Calendar
Annual Members Meeting
All current Film Forum members invited to attend!
Happy Hour at 6pm
Meeting Start at 7:30pm
Sep 22, 2014
Members, join us as we vote on our board of directors, discuss the state of the organization and local filmmaking, network with other filmmakers and film lovers, and enjoy a drink. This is your chance to guide the direction of Northwest Film Forum, meet the board and staff, and hear about the year past and the year ahead. All current members are welcome to attend.
Low Down, Get Down
Opening Night: Local Sightings Film Festival!
Opening Party DJ'd by Sharlese Metcalf!
Sep 25, 2014
This year the opening night of Local Sightings features a jam-packed preview of what’s to come in the ten day festival, presented by the filmmakers, speakers, and teachers who make the movie magic happen! Expect a few surprises and a lot of dancing.
Feeling Time
Free event!
Sep 26, 2014
This installation-style screening of new experimental work screens in a loop. Join us for a viewing and reception, just before the opening film of the Local Sightings Film Festival.
Bella Vista
U.S. premiere!
Director and lead actresses Kathleen Wise and Hiroka Matsushima in attendance!
Opening film: Local Sightings Film Festival 2014
Join us for a pre-screening reception at 7pm, sponsored by Naked City Brewery and Taphouse!
Sep 26, 2014
Vera Brunner-Sung - Missoula, MT - 83 min
A meditation on displacement and adaptation in the contemporary American West, Bella Vista follows the lives of outsiders in Missoula, Montana. Teaching English to a group of international students, thirty-something Doris finds herself increasingly alone. While she grasps for the connection that might save her, it’s her students who understand what it takes to belong.
Seattle Film Summit
Sep 27 - Oct 02, 2014
The Seattle Film Summit is a conference for anyone in Washington who has a stake in the production or distribution of media content: filmmakers, actors, video game creators, transmedia geeks, editors, media lawyers, film community leaders, legislators, gaffers, writers—anyone and everyone. This participant-directed conference addresses the tough questions of the local film business, as they call upon community, business and civic leaders to effect the change needed for professional media production to become a truly viable business model in our state.
Local Sightings Closing Night
Oct 02, 2014
Join us for the Closing Night of the Local Sightings Film Festival, featuring a Seattle Film Summit Town Hall Caucus, the Seattle premiere of In Country and the official festival closing party.
La Voz de los Silenciados
U.S. premiere!
Oct 03 - Oct 05, 2014
Maximón Monihan - 2013 - 80 min
Described as “Chaplin meets Eraserhead,” La Voz de los Silenciados is truly modern silent film. Olga, a deaf teenager, is coaxed from her home in Guatemala to travel to New York City, ostensibly to attend a Christian school for the deaf. Rather than being greeted by a charitable school, however, she’s enslaved in an international criminal scheme and forced to beg on the subway. Olga uses courage, cunning, and even humor to face an unimaginable nightmare-on-loop that ravages the audience.
Aono Jikken Ensemble: Japanese Girls at the Harbor
Co-presented with SAM’s Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas
Oct 04, 2014
(Hiroshi Shimizu, 1933, 71 min)
After spending the last few years touring internationally with Guy Maddin and his films, experimental music collective Aono Jikken Ensemble returns home to Seattle for this performance, a live score for Japanese Girls at the Harbor, a lyrical silent drama from 1933 by rediscovered master director Hiroshi Shimizu. This stunning event features the premiere of a new live music and sound score, with benshi narration in Japanese and English.
Collaborations with Nature
Filmmakers Devon Damonte, Caryn Cline and Ruth Hayes in attendance!
Oct 05, 2014
Direct filmmaking meets environmental action in this program of experimental films that use organic and inorganic material to alter film surfaces. As part of our Local Sightings Film Festival 2014, filmmaker Caryn Cline taught an experimental filmmaking workshop on the “botanicollage” technique, made famous by Stan Brakhage and his film Mothlight. Students have created handmade film frames using local botanicals, art materials and film supplies—their short, collaborative film screens tonight alongside a program of classic experimental films in the botanicollage vein.
The Saragossa Manuscript
Opening catered reception at 6pm on Sunday!
New digital restoration!
Co-presented with the Seattle Polish Film Festival
Sponsored by Seattle University
Oct 05 - Oct 09, 2014
(Wojciech J. Has, 1964, DCP, 184 min)
A favourite film of Jerry Garcia and Luis Buñuel, The Saragossa Manuscript is a brilliant adaptation of one of the greatest works of world literature. It is a Chinese box tale — a travel story about the supernatural and mystical opposed to the humanist materialism.
Man of Iron
New digital restoration!
Co-presented with the Seattle Polish Film Festival
Sponsored by Seattle University
Oct 06, 2014
(Andrzej Wajda, 1981, DCP, 154 min)
A masterful story about the limitations of the press coupled with real footage of the Solidarity movement strikes, Man of Iron expands on the plot of its predecessor, Man of Marble. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for an Academy Award, the film examines the events that led to one of the most crucial historical moments of the 20th century.
Blind Chance
New digital restoration!
Co-presented with the Seattle Polish Film Festival
Sponsored by Seattle University
Oct 07, 2014
(Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1981, DCP, 123 min)
One moment, one train, three completely different outcomes. From Director Krzysztof Kieślowski comes a film examining the effect of even the smallest of choices. Twenty-year-old Witek Dlugosz rushes to make a train to Warsaw, his hometown, after the death of his father. Crashing into a man drinking beer, Witek is barely able to pull himself aboard by the final car’s handrail. On the train, he encounters an old communist, who convinces him to join the Communist Party. All seems fine until his beautiful lover Czuszka is arrested by the same party where his allegiance lies. Their love falters, she rejects him, and Witek is left alone.
Night Train
New digital restoration!
Co-presented with the Seattle Polish Film Festival
Sponsored by Seattle University
Oct 07, 2014
(Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1959, DCP, 99 min)
An intimate psychological study and a poetic tale of loneliness, Night Train brings two voyagers together accidentally in a train compartment. The subtle game of emotions—changing from mutual aversion to closeness without hope—is played out against the background of a microcosm of the human experience.
Ashes and Diamonds
New digital restoration!
Co-presented with the Seattle Polish Film Festival
Sponsored by Seattle University
With an introduction by Northwest Film Forum Executive Director Lyall Bush
Oct 08, 2014
(Andrzej Wajda, 1958, DCP, 104 min)
Ashes and Diamonds is set on the last day of World War II and the first day of peace. And between them, a night that changes everything. Seen through the eyes of Maciek, a young Polish resistance soldier, the old is rapidly mixing with the new. In a few hours dawn will end the Nazi slavery of the country, but also will bring a new communist regime to Poland. An iconic portrait of the dilemma of a whole generation in Poland, rooted in the literary tradition of great, tragic dramas of romanticism.
A Short Film About Killing
New digital restoration!
Co-presented with the Seattle Polish Film Festival
Sponsored by Seattle University
Oct 08, 2014
(Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1987, DCP, 86 min)
On a somber March day, the paths of three men cross: the cabbie Marian cleans his car, the lawyer Piotr celebrates passing his bar exam while in the same café, 20-year-old Jacek prepares his murder weapon. The film is a psychological and ethical study of murder. A sensation at the Cannes film festival and recipient of numerous awards, A Short Film About Killing opened the door to an international career for director, Krzysztof Kieślowski.
Screen Shots at Capitol Hill Art Walk
Free event, 5pm - 8pm!
Happy hour drink prices!
Curated by Vera Petukhova!
Jul 10 - Mar 12, 2015
Join Northwest Film Forum for Screen Shots, a monthly series during Capitol Hill Art Walk. A new program every month features happy hour, video art, and sometimes special guests and lobby installations!
The Illumination
New digital restoration!
Director Krzysztof Zanussi in attendance!
Co-presented with the Seattle Polish Film Festival
Sponsored by Seattle University
Oct 09, 2014
(Krzysztof Zanussi, 1972, DCP, 93 min)
In this classic bildungsroman, a young man from a provincial town comes to the capital to study physics, hoping that science can answer his questions. He explores the boundaries of knowledge while tackling universal life experiences—love, death, friendship, fatherhood, and work.
GRID Presents: A Haunting Invitation To Halloween
Live music!
Oct 18, 2014
The Seattle music improvisation group GRID, who have been thrilling audiences with their live scores for films like Metropolis and Buster Keaton shorts, return with a Halloween-themed show full of fright and fun.