Calendar
The Great Hip Hop Hoax
Seattle premiere! Sponsored by Easy Street Records
Sep 24 - Sep 26, 2013
(Jeanie Finlay, United Kingdom, 2013, DCP, 88 min)
A compelling documentary about truth, lies and the legacy of faking everything in the desperate pursuit of fame. When two young Scots named Gavin and Billy got a taste of hip-hop fame in their native land, they took the next logical step and hopped a train to London to audition for an American A&R team. What happened next set in motion a story that must be seen, and heard, to be believed. After being laughed out of the audition, and dubbed the “hip hop Proclaimers,” Billy and Gavin vowed revenge. The pair reinvented themselves as Silibil n’ Brains, two skater boys from Huntington Beach, California, and loosed their Frankenstein alter egos upon an unsuspecting world.
Flower Boy Drama Club
Co-presented with JK Pop!
Sep 26 - Nov 21, 2013
Handsome playboy Han-gyul hires hardworking Eun-chan to pretend to be his gay lover (to sabotage his family's attempts to marry him off). What starts as a screwball comedy becomes a moving portrait of a man and woman falling deeply in love.
Walking Against The Wind
Local Sightings opening night! Opening night party at 10pm!
Sep 27, 2013
Brendan Flynn - Seattle, WA 2013 - Blu-ray - 90 min
Seattle filmmaker Brendan Flynn's debut feature, Walking Against The Wind, uses brooding black and white cinematography to mirror the stark contrasts and the carnivalesque lower depths of life. Frank (played with astonishing authenticity by Tom Ricciardelli) lives in world of lifelessness and disappointment. His day job as a mime isn't working out as planned and his wife's sudden death leaves him and his daughter Aspen to fend for themselves. While pursuing a day job at a restaurant, Frank tries to make ends meet. When his sister-in-law arrives unannounced to help plan memorial arrangements, his life takes some unexpected turns.
Seattle Film Summit
10am - 4pm
Sep 28, 2013
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. During a day-long, participant-directed conference, attendees will address 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.
The Mountain Runners
Sep 28, 2013
Todd Warger & Brian Young - Mount Vernon, WA – 87 min
America’s first mountain adventure race took place during three dangerous years, from 1911-1913, on a grueling 28 to 32 mile marathon to the summit of Mount Baker (a 10,781 foot volcanic, glacial peak in Washington State). The men who ran these dangerous races were not professional athletes, but practiced a variety of vocations—logger, coal miner, bedspring maker, postman, milkman wrestler and insurance salesman—defying death and injury for a $100 purse of gold coins.
Cardboard
Sep 28, 2013
Matt Longmire - Bainbridge Island, WA – 89 min
Seattle street corners are filled with panhandlers and homeless citizens, holding signs, asking for any help they can get. As you avoid eye contact on an I-5 off ramp with a man asking for spare change, have you ever thought about his background? Cardboard is a striking, in-depth conversation with people stranded on the streets, their stories and the steps that placed them where they are.
Lauren Is Missing
Sep 28, 2013
Michael Harring – Seattle, WA - 84 min
This scrappy psychotronic thriller from Local Sightings alumn Michael Harring looks at two women, a missing roommate, taxidermy, a creepy blind dude and a boatload of booze. Returning to her Seattle apartment after a long absence, Mia (Brand Upon The Brain’s Maya Lawson) finds her belongings packed and her roommate missing. Even worse, rent is overdue. Haunted by a history of apathy, Mia can’t get her old job back and must resort to selling her roomie’s belongings to pay the bills. Fortunately, her luck improves when new best friend Millie (The French Project’s Erin Jorgensen) scores her a job working for a taxidermist. With newfound financial independence, Mia is able to focus on what really matters – alcohol and mischief.
Redwood Highway
Sep 28, 2013
Gary Lundgren – Ashland, OR – 90 min
Seventy-six-year-old Marie (Shirley Knight) hasn’t seen the Oregon coast in more than forty-five years. When she learns that her granddaughter is planning a beach wedding, Marie recalls painful memories and gets into an unfortunate argument with her son (James LeGros). Something happened decades ago, and as the anniversary of the event approaches, Marie is faced with a dilemma: should she attend the wedding, or keep herself at a distance? Wanting to do things on her own terms, she leaves her Southern Oregon retirement community to walk the eighty-mile journey to the coast along the fabled Redwood Highway.
Short on the Rocks
Sep 28, 2013
Dramatic short films from Washington, Idaho and Alaska filmmakers, part of this year's Local Sightings Film Festival.
Wallrus mini-screening
Free admission! Screening at dusk!
Sep 28, 2013
Local filmmaker Britta Johnson is launching a 6 month project, located on the Seattle Experimental Animation Team's (SEAT) portion of the Sound Transit red wall at Cal Anderson Park, with a mini-screening of all the animation made there since work on the light rail station began. Please note: because of heavy rain, the screening location has changed. The program will be shown indoors at Northwest Film Forum, same screening time.
Junk
Live set from Seattle band Tomten, post-screening! Q&A with director & actors!
Sep 28, 2013
Kevin Hamedani – Seattle, WA – 104 min
Two B-movie co-writers, Kaveh and Raul, must reconcile after their long-time-languishing film, Islama-Rama 2, finally makes its festival debut. Negotiating their way through pushy agents, brutish bodyguards, cutthroat colleagues, prima donna actors and overly eager festival volunteers, the former friends piece together absurd horror film pitches for a mysterious speaker keynoting the film festival. This ridiculous comedy about friendship, love and crappy movies is made by the team that brought us 2009's Zombies of Mass Destruction.
Motivational Growth
Sep 28, 2013
Don Thacker – Seattle, WA – 105 min
Shut-in Ian B. Folivor, living in a fungus and garbage-infested apartment, is a man who has abandoned all personal hygiene. His only comfort in life is shattered when his antique TV breaks. His world is spiraling into the toilet bowl until a silver-tongued blob of mold enters the scene. The bathroom mold begins giving Ian motivational advice to clean himself up, speak to his attractive neighbor,and regain his confidence. But The Mold's intentions are revealed to be far more nefarious then it lets on. Motivational Growth is icky. Wonderfully. . . enigmatically. . .appealingly icky. For fans of psychotronic or just generally weird films, watching this film is as joyous as a pig wallowing in mud.
Digital Cinema Expo
Free admission! 11am - 1pm
Sponsored by Koerner Camera Systems
Sep 29, 2013
A diverse array of digital cameras and camera technology have become available in recent years, offering an overwhelming array of choices for digital filmmaking. To help filmmakers navigate the multitude of options, we are opening our space and inviting everyone with an interest in digital cinema to attend a peer-driven showcase of the latest cameras.
Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse
Sep 29, 2013
Jason Renaud & Brian Lindstrom – Portland, OR – 90 min
From Courtney Love to Pink Martini to Blind Pilot, Portland has harbored and created a thriving haven for aspiring musicians. Early in its musical history, the Portland punk scene saw the emergence of a magazine, the Oregon Organizm, written and edited by an influential band member of the time, James Chasse. James became a well-known member of his society: iconic and prophetic, with a grasp on reality unlike anyone that knew him. In 2006, tragedy struck, when James died during a highly controversial arrest by Portland police in downtown. This documentary follows his musical rise, decline and tribulations, along with a modern perspective on a police case increasingly relevant today.
Blueberry Soup
Sep 29, 2013
Eileen Jerrett – Seattle, WA – 80 min
Blueberry Soup, an Icelandic comfort food, is an apt metaphor for this insightful documentary that explores the unique and devastating situation of a country gone bankrupt. In the aftermath of the 2008 economic collapse in Iceland, the Nordic island country undertook the revolutionary task of rewriting their constitution. With a lens on the impacts the process has on the cultural landscape, Jerrett’s film interweaves interviews with a local fisherman, members of the constitutional council, Icelandic music stars and journalists, displaying a proud nation whose people have endured turbulent times and are curious about their future.
Survival Prayer
Sep 29, 2013
Benjamin Greené – Bellingham, WA - 70 min
Naanii Mary Swanson (a last speaker, otherwise known as one of the final living speakers of a nearly extinct language) frames this portrait of age-old traditions at risk. Against the spectacular scenery of the North Pacific coastline, her ancient words set the tone for detailed views on modern life, in which the labor of survival—cutting seaweed fronds, pulling salmon from nets, plucking young spruce tips—speaks to timeless rhythms from our region that still retain elements of sacred ritual. An intimate ethnographic reflection, this meditative film encounter with the Haida people’s traditional food systems reveals poignant possibility amid deep loss.
K2: Siren of the Himalayas
Sep 29, 2013
Dave Ohlson – Yakima, WA – 75 min
At 8,611 meters, K2 (the second-highest peak after Everest) is usually considered the world’s most challenging climb. Its summit eludes even the most devoted professional alpinists, and the mountain is so treacherous that one in four summiteers die attempting to scale it. Harsh weather conditions and demanding technical climbs have made producing documentary films on K2 extremely difficult, and footage from these expeditions is rare. Director Dave Ohlson joins an elite climbing group on their epic K2 journey, which takes place on the 100-year anniversary of the Duke of Abruzzi's landmark expedition in 1909.
Hawaiian Punch
Sep 29, 2013
Nandan Rao – Corvallis, OR – 68 min
Hawaiian Punch follows two young Mormons, Nick and Tor, during their time in Hawaii. As the film unfolds after a beginning title card about the urgency to find a spouse and marry, we understand that Nick and Tor are in Hawaii to meet girls. Knowingly, Hawaiian Punch lacks action. In fact, it is the inaction of the film and its protagonists that reveal the fundamental truth in their lives. Instead of spiritual enlightenment, these are two men on the verge of realizing their own stasis.
Short on Stories
Sep 29, 2013
Narrative short films from Washington and British Columbia filmmakers, part of this year's Local Sightings Film Festival.
Ich Hunger
Sep 29, 2013
Isaac Olsen – Tacoma, WA – 70 min
Take an international cast, a rolling landscape in Flint, Michigan, the thundering music of Red Hex and the twisted, talented mind of Isaac Olsen, and you have the German expressionist art film, Ich Hunger. Shot in black and white with splashes of color, Ich Hunger is Local Sightings' only subtitled film (in German with English subtitles). Following the murderous escapades of a creature-like boy who terrorizes the farming township of Frondenberg, Germany, an inspector travels from Frankfurt to hunt him down. Nearly silent, and reminiscent of German expressionist films like Nosferatu, Ich Hunger is terror-as-pleasure.
From Script to Screen with Lynn Shelton
Sep 30, 2013
In recent years, a number of Seattle filmmakers have broken out nationally as stars of the independent film scene. Starting on September 30 during Local Sightings, every Monday evening we will have a different Seattle filmmaker talking about their body of work. Directors will speak in depth with local film writer Jay Kuehner (Cinema Scope) about their experiences directing feature films, highlighting moments that distinguish their filmmaking styles and the journeys that got them to where they are. Expect to witness an intimate discussion that goes deeper than the standard festival question-and-answer and that examines the roots of style.
Do It Differently
Sep 30, 2013
Scott Phillips – Eugene, OR – 53 min
Do It Differently is not for the faint hearted (the sign of a great film). As it follows the lives of four fathers raising children with autism, the film displays a home environment foreign to most families. As each father describes raising their child, you see their pain and doubt, but also their dedication, spirit and pure love for their family. Through interviews and home footage, Do It Differently touches the heart, showing just how much a parent’s love can accomplish.
Short on Truth
Sep 30, 2013
Short and experimental documentary films from Washington and Oregon filmmakers, part of this year's Local Sightings Film Festival.
Lucille’s Ball
Sep 30, 2013
Lulu Keating – Dawson City, Yukon Territories – 83 min
This hallucinatory coming-of-age film is set in the rebellious, sexually liberated 1970s amd presents an offbeat combination of animation and live action. Writer/director Lulu Keating brings us the story of Lucille, a young musician raised in a Catholic family, as she begins exploring her sexuality. Determined to take advantage of the new freedom offered by the Pill, Lucille experiments with women and men, straight and gay, at home and abroad. As her career as a musician advances, Lucille’s wild lifestyle and haunting past derail her. With the support of her gay roommate and her first female lover, she puts her ghosts to rest and comes into her own. One of the most visually unique films of the year, Lucille’s Ball is, well. . .a ball!
Bible Quiz
Oct 01, 2013
Nicole Teeny – Gig Harbor, WA – 86 min
In Tacoma, Washington, and all over the country, many church groups participate in an annual competition of memorizing and reciting Bible verses and trivia, all in hopes of making it to a national competition, where the best of the best duel it out. With an approaching National Bible Quiz Championship on the horizon, 17-year-old Mikayla and the other members of her Bible Quiz group study and practice with unbeatable dedication (though for Mikayla it is more than just Bible trivia). Her quiz group is an escape from her family troubles and a chance at belonging, but also a place where she has fallen in love with her team captain, JP.
This is Washington: Films from Puget Sound Archives
Special introduction by Feliks Banel, KUOW 94.9!
Oct 01, 2013
Puget Sound Region archives are coming together to share rarely-seen gems from their moving image collections. The films are as diverse as the Northwest landscape itself, and include selections from the University of Washington, Seattle Municipal Archives, the Museum of History and Industry, King County Archives, the Museum of Flight and the Sisters of Providence Archives.
Short on Laughter
Oct 01, 2013
Short comedic films from Washington, Idaho, Alaska and Oregon filmmakers, part of this year's Local Sightings Film Festival.
Mother Nature
Oct 01, 2013
Johan Liedgren – Seattle, WA – 90 min
Escaping from a deteriorating marriage, a down-on-his-luck father and his meek son find themselves thrust into the company of a bizarre and violent cast of characters inhabiting the nearby campsites of a beautiful Washington rainforest. During their interactions (destined to go wrong from the start), the father quickly learns this trip will be more than he bargained for. Harassed and threatened, he and his son find survival is more than just learning to live: it’s learning how to stay alive.
A Brief Moment With Paul Marioni
Free event! Screening at 7:15pm at Northwest Film Forum! Co-presented with The Project Room
Live conversation with Paul Marioni at 6pm, 1315 E. Pine Street!
Oct 02, 2013
Featuring Hole (Paul Marioni, Seattle, WA, 17 min)
Join us as we screen the rarely seen short film Hole (1972), a "mockumentary" made by former filmmaker and now legendary glass artist Paul Marioni. Featuring a man who is obsessed with holes, this elusive experimental short film has won numerous awards, screened at the Whitney Museum and toured the U.S. Join the artist for a conversation at The Project Room (1315 E Pine St) at 6pm, prior to the screening. Tickets to this event are free, but please RSVP to reserve your seat.
All the Labor
Oct 02, 2013
Douglas Hawes-Davis – Missoula, MT – 96 min
For two decades, The Gourds have played their rock/folk/country tunes, gathered cult listeners and always managed to float just under the radar of mainstream success. This is exactly where they like it. Through a mash up of interviews, live performances and scraps of footage, this documentary will have your foot tapping and you heart laughing. These fathers, husbands and regular guys have bonded with their instruments and friends, playing music for the love of playing.
Short on Experiments
Oct 02, 2013
Short experimental films from Washington and Oregon filmmakers, part of this year's Local Sightings Film Festival.
Against the Tide
Oct 02, 2013
Mark Davis – Seattle, WA – 45 min
As it narrates the recent history of Bainbridge Island’s Eagle Harbor, Against the Tide is sure to have your emotions flaring. In an ongoing struggle between illegally moored mariners and the Bainbridge Island Citizen’s Group, Eagle Harbor has been constantly debated over for two decades. Throughout the debate between a collective of land-living people and their water-loving misfit neighbors (men living aboard their boats who call the harbor home), the film follows struggles on both sides to have their opinions heard, and the challenges of how a community defines itself.
You Make Me Feel So Young
Local Sightings closing night! Awards ceremony at 7:30pm! Closing night party at 9:30pm! Preview screening!
Oct 03, 2013
Zach Weintraub – Olympia, Washington – 75 min
Zach Weintraub’s third feature continues to exemplify his intimate filmmaking style, with a minimalism reminiscent of Ozu, Claire Denis and many other auteurs of world cinema. Our heroine Justine has uprooted her life to follow her boyfriend Zach as he pursues his own professional opportunities, in a new place. Instead of intimacy and bliss, what follows her decision is a sense of alienation from the very man she sets out to join. Structured as much by the information which we are denied access to, as it is by what is easily observable, You Make Me Feel So Young is a quiet contemplation of cracks in intimacy.
L’Avventura
New 35mm print!
Oct 04 - Oct 10, 2013
(Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960, Italy, 35mm, 143 min)
In this early postmodern fable, a rich girl disappears on an island and no one knows either how that could have happened or how long they can care. L’Avventura is the first film in Antonioni’s trilogy about modern life, where traditional tragedy meets the tragically hip, haunting both mind and eye with barren cinematography inextricable from its maddening story. After 50 years, this controversial Cannes winner and classic of world cinema still shocks and haunts in equal degrees as it muses on entertainment and happiness.
Herb and Dorothy 50 X 50
Wednesday film introduction from Catharina Manchanda, contemporary art curator at Seattle Art Museum!
Oct 04 - Oct 10, 2013
(Megumi Sasaki, 2012, United States, Digital, 87 min)
Herb and Dorothy: they sound like one more couple your grandparents played pinochle with. But if it’s Herb and Dorothy Vogel, their favorite pastime is actually modern art, and the collection they amassed for fun in their apartment is now worth millions of dollars. In 2009 Megumi Sasaki offered up a portrait of this old married couple as friendly and unassuming as the couple themselves, sneaking a question or two about the culture of art admiration into a real-life tour of modern art’s most famous works. This follow up movie about the pair looks at them as they close the door on their life as collectors, distributing 50 works to an art institution in each of America’s 50 states.
Print Generation
Director in attendance!
Oct 06, 2013
(J.J. Murphy, USA, 1974, 16mm)
Rarely screened and newly available in a meticulously restored print, Print Generation is J.J. Murphy’s seminal exploration of film and memory. In Print Generation, Murphy took one minute of footage and re-printed it fifty times, pushing the limits of film’s materiality, radically transforming the image, and creating a profound journey from abstraction to representation (and back again).
The Institute
Seattle premiere!
Oct 18 - Oct 24, 2013
(Spencer McCall, United States, 2012, Digital, 92 min)
Enigma, wonder and mystery can be yours, courtesy of The Jejune Institute, who created a sprawling urban adventure/role-playing game that spanned not hours, but years. Thousands of participants in a San Francisco-based alternate reality game ended up getting more than they bargained for. Told from the players’ perspectives, The Institute looks over a precipice at an emergent new art form, where real world and fictional narratives merge to create unforeseen and often unsettling consequences.
Lady Be Good: Instrumental Women in Jazz
Sneak preview screening! Special film introduction from Robin Lloyd, Jazz Host at KPLU 88.5
Director in attendance!
Oct 18, 2013
(Kay Ray, USA, 2013, Blu-ray, 90 min)
American women instrumentalists made major contributions to jazz from the early 1920s to the 1970s, including through the development of all-female jazz groups and ensembles. Lady Be Good captures the lost stories of these female jazz musicians, through provocative and often humorous interviews with musicians, big band leaders, jazz authors and historians.
Home Movie Day
Free event! 10am - 1pm
Oct 19, 2013
Celebrate amateur filmmaking on Home Movie Day, as individuals and families share their own homemade movies with a community audience. It's a chance to discover why it's important to care about these films and learn how best to care for them. Bring your Super 8, 8mm and 16mm films to share, or just come to witness the vast array of amazing work! Film archivists will inspect films for damage as professional projectionists screen them in pristine cinema conditions. Home Movie Day runs 10am - 1pm.
Les Blank On Jazz
Oct 19 - Oct 20, 2013
(16mm, 161 min)
We couldn't let this year's Earshot Jazz program come and go without an appearance from the late, great documentarian Les Blank, who passed away earlier this year. While we've already honored Les with a program in our NEX DOCS series this past June, Blank's contribution to the music documentary subgenre is unparalleled. His films celebrate not merely the art, but also the communal culture that sustained it (all of it interwoven with romantic flair and wry good humor).
Charles Lloyd: Arrows Into Infinity
Director Jeffery Morse in attendance Thursday!
Oct 21 - Oct 24, 2013
(Dorothy Darr, Jeffrey Morse, 2012, USA, 120 min)
Arrows Into Infinity is a journey in sound through the unusual life and career of jazz legend Charles Lloyd, one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 1960s, whose music crossed traditional boundaries and explored new territories. Lloyd was catapulted into worldwide fame in his 20s, and by his early 30, he abandoned his life of touring and recording and went into seclusion in Big Sur, CA. Here, Lloyd and those who worked with him over the last five decades help us better understand this enigmatic man and his spiritual pursuits through music.
John Coltrane Ascension Double Bill
Director in attendance!
Work-in-progress screening!
Oct 22, 2013
John Coltrane's Ascension was called, “the most powerful human sound ever recorded" in Down Beat Magazine in 1965, and "the most vexatious work in jazz history" by jazz critic Gary Giddins. These contradictory claims indicate just how controversial this music was at the time Coltrane recorded it. Ascension in fact still causes arguments; the ideas behind the music are still alive and making waves today. All the more reason to rejoice in Electric Ascension, reincarnated for the 21st century in live performance by the large, fluctuating ensemble "Orkestrova." This program features a concert film performance of Ascension, as re-imagined by the Sax quartet Rova, plus a behind-the-scenes look at how the performance came together.
Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn
Oct 23, 2013
(Ramin Niami, 2013, USA, Blu-ray, 90 min)
Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn chronicles the final days of one of the most unique and vibrant blues clubs in the world. For 53 years, Laura Mae Gross (“Mama Laura”), an African American woman from Mississippi, brought musicians together regardless of their race, age, or gender, in her club, where only the music mattered. Originally located on the legendary Central Avenue in South Central L.A., Mama Laura brought some of the greatest blues artists in the world—including Johnny Lee Hooker, BB King and Albert King—to share the stage with artists like Guitar Shorty, Ray Bailey, Dennis Jones, Zac Harmon and Keb’ Mo’, whose careers she nourished.