Calendar
Short Films of Lee Anne Schmitt: Program 1
Director in attendance!
Mar 03, 2012
Program includes: The Wash (Lee Lynch and Lee Anne Schmitt, 2005, Super 8, 20min); Three Stories (Lee Anne Schmitt, 2011, 16mm, 14 min); Bower's Cave (Lee Anne Schmitt, 2010, 16mm, 20 min); Las Vegas (Lee Anne Schmitt, 2000, DigiBeta, 7 min).
Short Films of Lee Anne Schmitt: Program 2
Director in attendance!
Mar 03, 2012
Program includes: Awake And Sing (Lee Anne Schmitt, 2003, 16mm, 42 min); Nightingale (Lee Anne Schmitt, 2002, 16 mm, 14 min).
Windfall
Seattle premiere!
Mar 02 - Mar 08, 2012
(Laura Israel, 2010, USA, 35mm, 81 min)
The realities of modern rural life, energy production and the environmental movement clash in unexpected ways. This new documentary chronicles the upheaval visited on Meredith, New York, when an industrial wind farm takes up residence. Filmmaker Laura Israel, a part-time Meredith resident, interviewed locals on both sides of the divided community: those who have turned their land over to the 400-foot-high turbines to offset falling agricultural profits, and those for whom the noise and aesthetic blight outweigh any positive impact on the local economy. Turns out it’s not easy being green.
The Last Buffalo Hunt
Seattle Premiere!
Director in attendance!
Mar 04, 2012
(Lee Anne Schmitt, 2011, USA, Blu-ray, 78 min)
After a decade working together on evocative pieces such as Bower's Caveand The Wash, Lee Lynch and Schmit have released The Last Buffalo Hunt. This documentary is the result of a five-year observation of the last wild buffalo herds in the south of Utah. Schmitt and Lynch follow the trail of a hunter who is in charge of selecting and controlling the number of this species. The impressive landscape of the Henry Mountains stands in contrast with the town of Hanksville, with its one gas station, casino and motels. Through its images of America’s West, The Last Buffalo Hunt questions the authenticity of its myths and the basis of its ideologies.
Have You Ever Had A Beard?
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
Post-screening performance by Calvin Johnson!
Directors in attendance!
Mar 05, 2012
(Kathy Wolf and Pat Thomas, 2011, USA, DVD, 35 min)
Like a title weight bout, raucous music writer Chris Estey goes "toe to toe" with cagey music maverick Calvin Johnson about important subjects such as beards and other mysteries of life. Have You Ever Had a Beard? is a study in contrasts, comparing the lyric heavy songwriting of Calvin Johnson against the the ebullient music journalism of Chris Estey. Meeting for the first time, both men perform at the Columbia City Theatre—a Seattle stage that’s played host to everyone from Bessie Smith to Jimi Hendrix since its opening in 1910.
Screens with
All Ages Music and Arts
(Doug Plummer, United States, 2012, Blu-ray, 7 min)
What happens when thousands of music lovers in a musician’s Mecca can’t go to shows? Seattle and Olympia recount the birth of their famous all-ages scenes.
From the Back of the Room
Seattle Premiere!
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
Mar 06 - Mar 08, 2012
(Amy Oden, 2011, USA, Blu-ray, 102 min)
Deconstructing myths of the Utopian quality of alternative cultures, From the Back of the Room confronts punk patriarchy. With first hand testimonies from Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna, comic-book artist Cristy Road, Slug and Lettuce zinester Chris Boarts-Larson and Slade from Tribe 8, the film addresses issues of gender, race, class and sexuality within DIY punk. While cataloging the lineage of the femme-punk movement, the film serves as more than a history lesson; it's the beginning of a larger discussion on how these issues manifest today.
Framing Pictures
Free!
Jan 13 - Jun 15, 2012
Join us for a monthly discussion with three longtime Seattle film critics (and occasional guest commentators) who have much to say on the subject of cinephilia past, present and future. The conversation includes former Film Comment editor Richard Jameson, Everett Herald/KUOW critic Robert Horton and MSN.com critic Kathleen Murphy.
How to Make a Book with Steidl
Special Guest Jayme Yen, Graphic Designer for Henry Art Museum, at Friday 7pm show
Seattle Premiere!
Mar 09 - Mar 15, 2012
(Gereon Wetzel and Jörg Adolph, 2010, Germany, Blu-ray, 88 min)
For those of us who love the sensuality of a physical book—its heft, the whispered flick of a turned page, the comfortably musty smell of a long-loved library—How to Make a Book with Steidl is a timely celebration of a fading art form. Directors Wetzel and Adolph accompany German art-book publisher Gerhard Steidl on a trip to America to observe his close collaboration with artists such as Jeff Wall, Ed Ruscha, Joel Sternfeld and the usually reclusive Robert Frank. It's a fascinating and privileged look behind the curtains of a rarely seen aspect of the art world.
Dreileben Trilogy: Beats Being Dead
Sponsored by UW Germanics Department, UW Cinema Studies, and TheSunBreak.com
Presented by the Goethe-Institut
Introduction by Eric Ames, associate professor of Germanics and member of the Cinema Studies faculty at UW
Mar 09, 2012
(Christian Petzold, Germany, 2011, HD, 88 min)
A convicted sex offender has escaped from a hospital near a small German town surrounded by forest. If you’re not intrigued yet, imagine hearing this story from three storytellers in three different parts! Beats Being Dead covers the first segment in this thrilling trilogy, an experiment dreamed up by three of the Berlin school’s most acclaimed directors. Though they wished to use The Dreileben Trilogy to investigate different styles of filmmaking in Germany today, the trio’s adventures in split narration have produced a gripping epic. Christian Petzold’s contribution, Beats Being Dead, places the fugitive downstage from a romance between a hospital intern—who is partially to blame for the criminal’s escape—and a Bosnian immigrant girl. Is the threat of the criminal really the greatest danger amidst the turbulence of their relationship?
Battle Royale
Mar 02 - Mar 30, 2012
Kinji Fukasaku, Japan, Blu-ray, 114 min
An instant classic when it debuted in 2000, and the final complete directorial effort of the legendary Kinji Fukasaku, Battle Royale is a jarring, jaw-dropping look at a future Japan where a group of 42 largely delinquent ninth-graders are chosen through a governmental lottery to kill each other off. The reason? To reduce crime and a general lack of respect by the youth in the country.
Dreileben Trilogy: Don't Follow Me Around
Sponsored by UW Germanics Department, UW Cinema Studies, and TheSunBreak.com
Presented by the Goethe-Institut
Mar 10, 2012
(Dominik Graf, Germany, 2011, HD, 88 min)
Dominik Graf, by far the most seasoned of the three directors of The Dreileben Trilogy, takes the reins in this second installment in the tale of a sex offender at large. Graf draws the criminal out of the background where he was concealed in Beats Being Dead, continuing the story from the perspective of Jo, a police psychologist. When she arrives in the German town near the site of the criminal’s escape, Jo reconnects with a married college friend, and the women discover that they once dated the same man at the same time. As the past is made present again, rumors of police corruption also arise, and pressure mounts for misconceptions and lies to be exchanged for truths.
Dreileben Trilogy: One Minute of Darkness
Sponsored by UW Germanics Department, UW Cinema Studies, and TheSunBreak.com
Presented by the Goethe-Institut
Mar 11, 2012
(Christoph Hochhäusler, Germany, 2011, HD, 90 min)
While Beats Being Dead and Don’t Follow Me Around place the real subject of The Dreileben Trilogy—the escaped sex offender—in the periphery, Christoph Hochhäusler fearlessly zooms in close in One Minute of Darkness, the trilogy’s climactic installment. But the film would not belong in this series if it did not coax the audience to doubt, and One Minute of Darkness introduces the possibility that the criminal is not actually guilty. As Marcus, the police inspector in charge of the case, wrestles with that doubt himself, the fugitive attempts to conceal himself in a forest, and has an unexpected encounter along the way. Probing the supernatural while grounded in suspense, Christoph Hochhäusler’s contribution to the trilogy is two parts thriller and one part fairytale.
Jack Hitt: Making Up the Truth
Mar 15 - Mar 17, 2012
In his new solo show, "This American Life" regular, Jack Hitt, tells extravagant, almost unbelievable, true tales from his life experience. Making Up The Truth weaves stories together with the latest findings in contemporary brain science to answer the question, "Why do these things always happen to me?" What Jack discovers is another unbelievable story — this time about all of us and the world of uncanny wonders that lies just beyond our brain's notice. Directed by Jessica Bauman.
Adventures in Plymptoons!
Seattle Premiere!
Director In Attendance Through March 20th!
Mar 16 - Mar 22, 2012
(Alexia Anastasio, 2011, USA, DigiBeta, 85 min)
Alexia Anastasio, who’s been making films since she was 11, trains her lens on Bill Plympton, the Oscar-nominated animator (for Your Face) whose frantically hilarious cartoons have been busting guts for over 40 years. Anastasio follows Plympton to various festivals and conventions, and along the way interviews such high-profile Plympton fans as Terry Gilliam, Keith Carradine and Weird Al Yankovic. By liberally larding the documentary bits of her film with excerpts from Plympton’s own work, Anastasio keeps the entertainment level high in this engaging documentary.
The Devil's Cleavage
Co-Presented by The Sprocket Society
Mar 20, 2012
(George Kuchar, 1973, USA, 16mm, 122 min)
Partial inspiration for Zippy the Pinhead and eulogized by the NY Times as “a national treasure,” George Kuchar (Aug. 31, 1942–Sept. 6, 2011), with his surviving twin brother, Mike, practically invented the campy, no-budget, anti-professional, tasteless, gender-bending underground style later embraced by John Waters and others. He made over 500 films in his career. Tonight we feature two of his best: The Devil’s Cleavage is a farcical send-up of Douglas Sirk-style melodramas, made “as if Sam Fuller and Sternberg had collaborated in shooting a script by Tennessee Williams and Russ Meyer” (Chuck Kleinhans, Jump Cut).
Screens with
Hold Me While I'm Naked (George Kuchar, 1966, 16mm, 15 min) This classic short was one of the Village Voice's 100 best films of the 20th century. It depicts an exploitation film shoot gone wrong.
Jeonju Digital Project
Seattle Premiere!
Mar 21 - Mar 22, 2012
Every year the Jeonju Digital Project, initiated in 2000 by the celebrated South Korean Jeonju International Festival, commissions three filmmakers to make a digital short. In 2011, three of international cinema’s finest filmmakers were commissioned to make new work: Claire Denis, Jean-Marie Straub and José-Luis Guerín.
Gainsbourg, the Man Who Loved Women
Seattle Premiere!
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
Mar 23 - Mar 25, 2012
(Pascal Forneri, 2010, France, Blu-ray, 105 min)
When he wasn’t chain smoking or chasing tail, Serge Gainsbourg made music. Also an actor and director, the Casanova was known for both his talent and his appetite for scandal. The French icon tells his own story in this new docudrama. Accompanied by interviews from former muses and lovers, a parallax portrait emerges.
Gerhard Richter Painting
Seattle Premiere! Extended until April 15!
Mar 23 - Apr 15, 2012
(Corinna Belz, 2011, Germany, 97 min)
Gerhard Richter, one of the most significant contemporary artists of our times, granted filmmaker Corinna Belz access to his studio in the spring and summer of 2009 as he worked on a series of large abstract paintings.Gerhard Richter Painting offers rare insights into the artist’s process with a quiet, fly-on-the-wall perspective. The paintings themselves become the protagonists. Gerhard Richter Painting is the penetrating portrait of an artist at work—and a fascinating film about the art of seeing.
Bicycle Film Shorts Festival
Presented by Cascade's Bicycle Film Series & Northwest Film Forum
Mar 30, 2012
Join Cascade and Northwest Film Forum for an epic festival of short films about cycling.
Screens at REI Seattle, 222 Yale Avenue North
Tickets available online
One Got Fat by Dale Jennings, (15:00, 1963)
Parasol by Webster Crowell, (8:30, 2008)
Manquer by Matt Daniels and Sean Pecknold, (4:30, 2006)
Hard Court by Sarah Crowe, Erin O. Kay (10:00, 2011)
You and Your Bicycle by Progressive Pictures, (8:58, 1948)
Jitensha by Dean Yamada, (21:00, 2009, Japan)
Kati with an I
Seattle Premiere!
Mar 30 - Apr 05, 2012
(Robert Greene, 2010, USA, DigiBeta, 86 min)
For his first documentary feature, Robert Greene shares with us an intimate portrait of his half-sister Kati. Incorporating a lifetime of home movies, recorded phone conversations and the lushly textured cinematography of Sean Price Williams, Greene focuses on the moment in Kati’s life which, for many of us, is a familiar dividing line between childhood and the adult world: graduation from high school and the decisions that follow. Greene skillfully takes us from episodes of girlish frivolity to the times that can feel like the end of the world, through to those moments when every hope seems possible and every possibility is a promise. A worthy addition to the documentary genre of intimate portraits of ordinary people, like Stevie and Billy the Kid.
The Christening
Seattle Premiere!
Sponsored by TheSunBreak.com
Mar 30 - Apr 05, 2012
(Marcin Wrona, 2010, Poland, 35mm, 86 min)
Fans of Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Bronson, Pusher Trilogy) will delight in Marcin Wrona’s sophomore feature The Christening. The film is loosely based on the real story of a man from the Polish provinces who, after operating as a criminal in his hometown, finds himself in Warsaw. He hopes to change his luck and to escape from the criminal past he left behind. Unfortunately, there is a mafia sentence against him.
Sci-Fi Cheap Date
Mar 30, 2012
In celebration of the Emerald City Comicon weekend, curators Jacques Boyreau, Tim Colley and Darren Aboulafia have concocted a SuperTrash mix of sci-fi-fantasy trailers, blistering 80s metal and provocative situations, including a meditation upon fire itself. This 90-minute program will delight nerds of all genders and possibly be worthy of taking notes. Trailers include Space Amoeba, Funky Forest: The First Contact, Xtro 2, Dark Breed, Screamers, Super Inframan and Alien Intruder.