Calendar
Alternate Cinema
Co-presented with Seattle International Film Festival Group Part of Seattle International Film Festival 2008
May 23 - May 29, 2008
Your typical movie aims to engage your emotions through storytelling in such a way that the filmmaking becomes invisible. Alternate Cinema is different. Incorporating experimental and avant-garde elements, these films engage you on an intellectual as well as emotional level; often by making you aware that you’re watching a film. Czech director Ivo Trajkov achieves this effect by making his 8mm feature MOVIE, OR AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF AUTEUR FULM MAKING both a road movie and an independent filmmaker's manual of advice. Other filmmakers hold their shots for long periods of time, shifting your attention from story to shot composition and encouraging you to examine motion pictures as though they were paintings, as in MILKY WAY or CASTING A GLANCE. Because themes and stories aren't spoon-fed, audiences must work to decipher a thru-line, such as the colonial self-criticism found in EAT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY or the city symphony of human foibles that is YOU, THE LIVING. Then there's the alternate documentaries like Marie Losier's unconventional short films about experimental artists, Hartmut Bitomsky's philosophical essay about life, death, and tiny particles, DUST, and Alina Marazzi's exquisitely edited archival films for the post-feminist WE WANT ROSES TOO. Heinz Emigholz's chronological look at modernist buildings of Adolf Loos, is given without commentary and the architecture itself becomes autobiography, in LOOS ORNAMENTAL. This year we have all this and shorts, too! We invite all adventurous filmgoers to take a look at the movies that exist in the realm of Alternate Cinema.
Lagerfeld Confidential
Sponsored by Three Dollar CInema
May 30 - Jun 05, 2008
Rodolphe Marconi, France, 2007, 35mm, 89 min
Karl Lagerfeld – arguably one of the most influential fashion designers of the last half-century – takes center stage for this portrait of a fashion icon. Two years in the making, and created from over 200 hours of digital and Super 8 footage, Rodolphe Marconi takes us behind the distinctive black sunglasses into the world of one of the most powerful figures in the fashion business. Footage of Lagerfeld’s daily working routine – sketching dress designs, preparing catwalk shows, photographing models – is interspersed with candid interviews with the man himself. Lagerfeld recalls his youth and his rise to fame, which would eventually see him take the helm as head designer at Chanel. Shot over two years, and studded with appearances from the likes of Nicole Kidman, Anna Wintour and Baz Luhrmann, LAGERFELD CONFIDENTIAL delivers a startling look at how unthinkable luxury can coexist with unbelievable isolation. In French with English subtitles.
"Flashy, dazzling... It exerts an undeniable fascination that suggests a tantalizing synthesis of LET’S GET LOST and UNZIPPED." -Patrick Z. McGavin, SCREEN INTERNATIONAL
"Diverting... Lagerfeld turns out to be an extraordinarily clever and monstrously interesting character." -Lisa Mullen, SIGHT & SOUND
Yves Saint Laurent - 5 Avenue Marceau 75116 Paris
Sponsored by Three Dollar Cinema
May 31 - Jun 07, 2008
David Teboul, 2002, 85 min
In November 2001, the doors of 5 Avenue Marceau were opened for the first time to reveal a secret place: Yves Saint Laurent's couture house. The director, David Teboul, spent over three months within the walls of this building with total freedom to move about and shoot his film. In a world of mirrors, where agitation is handled with kid gloves and filled with punctilious coddling, 5 AVENUE MARCEAU 75116 PARIS is a serious meeting with the legendary designer at close quarters, in his place of work, from the original sketch to the final garment. The film is a study of the loneliness, obsession, and eccentricity that accompany the designer as well as of the disappointment and happiness he gains from his work.
Yves Saint Laurent - His Life and Times
Sponsored by Three Dollar Cinema
May 31 - Jun 01, 2008
David Teboul, 2002, 77 min
A man of culture and a consummate artist, Yves Saint-Laurent has been one of the most influential designers of the past forty years. His innovations, such as the pantsuit for women, have revolutionized fashion. This documentary traces his career, from his happy youth in colonial Algeria to his most recent collections. At age seventeen, Yves Saint-Laurent started his career at Christian Dior’s couture house where he quickly became the designer’s protégé and heir. He became the darling of the wealthy elite, although he strived to “liberate fashion” and make it more accessible. In this piece, the designer speaks freely and candidly about his private and professional life, recollecting important moments and difficult times. Interviews of his close friends and collaborators (including Pierre Bergé and Loulou de la Falaise) shed light on Yves Saint-Laurent’s personality. Using a rich array of photos and fashion footage, David Teboul paints a moving portrait of Yves Saint-Laurent.
Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton
Sponsored by Three Dollar Cinema
Jun 02 - Jun 04, 2008
Loïc Prigent, France, 2007, 75 min
Bringing the same intimate insight into the fashion world as his previous acclaimed documentary series SIGNE CHANEL, filmmaker Loïc Prigent focuses on Marc Jacobs, called the most influential designer of his generation. This witty and colorful portrait follows Jacobs as he balances roles as artistic director of venerable French house Louis Vuitton and his own eponymous American line, in meetings, preparing collections and at high-profile shows. With Naomi Campbell, Sophia Coppola and Uma Thurman.
"Artfully told with humor and panache" –VOGUE
Search and Rescue: Ephemeral Fashions
Sponsored by Three Dollar Cinema
Jun 05, 2008
PRÊT-À-FILMER: A WEEK OF FASHION FILMS
Our ongoing exploration of 16mm cinematic detritus celebrates the secret life of clothes and those who love them. Clothes and cloth, when filmed independent of the body parts that normally give them meaning, are revealed as estranged, dreamlike, playful and elusive—making them potent symbols of fascination, desire, emotion and sensual pleasure.
Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story
Sponsored by Easy Street Records and Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center African American Film Festival
Jun 08 - Jun 12, 2008
Morgan Neville, Robert Gordon, 2007, USA, BETA, 115 min
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Stax Records, Morgan Neville (THE COOL SCHOOL) and Robert Gordon (MUDDY WATERS: CAN'T BE SATISFIED) made a chronicle of the rise of the Memphis soul label that changed the world. RESPECT YOURSELF is jammed with amazing archival rarities, live performances, forgotten TV appearances, home movies, news footage and lost recordings of all the legendary Stax artists -- from Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes to Booker T & the MG's, Sam & Dave and The Staples Singers. Their definitive film is also a story of the civil rights movement and how the music created at Stax mirrored the glories and pains of that struggle.
Wattstax
Sponsored by Easy Street Records and Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center African American Film Festival
Jun 08 - Jun 12, 2008
Mel Stuart, USA, 1973, 35mm, 98 min
A legendary concert film, WATTSTAX documents the Woodstock of black America. The Stax label, along with Tamala Motown, was one of the greats of American soul, funk and R&B recording. With a lineup that included such greats as Isaac Hayes, Booker T & the MGs, the Emotions and many more, the Stax label oozes cool. WATTSTAX represents both a fantastic timepiece and a prophetic look into the future. Held in 1972 to commemorate the 1965 Watts riots, the concert "drew an overwhelmingly African-American crowd of 100,000 and turned into a memorable black-pride event," according to the BALTIMORE CITY PAPER. Director Mel Stuart not only focuses on the big names on the Coliseum's stage but also takes his camera out into the community, watching and listening to Watts residents talk about everyday life in the inner city.
Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM and Easy Street Records
Jun 13 - Jun 15, 2008
Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, France / Iceland, 2006, 35mm, 92 min
After turning scores of people away during our screenings in April, we’re pleased to bring this stunning portrait of one of the greatest players in the history of soccer, Zinédine Zidane, back to NWFF! Seventeen synchronized cameras were used, each focusing on Zidane in real time, from the first kick of the ball to the moment he was ejected from the game. The match, between Real Madrid (Zidane's team) and Villarreal, was played on April 23, 2005 and was witnessed by eighty thousand screaming fans. Zidane himself recounts, in voice-over, what he can and cannot remember from his matches. Magnificently edited and accompanied by a majestic score from Scottish rock heroes Mogwai, this is perhaps the best sports films ever made, but also one of the finest studies of man in his element, an ode to the loneliness of the athlete and the poise and resilience of the human body.
The Tracey Fragments
Jun 13 - Jun 19, 2008
Bruce McDonald, Canada, 2007, Digibeta, 80 min
JUNO’s Ellen Page stars in Bruce McDonald's (DANCE ME OUTSIDE, ROADKILL, HIGHWAY 61) latest feature. This is a rattling, in-your-face trip through the hell of puberty as experienced by troubled Tracey Berkowitz. Based on Maureen Medved's eponymous novel, THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS follows the protagonist through the big, dark city, where she encounters dangers at every turn. The camerawork – non-linear chronology, jarring camera editing and the use of split-screens - renders cinematically what's at stake psychologically, as Tracey alternates truth with lies, hope with despair. The most daring and disarming turn, however, is the talented Ellen Page as Tracey – playing a "normal" girl indulging sweet romantic fantasies, while suffering paranoid visions and harboring an urgent need to be forgiven.
The Invisible Forest
Sponsored by Vertical Pool Productions
Jun 15, 2008
Antero Alli, USA, 2008, DVD, 111 min
Berkeley underground filmmaker Antero Alli's "The Invisible Forest" follows a sleep-deprived theatre director who undergoes hypnotic regression to stop a reoccurring nightmare that began in the forest where his troupe attempted to enact Antonin Artaud's magic theatre of ghosts, gods and spirits. Inspired by the radical visions of the French Surrealist playwright, Alli also borrows from Rimbaud's poetics for the "deliberate disorientation of the senses" to achieve a series of altered states. In the director's own words, "if cinema was a drug, some movies act on us like tranquilizers and others jack us up like triple espressos. I see The Invisible Forest as a 100% organic, user-friendly hallucinogen".
Passing Poston
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM, Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project and the ACLU of Washington
Jun 20 - Jun 26, 2008
Joe Fox and James Nubile, USA, 2007, BETA-SP, 60 min
For the over 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly interned during World War II, the scars from this traumatic time have not fully healed. PASSING POSTON tells the moving and haunting story of four former internees of the Poston Relocation Center. Each person is shadowed by a tragic past, and each struggles in their own painful way to reconcile the trauma of their youth and find their rightful place in this country. In the wake of this painful past Ruth Okimoto returns to the desert of Arizona (on the grounds of the future Colorado River Indian Reservation), where she spent her childhood years behind barbed wire.
Information about the panelists
Ruth Okimoto and her family were sent to the Poston Relocation Center when she was six years old. At the time of relocation, Ruth's father was an established minister in a church in San Diego. Ruth currently lives with her husband, renowned glass artist Marvin Lipofsky in Berkeley, California. Ruth spends a lot of her time working on the Poston Restoration Committee, a joint effort by former internees of the Poston Relocation Center and The Colorado River Indian Tribes to preserve the few remaining buildings left of the internment camp.
Mary Matsuda Gruenewald is a Nisei, a person born of Japanese parents who arrived in the United States in the early part of the 20th century. Her story, "Looking Like the Enemy," captures her discovery of the power of her family's unconditional love, her struggle to find her true voice as a person of color, and her search to make meaning of the trauma while reaffirming her belief in America. Her journey includes a triumphant trip to Washington D.C. and a meeting with the president exactly 60 years to the day after the evacuation from her home on May 16, 1942.
Stan Shikuma is a longtime activist in the Japanese American community, working with the International Examiner, Japanese American Citizens League, Seattle Kokon Taiko, Tule Lake Committee, Washington Coalition for Redress, and the Wing Luke Asian Museum. Stan is a Sansei (third generation Japanese American) whose parents were both removed to American concentration camps during WW II – his mother’s family to Tule Lake, CA and his father’s family to Poston, AZ. He is currently working on the 16th Tule Lake Pilgrimage, an educational and healing journey back to the site of the most infamous of the ten Camps.
Special Addition!
Monday's screenings will be preceded by
NEVER AGAIN - A Story of Yaeko Nakano
By Christopher Wood
Filmed and edited over the course of one weekend in March as part of the International Documentary Challenge 2008, this film tells the story of Yaeko Nakano and her struggles during World War II, when hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans were relocated to internment camps across the country. Through her Buddhist faith, her music, and the love of her husband, Mrs. Nakano survived this dark period of American history and now vows that her country will persecute its people "never again."
Made in China
Jun 20, 2008
A benefit for Mercy Corps’ relief efforts for the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan, China
In this personal documentary, John Helde uncovers his father’s experience growing up an American boy in pre-World War II China and discovers a community of other Americans with similar childhoods. Inspired by an account of Tom Helde’s birth at the remote Sichuan mountaintop of Bailuding, John sets out to understand how growing up in China made his father who he is. Weaving together stunning black and white period home movies, photos and interviews, the documentary ultimately takes the audience from modern Shanghai to industrial Changsha to rural Sichuan, a journey that becomes an exploration of the meaning of home and growing up. An audience and critical favorite, MADE IN CHINA premiered at the 2007 Seattle International Film Festival; other festival screenings include Austin Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, and Big Muddy Film Festival.
The May 12 earthquake is one of the largest humanitarian disasters to hit China in the last 30 years. Nearly 70,000 people have died, and over five million are still homeless. “This has been a terrible tragedy for China, and aftershocks and the threat of flooding and disease still pose a huge danger,” Helde said. “Having filmed in Chengdu and rural Sichuan, and with my family’s past in that area, I feel a deep tie to Sichuan and I’m very pleased to be able to partner with Northwest Film Forum and Mercy Corps to raise funds to provide some further help to people who are now homeless and suffering as a result of this disaster.”
Mercy Corps was one of the first relief organizations on the ground in Sichuan after the May 12 7.9 magnitude earthquake. The organization has procured critical supplies such as food, water, clothing and shelter supplies and delivered them to affected families. Mercy Corps is also launching an initiative to help children and youth recover from their trauma through mentoring, sports and other activities.
Rabbit in the Moon
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM, Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project and the ACLU of Washington
Jun 21 - Jun 22, 2008
Emiko Omori, USA, 1999, 85 min
RABBIT IN THE MOON uncovers a buried history of internment camps built by the US government for Japanese and Japanese Americans living on the West coast. This new history includes political tensions, social and generational division and the dialectic between resistance and collaboration. Emiko Omori and her older sister, Seattle filmmaker and film critic Chizuko Omori, use archival and recently recovered home movies to confront their own family secrets. They were children when they went to one of the internment camps. Their mother died only a year after the family's release, but silence has surrounded that event. They correspondingly confront the collective quiet among Japanese American about the social antagonisms and insecurities that were born in the camps and still haunt their community life 64 years later.