Calendar
Taxi Driver
New 35mm print!
Aug 05 - Aug 11, 2011
(Martin Scorsese, 1976, USA, 35mm, 113 min)
One of the greatest collaborations of the 1970s was Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, a film that alchemized Paul Schrader’s script, Michael Chapman’s cinematography, Bernard Herrmann’s music and Robert De Niro’s totally credible Travis Bickle. Scorsese’s searing images bubble up out of the streets of Manhattan, with violence waiting to be unleashed when you least expect it.
New York never looked so good, or so bad as in Taxi Driver, a post-Vietnam film that's as subversive as any noir of the '40s regarding the American dream. With memorable supporting performances from Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, and Cybill Shepherd, Taxi Driver looks as good on the big screen for its 35th anniversary as when it was originally released!
Film Socialisme
Seattle Premiere!
Aug 05 - Aug 11, 2011
(Jean Luc Godard, 2010, France/Switzerland, 101 min)
Jean-Luc Godard’s rumored final film is neatly divided into three sections, all of which are open to any number of interpretations. From the opening movement, set aboard a cruise ship sailing lazily through the Mediterranean, to its visit with a family who run a petrol station and keep a pet llama, the film comprises a strata of times compressed with melancholy aesthetics. With its refusal of conventional narrative structures and relentless allusions to social, political and cinematic history, it's unlikely you'll leave the screening echoing its already famous final line—a quintessentially Godardian departure to cinema—"no comment."
Orson Welles: From Citizen Kane to Chimes at Midnight
Jul 18 - Aug 22, 2011
This seminar intends to upend the belief that his career went downhill from there and will show that Welles's accumulated body of work -- which ranged from the bold to the bad (but still fascinating!) to the beautiful -- continues to influence filmmakers today. This six week seminar offers the film lover and filmmaker alike a rare opportunity to view, discuss and draw inspiration from films that include Citizen Kane, Chimes of Midnight, The Magnificent Ambersons, and F for Fake.
Visions: Animation and Abstraction, 1908-1994
Co-presented by the Sprocket Society and Third Eye Cinema
Aug 10, 2011
(Various directors, various years, 16mm, 86 min)
A must-see selection of outstanding animated and abstract experimental short films by some of the most highly acclaimed masters of the form(s). Collage, direct animation, visual music, and other time-space distortions that span nearly 90 years of exploration. 90 minutes / 19 films / 15 directors / One show only. Featuring works by: Len Lye, Harry Smith, Mary Ellen Bute, Émile Cohl, Oskar Fischinger, Lawrence Jordan, Hans Richter, Ed Emshwiller, Stan Vanderbeek, Robert Breer, Stan Brakhage, Piotr Kamler, Cecil Stokes, Jud Yalkut/USCO and more. Showing rare 16mm prints from Canyon Cinema (San Francisco), The Film-Makers' Cooperative (New York) and private collections.
Blank City
Seattle Premiere!
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
Aug 12 - Aug 18, 2011
(Céline Danhier, 2010, USA, DigiBeta, 94 min)
What ever happened to crumbling Manhattan and all its denizens? This is a portrait of the vibrant art scene that thrived around what looked like a bombed-out city. Filmmakers like Richard Kern, Susan Seidelman, Nick Zedd, Lizzie Borden, Amos Poe and Jim Jarmusch, as well as performers Debbie Harry, Steve Buscemi and Lydia Lunch, grant us a brash insider’s take on this cinematic “No Wave.” Blank City is an exhilarating oral history of “No Wave Cinema” and the transgressive movement that electrified America’s modern independent film scene.
Permanent Vacation
Aug 12 - Aug 14, 2011
(Jim Jarmusch, 1980, USA, 16mm, 75 min)
Jim Jarmusch made his debut with a film rich in autobiographical references, featuring the "misfits" who would go on to populate most of his cinema. The gaze is contemplative, the movements are linked to precise meanings and the influence of European authors is clear. Made with the help of friends and artists of New York's underground scene, like John Lurie and the future director Tom DiCillo, the film was presented at the European festivals of Rotterdam and Mannheim. It's an oblique study of a young man (Chris Parker) adrift on the streets of New York. As he roams, he has chance encounters with a car thief, a saxophone player and a grizzled war veteran, among others. Learning their stories, he begins to seem more and more isolated.
Unmade Beds
Aug 15 - Aug 16, 2011
(Amos Poe, 1977, USA, 16mm 77 min)
Amos Poe, considered by many to be the father of modern independent American cinema, made his first feature film, Unmade Beds in 1976 as an homage to Godard’s Breathless and the French New Wave. As Poe explains, ‘"I wanted to start where Godard started, to go back to basics: innocence, romanticism, bohemianism, all things that made up New York City for me at that time." He cast a remarkable group who, for the most part, had never acted before: Debbie Harry from Blondie, the artist Duncan Hannah and recent arrivals like Patty Astor (who, with her Jayne Mansfield body, would go on to feature in several No Wave films and eventually open the groundbreaking Fun Gallery in the East Village).
Downtown 81
Aug 17 - Aug 18, 2011
(Edo Bertoglio, 1981/2000, USA, 35mm, 72 min)
Featuring Jean Michele Basquiat, Vincent Gallo and Debbie Harry amongst other downtown New York luminaries of the era, Downtown 81 depicts the extreme creative ferment of the Lower Manhattan music and art scenes in the early 80s. Basquiat wanders through Manhattan, looking for a place to stay. Along the way he skims the surface of what was, in retrospect, a golden age of creativity. As Fab 5 Freddy shows him around, Basquiat sees James Chance and The Contortions, DNA, even Kid Creole and the Coconuts. What other movie score features Liquid Liquid, The Lounge Lizards, Rammellzee, Gray and Tuxedomoon? It's a romantic immersion into a world that few took seriously at the time, but formed a blueprint for bohemianism for years to come.
The Sky Turns
Seattle Premiere!
Aug 19 - Aug 25, 2011
(Mercedes Álvarez, 2005, Spain, 35mm, 110 min)
Mercedes Álvarez was three years old when her parents decided to leave the village of La Aldea at the end of the 1960s. Today, only fourteen inhabitants live in this barren corner of northern Spain, a population which is probably the end of over a thousand years of uninterrupted settlement. Alvarez, who was the last child to be born in La Aldea, returns after many years to the land of her ancestors to film a portrait of its handful of settlers. She records what are at first glance ordinary moments (villagers at work or in conversation), but whose uniqueness lies in being caught between timelessness and the approaching end.
Soul Nite!
Aug 20, 2011
You heard right -- Soul Nite is back! Don't miss the return of this popular event celebrating the moves, grooves, passion and fashion of great 60s Soul music. Curator Peter Lucas is in town to host an electrifying, all-star show of vintage performance footage featuring Otis, Ray, James, Aretha, Tina, Sly and many others on the big screen and cranked up loud. Followed of course by an all-out soul dance party. Refreshments available. Get up, get yourself together, and grab that funky soul!
(doors @ 7:30)
Metalhaus Part II
Special Guest Appearance by Killbot
Aug 20, 2011
METALHAUS returns to NWFF for another night of Punk Pricks, Metal Maniacs, and New Wave Hookers. Don't even try to categorize this designer mess-up of VHS flotsam, hipster kitsch, and remastered live shows from seminal provocateurs like David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Blondie, Roxy Music, P.I.L., The Clash, and, oh yeah, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Twisted Sister, AC/DC.
Septien
Aug 21, 2011
(Michael Tully, USA, 2011, blu-ray, 79min)
Michael Tully’s (Silver Jew, Cocaine Angel) genre mashup Septien follows Cornelius Rawlings who returns to his family’s farm eighteen years after disappearing without a trace. While his parents are long deceased, Cornelius’s brothers continue to live in isolation on this forgotten piece of land. Triple-threat actor/writer/director Tully creates a backwoods world that’s only a few trees away from our own, complete with characters on the edge of sanity that we can actually relate to. A hero tale gone wrong, SEPTIEN is funny when it’s inappropriate to laugh, and realistic when it should be psychotic.
Search and Rescue: Sound Off
Aug 23, 2011
Educational documentaries from the 1960s and 70s are becoming a rare breed. For the past decade they have been phased out by modern technology and the HD revolution, but the organic and timeless feel to the films has yet to be recaptured. They showcase fragments of experimental images, seamless animation and old-world diagrams that are timeless in nature and are more powerful when taken out of the context of their original intention. We’ve commissioned a small group of musicians to recontextualize these films by turning the sound off and providing them a live original score.
Secret Country #3
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
Aug 25, 2011
Acclaimed Seattle film composer Jason Staczek will tickle the ivories in the style of Hargus "Pig" Robbins while singer songwriter Garth Reeves (Dangermouse, Nubbin, Goodness and Blue Spark) lays down some soulful backwoods sounds. Tonight's film features a certain red-headed stranger.
Crime After Crime
Aug 26 - Sep 01, 2011
(Yoav Potash, 2010, USA, HD, 87min)
Rookie lawyers battle to free an incarcerated survivor of domestic violence in Crime After Crime, a film about the riveting California case that made headlines and eventually found its way to the desk of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Debbie Peagler was imprisoned in connection with the murder of the man who abused her, forced her into prostitution and molested her daughters. The story takes an unexpected turn when two attorneys with no background in criminal law volunteer to take her case, exposing judicial misconduct that could result in Peagler’s release.
The First Beautiful Thing
Aug 26 - Sep 01, 2011
(Paolo Virzi, 2010, Italy, 35mm, 122 min)
A story spanning four decades, The First Beautiful Thing finds imprudent Bruno attempting reconciliation with his mother, the reckless and stunningly beautiful Anna, who is recently stricken with cancer. This crowd-pleasing family drama surprises with its subtle comedic touch and conscious avoidance of the sentimental trappings common in this much-revisited genre.
Pudhupettai
3rd I Films
Aug 26, 2011
(Selvaraghavan, 2006, India, 168min, 35mm)
A commercial blockbuster in Tami Nadu, this film chronicles the unlikely rise of Kokki Kumar from petty criminal to powerful gang lord in the slums of Chennai.
“The look of the film is amazing .. . I would compare it to City of God, Amores Perros . . . Dhanush has the energy of a young Al Pacino.” —Toronto International Film Festival
6th Annual Seattle Bike-In
at Cal Anderson park Sponsored by Capitolhillseattle.com and Easy Street Records
Aug 27, 2011
This year for the Bike-In we decided to do something special. We’re commissioning a new live score from the folks who’ve brought you movie night at Bauhaus Coffee. Jon Francois, Marcy Stone and Tomm Johnson will compose an original soundtrack with vinyl records to the 1986 classic bicycle movie Quicksilver! Jack Casey, a successful young floor trader played by Kevin Bacon, loses all of his money after a risky business decision. Deflated and disenchanted with his profession, he decides to become a bicycle messenger.
Paruthiveeran
Aug 27, 2011
(Ameer Sultan India, 2007, 35mm, 162 min)
Paruthiveeran was the Official Selection at the Berlin Film Festival and a widely discussed film in India. Set against an arid village landscape on the outskirts of Madurai, this tortured love story has more in common with the escalating violence of Peckinpah’s border Westerns than typical pastoral films.
Subramaniapuram
Aug 28, 2011
(Sasikumar, India, 2008, 35mm, 160min)
Sasikumar’s box office smash offers an unvarnished look at the friendship of five men living in a Madurai neighborhood. The film is hailed for its careful mounting of a mise-en-scène set in the 1980s.
Naan Kadavul
Aug 29, 2011
(Bala, India, 2009, 35mm, 150min)
Winner of the National Award for Best Director in 2009, Bala’s film speaks of madness on the margins and the grotesque tragedy therein.
Went the Day Well?
Sep 02 - Sep 08, 2011
(Alberto Cavalcanti, 1942, UK, 35mm, 92 min)
Cavalcanti’s first dramatic feature, Went the Day Well?, tells the story of Bramley End, an idyllic village with a cast of typical Brits who seem to have walked out of an early Hitchcock comedy made in a Britain where German invasion seemed imminent.
Amigo
Sep 02 - Sep 08, 2011
(John Sayles, 2010, USA/Philipines, 35mm, 128min)
Amigo stars Joel Torre as Rafael Dacanay, a village mayor caught in the murderous cross-fire of the Philippine-American War in 1900. When U.S. troops garrison his village, Rafael is forced to make the near-impossible, potentially deadly decisions faced by civilians in an occupied country.