(Ross Lipman, USA, 2015, DCP, 128 min)
Work in Progress
Filmmaker in attendance! Join us for post-screening drinks at the Cloud Room
Apr 08, 2016
(Adam Sekuler, 2015-?, HD)
Labor is what we do by the hour but its progress sets its own pace. Work In Progress is an extreme example of this. On the surface it's a film that looks at labor: paid and unpaid, material and immaterial, examining the convergence between the worker and the consumer. But it's also an examination of production, over time.
Bleak Street
Seattle Premiere
Apr 08 - Apr 10, 2016
(Arturo Ripstein, Mexico/Spain, 2015, DCP, 99 min)
Crime drama flirts with the absurd in this impossibly true story of the accidental murders of two Mexican mini-luchadores in 2009.