Calendar
The Killing of John Lennon
Mar 21 - Mar 27, 2008
Andrew Piddington, USA, 2007, 35mm, 114 min
THE KILLING OF JOHN LENNON is a fictionalized chilling insight into the mind of Mark David Chapman, the 25-year-old narcissist who gunned down John Lennon outside his Dakota apartment in New York in 1980. Meticulously researched and filmed over three years on locations where the events occurred, this is a gritty and imaginative examination of a celebrity stalker's mind leading up to the kill and a look into his descent into madness. Several scenes echo Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER, one of Chapman's inspirations. The voiceover (taken from Chapman's interviews) gives us chilling insight into the mind of a stalker and gives actor Jonas Ball's unforgettable performance an eerie, chilling precision.
www.thekillingofjohnlennon.com
See the trailer
"THE KILLING OF JOHN LENNON is a harrowing, impressionistic, widescreen tour-de-force that unfolds with the propulsive urgency of a scrapbook thrown into a howling wind." -VARIETY
Senator Obama Goes to Africa
Sponsored by Prost Amerika
Mar 25, 2008
Bob Hercules, Keith Walker, USA, 2007, BETA-SP, 52 min
Award-winning filmmakers Bob Hercules and Keith Walker accompanied Senator Barack Obama and his wife on a historic trip to Barack's ancestral homeland. This timely and poignant documentary follows Senator Barack Obama as he travels to South Africa, Kenya and a Darfur refugee camp in Chad. Obama explores the vast continent that is gaining increasing importance in this age of globalization. This is a fascinating and unique insight into the man who may be our next President where we get to see the man away from the artificiality of the presidential campaign trail. Bob Hercules most recent documentary, FORGIVING DR. MENGELE, won prizes at both at the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival and Heartland Film Festivals."
Link to film information at Prost Amerika
Films By Karn Junkinsmith: Dance Outside And Otherwise
Mar 27, 2008
Join us as Seattle choreographer Karn Junkinsmith presents her slate of experimental dance films. Her dance film work began in 1990, when she collaborated with Lena Sharpe on GIRLS FIND WAYS TO GET THERE, a dance of three female archetypes: Joan of Arc, witch and pregnant virgin. Her directorial debut, the whimsical DAY OFF, was produced in association with NWFF, and was shot by Lynn Shelton (WE GO WAY BACK). This program also includes recent efforts such as BUS STOP, in which citizens discover shared passion for public dancing, and ALCHEMY OF THE ORACLES, an extravaganza of bopping female bodies lacking wardrobe control, shot by Benjamin Kasulke (WE GO WAY BACK, BRAND UPON THE BRAIN). Several of the films will be accompanied by live music by Jeff Junkinsmith and friends that will have you dancing in your seats
Boarding Gate
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
Mar 28 - Apr 08, 2008
Olivier Assayas, France, 2007, 35mm, 106 min
The rising international star Asia Argento (daughter of Dario) steams up Assayas's lovingly down-and-dirty nod to Hong Kong genre films and B-movie Eurotrash. BOARDING GATE is a grimy, erotically charged mash-up of the director's earlier demonlover and IRMA VEP. Earning a midnight movie slot at this year's Cannes Film Festival (and suitably shocking most critics), the film splits its focus between the bland industrial estates of Paris and the chaotic urban clutter of Hong Kong. The two are connected through the sexual maneuverings and power struggles of the dangerously attractive drug runner Sandra (Argento), her sleazebag ex-lover (Michael Madsen) and her current lover and boss, a Hong Kong "importer" (Karl Ng). Propulsive, lurid and filled with vigorous performances (especially Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, as a Cantonese-speaking gangster), BOARDING GATE is a testament to low-budget, high-energy filmmaking and a feisty scorn for the new global marketplace (including, as Assayas notes, "the new order of film finance").
More on Olivier Assayas
Watch a clip here
Cruising
Apr 03, 2008
1980, 35mm
Controversial with gay and straight audiences alike, this William Friedkin film starring Al Pacino follows a murder investigation through New York City's seamiest gay subcultures. Experience the original theatrical cut, projected from 35mm film.
Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait
Sponsored by Brian and Victoria Owen Klein, Easy Street Records, KBCS 91.3 FM and Cafe Presse
Apr 04 - Apr 06, 2008
Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, France / Iceland, 2006, 35mm, 92 min
Acclaimed contemporary artists and filmmakers Douglas Gordon (24 HOUR PSYCHO) and Philippe Parreno have taken a unusual approach in creating this film portrait of soccer superstar Zinédine Zidane. They focused seventeen synchronized 35mm and HD cameras (equipped with the most powerful zoom lenses ever made) solely on him for the entirety of a soccer match from the first kick of the ball to the final whistle. The result of this 360-degree, real-time portrait is a startling connection to the sensations, the psychology and the body of the athlete. The film’s brilliant sound design captures the ebb and flow of the stadium crowd (one clue to the game’s activity off-screen), and incorporates an original score by the band Mogwai that emphasizes the calm intensity of the player (and the sport.) Something of a mixture between sports film, nature documentary and art portrait, ZIDANE is a truly unique cinematic experience.
Sunday night screenings to be introduced by Henry Art Gallery Associate Curator Sara Krajewski
See the trailer
"Sublime…the greatest film about football ever made. There was no more soulful an examination of the human condition to be found at Cannes than in watching Zidane at work." -THE OBSERVER
"By the end, Zidane has achieved the charisma and mystery of the hero from some lost Shakespeare play." - THE GUARDIAN
Tickets now available for the June 13-15 shows!
$5/NWFF and Henry Art Gallery members, $6/children and seniors, $8.50/general. To buy tickets online please visit our current calendar page listing.
More details will be announced in our Summer calendar (on the web May 12 and on the streets May 19)
Football as Never Before
Sponsored by Easy Street Records, KBCS 91.3 FM, and Cafe Presse
Apr 05 - Apr 14, 2008
Hellmuth Costard, 1970, 16mm>DVD, 105 min
In conjunction with ZIDANE, we're pleased to present special screenings of a rarely seen, earlier and very similar work by one of the most important German experimental filmmakers of the 60s and 70s. For FOOTBALL AS NEVER BEFORE, director Hellmuth Costard trained eight 16mm cameras solely on mercurial soccer maverick George Best for the duration of a match in late 1970. The game was not particularly important, and Best had already begun to drown his talents in white wine. But, following the progress of the game only through his actions and reactions, this time-and-motion portrait of the soccer legend stands as fascinating precursor and companion to the acclaimed new film.
Build a Ship, Sail to Sadness
Apr 07 - Apr 10, 2008
Laurin Federlein, UK, 2007, BETA-SP, 68 min
Laurin Felderein's BUILD A SHIP, SAIL TO SADNESS follows Vincent, a solitary young man in a bright red helmet and a blue raincoat (a la Leonard Cohen), as he rides on his yellow moped along the winding roads of the rural Scottish Highlands in a desperate bid to convince the locals to embrace his idea of a traveling discotheque. Driven by messianic determination and an addiction to petrol fumes, he struggles to keep his disintegrating vision afloat amidst the hostile landscape and stubborn indifference of the locals. Accompanied by some of the most heartbreaking pop songs in recent memory, BUILD A SHIP, SAIL TO SADNESS is a sublimely melancholic feature film debut.
Soul Nite!
Sponsored by Easy Street Street and Cafe Racer
Apr 09, 2008
Aaahh yeah. SOUL NITE! is back with more sights and sounds from the golden age of soul. As always, we’ll be showing great vintage soul performance footage from the 1960s, Emerald City Soul Club djs will be serving up funky 45s for your moving and grooving pleasure and, of course, refreshments will be served. Don’t miss the party. Dancing in the aisles is encouraged!
Cabaret
Apr 10, 2008
1972, 35mm
As Hitler's Nazi party rose to power in 1930s Germany, there was only one place in Berlin where they lived out a life of "anything goes." Join Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey in director Bob Fosse's winner of 8 Academy Awards and countless devotees.
Muriel
Apr 11 - Apr 17, 2008
Alain Resnais, France, 1963, 35mm, 115 min
Director Resnais plunges into the labyrinthine corridors of memory in MURIEL, a film that was years ahead of its time with its complex editing and its refusal to validate or discount its characters’ conception of the world around them. It premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in 1963, where it was hailed as a triumph by Jean Cocteau, Jean-Luc Godard and Henri Langlois, and won the award for Best Actress (Delphine Seyrig). A middle-aged widow living in an antique-stuffed apartment in Boulogne summons her ex-lover from Paris. At the same time, her stepson is dealing with the aftermath of his Algerian war experiences. Aided by cinematographer Sacha Vierny, the exquisite music of modernist Hans Werner Henze and the underrated contribution of soundman Antoine Bonfanti, Resnais creates a remarkably rich tapestry of emotional detachment that paradoxically becomes almost unbearably moving.
"One of the ten greatest films in the history of cinema." -SIGHT & SOUND
"Alain Resnais' 1963 film surpasses his better-known LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD and HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR." -CHICAGO READER
Annie
Sponsored by Fantagraphics and Cupcake Royale
Apr 12 - Apr 13, 2008
John Huston, USA, 1982, 35mm, 127 min
The most successful adaptation of a comic strip, Little Orphan Annie leapt to the big screen under the direction of John Houston (TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, KEY LARGO). This classic rags-to-riches musical set in Depression Era New York distills every girl's orphan fantasy into a series of dance numbers, pillow fights and trips to the White House. Perfectly cast as Annie, Aileen Quinn is accompanied by a memorable group of supporting actors including Albert Finney as Daddy Warbucks, Tim Curry as Rooster and Carol Burnett in an indelible performance as Miss Hannigan.
Indigenous Film Festival Screenings
Mar 08 - May 17, 2008
Join us for the second annual Northwest Indigenous Film Festival, now expanded to a full series! On February 9, March 8, April 12 and May 17, the festival will screen a diverse group of new and experimental short and feature films either created by or made about indigenous peoples. March 8 features IMPRINT, a contemporary Native American dramatic supernatural thriller filmed on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, by Linn Productions and Native filmmaker Chris Eyre. Imprint has redefined what we've come to expect of a film depicting Native America. It is the winner of Best Picture, Best Actress (Tonantzin Carmelo), and Best Supporting Actress (Carla-Rae Holland) at the American Indian Film Festival; Best Picture at the International Cherokee Film Festival and South Dakota Film Festival and Official Selection at South by SouthWest. Other festival screenings include the last film by the late Native filmmaker Phil Lucas and films by the youth of Native Lens. Audience discussions will follow the screenings.
Electric Dreams / Volcanic Visions: The Cinema of Janice Findley
Sponsored by Third Eye Cinema
Apr 12, 2008
Janice Findley's fiercely original films explore enchanted, uncharted territory with a unique sensibility. Utilizing meticulous stop-motion and live-action techniques, brilliant set and costume design and beguiling musical scores by musician/composer Paul Hansen, Findley creates a subterranean world of emotions that evoke waking dreams. By turns menacing, inviting and funny, these adventures of the mind dare the viewer to enter into the realm of dreams... or is it nightmares? Findley's films have been showcased in a retrospective at MoMA in New York, where her work is part of the permanent collection, as well as in the hinterlands of the U.S. by a widely traveled bicycling projectionist. This evening's program includes "Tripletime", "A Nermish Gothic", "Beyond Kabuki", "I Am The Night" and "Faux Paw" plus Maya Deren's "Meshes Of The Afternoon."
"Equal parts illusionistic film techniques and the filmmaker's refreshingly untethered imagination. Imagine 'Alice in Wonderland' done by a collaboration of ...F.W. Murnau ...Maya Deren ...and Jan Svankmajer." -THE OREGONIAN
Director in Attendance
The Short Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Program 1
Apr 15 - Apr 16, 2008
(Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 1995-2006, various formats, 96 min)
THE ANTHEM (2006, 35mm, 5 min)
Apichatpong adapts the tradition in Thailand of playing a Royal Anthem before all films, proposing his own “Cinema Anthem” that praises and blesses each film screening.
WINDOWS (1999, BETA-SP, 17 min)
The first film Apichatpong shot on video, this improvisation uses slight physical movement to capture natural phenomena through the camera eye’s mechanism.
MALEE AND THE BOY (1999, BETA-SP, 27 min)
Apichatpong collaborated with a 10-year-old boy to create this impression of everyday life in Bangkok which integrates text from a Thai comic book.
LIKE THE RELENTLESS FURY OF THE POUNDING WAVES
(1995, BETA-SP, 30 min)
This impressionistic short film weaves together various location shots, photographs, and the sound of a radio play to depict one hot day in the director’s hometown of Khon Kaen.
THIRDWORLD (1997, BETA-SP, 17 min)
Drawing on the raw quality of 16mm black-and-white film, Apichatpong captures the landscapes and people of the southern Thai island Panya.
Some of My Best Friends Are
Apr 17, 2008
1972, 35mm
It's Christmas Eve 1971 in a Greenwich Village gay bar, and everyone's got the gift of gab. With "Golden Girls'" Rue McClanahan as a rich 'fag hag,' Warhol superstar Candy Darling, "Buck Rogers'" Gil Gerard and beloved out icon Fannie Flagg. Rarely shown, unavailable on home video and screening in all of its uncensored glory! In his book, 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men, author Alonso Duralde writes about the film, "If this unavailable on video gem ever screens anywhere near you, cancel all plans and go, go, go."
Chop Shop
Sponsored by KCBS 91.3 FM
Apr 18 - Apr 24, 2008
Ramin Bahrani, USA, 2007, 35mm, 85 min
Ramin Bahrani, following up his auspicious debut MAN PUSH CART, sets his story of a 12-year-old Latino boy and his older sister in Willet's Point, Queens, a 20-block stretch of junkyards and chop shops (where stolen cars are dismantled for parts). Perhaps it is because Bahrani and co-author Bahareh Azimi are both foreign born that they are able to accurately render an outsider's experience with palpable compassion and realism. With no sentimentality, CHOP SHOP suggests that, for many, New York City is closer to a third world country than the glittering jewel in the "land of opportunity's" crown.
"Miraculous! Now we have an American film with the raw power of CITY OF GOD or PIXOTE, a film that does something unexpected, and inspired, and brave." -Roger Ebert
A Dream In Doubt
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM and the Seattle Office for Civil Rights
Apr 19, 2008
Tami Yeager, USA, 2007, DVD
Rana Singh Sodhi's life is forever altered when his brother is killed just for wearing a turban days after 9/11. The story of the first post-9/11 hate crime fatality still resonates in Seattle with the recent brutal attack on a local Sikh cab driver after the Apple Cup Game. The victim of A DREAM IN DOUBT is a Sikh man in Mesa, Arizona, where his family had sought religious freedom and "the American Dream." Meet a family still determined to believe in that dream, even as the nightmare climate of xenophobia continues for many religious and ethnic minorities.
The Short Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Program 2
Apr 22 - Apr 23, 2008
(Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 1994-2007, various formats, 81min.)
THE ANTHEM (2006, 35mm, 5 min)
Apichatpong adapts the tradition in Thailand of playing a Royal Anthem before all films, proposing his own “Cinema Anthem” that praises and blesses each film screening.
0116643225059 (1994, BETA-SP, 5 min)
Alternating images of a motherĖs photo and an apartment interior are linked by a conversation, connecting memory and everyday-life space.
GHOST OF ASIA (2005, BETA-SP, 9 min)
A collaboration between Apichatpong and Christelle Lheureux, this film uses the recent Tsunami in Asia as a starting point to celebrate the spirits of humans lost at sea.
MY MOTHER’S GARDEN (2007, BETA-SP, 7 min)
An impression of a jewelry collection by Victoire de Castellane that was inspired by various types of dangerous flowers and carnivorous plants.
WORLDLY DESIRES (2005, BETA-SP, 40 min)
Both a fragmented study of the filmmaking process and a landscape film drawn from Apichatpong’s memories of shooting his acclaimed feature film Tropical Malady.
LUMINOUS PEOPLE (2006, 35mm, 15 min)
Commemorating the presence of the dead and memories of the living, this film shows a group traveling by boat along the Mekong River and incorporates conversations and stories.