Calendar
Audience of One
Seattle Premiere
Jul 17 - Jul 19, 2009
(Michael Jacobs, USA, 2007, DigiBeta, 88 min)
Meet Richard Gazowsky, pastor of the Voice of Pentecost Church in San Francisco and self-anointed film director. While most filmmakers are drawn to their work by creative impulse and passion to tell a story, Gazowsky was called upon by God to make a magnum opus. When a message from above instructed him to start a film company, Gazowsky knew he had no choice, and Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks was born.
Downhill Racer
Special introduction by film critic Ted Fry on July 17
Jul 17 - Jul 23, 2009
(Michael Ritchie, USA, 1969, 35mm, 101 min)
The debut film from director Michael Ritchie (The Candidate) is satirical spin on the American Dream set in the world of Olympic skiing. Robert Redford (the same year as Butch Cassidy) stars as a handsome, detached loner who is determined to be the best. He travels with the US ski team to Kitzbuhel, St. Anton, Wengen and several other world cup venues. Gene Hackman plays the team coach, and the gorgeous Camilla Sparv plays the love interest.
Camille 2000
Jul 17 - Jul 23, 2009
(Radley Metzger, Italy/France, 1969, 35mm, 115 min)
Originally X-rated, legendary “art film” director Radley Metzger's version of Dumas' Camille is a stylish work of 60s erotic cinema that sets a succession of parties and lovemaking amidst the opulent palaces of Rome. The film stars the beautiful Daniele Gaubert and Nino Castelnuovo, and features bubble furniture, mirrored dresses and a classic, ethereal-yet-funky lounge score by Piero Piccioni. The film opened in New York on July 16th, nearly 40 years ago to the day of our weeklong engagement.
"Sexadelic delight!" -Seattle PostGlobe
Family: A Webisodic Program
Jul 17, 2009
Terisa Greenan, Seattle actress and filmmaker, has created Family, a comic web series on the topic of polyamory. Set in Seattle, the show follows the lives of Gemma, Ben & Stuart, 30-somethings living together in a polyamorous triad. The series is presented in 5-7 minute episodes viewed exclusively at online video portal sites like YouTube. Greenan has posted fifteen episodes online since November 2008, and this 100-minute feature is a compilation of those episodes, edited to fit our time slot.
Moon Landing: Screening and Live Event
In Honor of the Moon Landing 40th Anniversary!
Jul 20, 2009
Join us as we commemorate this profound event for humankind with a 40th anniversary screening of the original television broadcast (at 7pm), followed by a live remix presentation in which filmmaker and sound artist Joe Milutis reworks images of major NASA events leading up to and including the landing.
The International Documentary Challenge Seattle Showcase
Free for NWFF members!
Jul 21, 2009
This past March, 142 filmmakers from 15 countries set off to make a documentary in 5 days. They were assigned a documentary genre (character study, music, social issue, etc.) along with the themes of "Hope and/or Fear." The winners premiered at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in Toronto in May. The result was an exhilarating five days for the filmmakers, and, as the films reveal, a joy for the audiences at Hot Docs and beyond. This special showcase includes all of the Seattle-area films plus a few of the international winners.
The Windmill Movie
Director in attendance Friday & Saturday!
Discussion hosted by Warren Etheridge after Friday 7pm show
Jul 24 - Jul 30, 2009
(Alexander Olch, USA, 2008, 82 min)
The Windmill Movie is a heady, fascinating brew that brings together one man’s parentage, culture, education and ambition—letting the chips fall where they may. Shown along with Richard Rogers' first film Quarry, a black and white short made near Quincy, MA with beautifully composed rocky landscapes and shots of young people worthy of Robert Frank's The Americans.
"An intriguing experiment in personal storytelling that’s sometimes softly dreamy and sometimes startlingly direct." -Seattle MetBlogs
"It reveals his eye for creating voluptuous, evocative cinematic tableaus that have luminous inner life." -NY Times
Lake Tahoe
Seattle premiere!
Jul 24 - Jul 30, 2009
(Fernando Eimbcke, Mexico, 2008, 35mm, 81 min)
In Fernando Eimbcke’s follow-up to his acclaimed Duck Season, the misadventures of Juan (Diego Cataño) begin when he crashes his car into a tree in a small town on the Yucatan. Through the course of his day, he has a series of encounters and takes a few tentative steps into friendship with an old mechanic, a young mother, and the mechanic’s assistant, who happens to be Bruce Lee’s most passionate fan.
"The Stranger Suggests: Lake Tahoe is a refreshing, reinvigorating pause-button on a noisy summer movie season." -The Stranger
"A must-see. Lake Tahoe is a series of living photographs that tells us as much about the humane condition as an 800-page novel." -Seattle PostGlobe
Taco Truck
Plays before Lake Tahoe
Jul 24 - Jul 30, 2009
(Tobi Nussbaum, USA, 2007, 3 min)
A poetic documenting of a Westside Olympia taco truck.
Topaz
Special introduction by film critic Ted Fry on July 31
Jul 31 - Aug 06, 2009
(Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1969, 35mm, 143 min)
Hitchcock’s adaptation of the Leon Uris novel is an exciting espionage thriller set in Washington, Paris and Havana at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. Unlike most of the director’s previous films, the cast is comprised mostly of unknowns. While Topaz was not well received at the box office, New York Times critic Vincent Canby hailed it as "Hitchcock at his best," and Hitchcock won the Best Director prize from the National Board of Review for the film.
Herb and Dorothy
Seattle premiere! SAM curator Michael Darling will introduce the 7pm screening on July 31
Jul 31 - Aug 02, 2009
(Megumi Sasaki, USA, 2008, DigiBeta, 91 min)
In their modest one-bedroom New York apartment, unassuming couple Herb and Dorothy Vogel quietly amassed one of the world’s most extraordinary collections of minimalist and conceptual art. The Vogels are soul mates, man and wife united in their passion for modern art, their uncanny visual eye and their tireless desire to collect works by artists on the brink of discovery.
"A gem...This is a no-bullshit zone, a haven for the cynics that today's art world abundantly produces. Art has never seemed so close, so familiar, so simple, and so pure as when you look at it with the Vogels." —Jen Graves, The Stranger
"Warmhearted...watching the Vogels mull over art without fully understanding it only makes their delight more infectious." —Seattle Weekly
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Special introduction by film critic Ted Fry on July 31
Jul 31 - Aug 06, 2009
(Peter R. Hunt, UK, 1969, 35mm, 142 min)
In one of the best and often overlooked films in the long running James Bond series (and the first without Sean Connery), 007 (George Lazenby) teams up with the lovely Tracy Di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg, of Avengers fame) to topple scar-faced Ernst Blofeld (Telly Savalas) in the Swiss Alps. Her Majesty’s has the distinction of being the only film in which Bond falls in love. No other filmmakers took Bond this seriously again until 2006’s Casino Royale.
Cut and Run: Something To Offend Everyone
Aug 03, 2009
This is an experimental film exhibit featuring 20 filmmakers who drove away from any of your expectations of how a film should be made, and why it is made. The films span from 1933 to 2009. The event showcases co-founder of San Francisco’s Canyon Cinema, Robert Nelson’s evasive 1965 film, Oh Dem Watermelons on 16mm.
Water Calling
Presented by The Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs in partnership with Seattle Public Utilities (SPU)
Aug 04, 2009
Free!
The Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs in partnership with Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) presents a free public screening of Water Calling: Short Films. SJ Chiro, Britta Johnson, Susan Robb, Luke Sieczek and Rick Stevenson each produced a short film or video that explores water quality stewardship and drainage issues. Each short feature is intended to raise public awareness of environmental stewardship, especially as it connects to SPU's work.
Dillinger is Dead
New 35mm Print
Aug 05 - Aug 06, 2009
(Marco Ferreri, Italy, 1969, 35mm, 90 min)
Michel Piccoli stars as an alienated industrial designer yearning to break free from his materialistic, humdrum existence. His life is changed when he discovers a revolver tucked away in a kitchen cabinet, wrapped in old newspapers announcing the death of notorious bank robber John Dillinger.
Throw Down Your Heart
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM
Aug 07 - Aug 13, 2009
(Sascha Paladino, USA, 2008, Beta-SP, 97 min)
Award winning documentary Throw Down Your Heart follows banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck as he travels through Uganda, Tanzania, Gambia and Mali in search of the little known roots of his instrument and cross-cultural musical collaborations.
"It's a pure delight...This is an honest journey into discovery that reveals the connection music brings between cultures where commonality is not always easy to find." -Seattle Times
Ex-Drummer
Seattle premiere!
Aug 07 - Aug 13, 2009
(Koen Mortier, Belgium, 2007, 35mm, 104 min)
Somewhere in Belgium a deaf guitar player, a stiff-armed bassist and a psychopathic guitarist-vocalist with a lisp form a rock band for a one-off performance. The trio lacks a drummer so they seek the services of a celebrity author, who also has a reputation as a drummer, to fill the role. Out of this mess is born The Feminists, a quasi-disabled punk rock band whose journey towards its only gig drags almost everybody involved down a black hole of abuse, exploitation and death.
"This is an impressive piece of film making and exactly what independent cinema is all about...It's a very impressive adaptation to film of much of what punk means...It's an amazing piece of work, important, lively, under funded and unshown." -CapitolHillSeattle.com
Crustvaska
Plays before Ex-Drummer
Aug 07 - Aug 13, 2009
(Benjamin Kasulke, USA, 2007, 6 min)
An unusual conversation at a train station in Berlin, made by Seattle filmmaker Ben Kasulke for a special Slamdance Film Festival program.
The Speculative Frontier
Aug 07, 2009
Inspired by Stan Brakhage’s The Stars Are Beautiful (1974), a sound film that cycles through mythological explanations for the cosmos in dozens of permutations, the curators of tonight's event devised an exploratory text that drew from science fiction, structural anthropology, and deep-space physics.
Viva VHS!
Co-presented by Scarecrow Video
Aug 08, 2009
Celebrate the bygone days when VHS was king and explore the cinematic oddities that can only be found on ½" videotape. The folks at Scarecrow have delved into their archives and unearthed forgotten gems and mind-blowing revelations of magnetic mayhem for this special salute to the now neglected medium.
Karaoke Challenge
Aug 11, 2009
Northwest Film Forum and Three Dollar Bill cinema have once again invited Seattle filmmakers to participate in the Karaoke Challenge. Ever wonder who’s behind those Karaoke videos you sing along to at the bar on Friday nights? We asked Seattle filmmaker to grab a camera, pick a song, and become one of them! Tonight you'll see the resulting videos, performed with live karaoke accompaniment.
Erik Davis on Aleister Crowley
Aug 13, 2009
Though he died in obscurity in 1947, the renegade magician Aleister Crowley has come to exert an enormous influence on popular and sub-culture alike. Sampling rare footage, experimental shorts and documentary clips, Davis will use cinema to trace the development of postwar magick and Crowley’s apocalyptic religion of Thelema, with special attention given to the work of Kenneth Anger and the rise of magic in the 1960s and 70s.
Mississippi Mermaid
Aug 14 - Aug 20, 2009
(François Truffaut, France, 1969, 35mm, 123 min)
Inspired by Hitchcock and dedicated to Jean Renoir, François Truffaut’s updating of Cornell Woolrich’s story stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as a wealthy industrialist living on a remote island in the Indian Ocean and Catherine Deneuve as a lovely, double-crossing mail-order bride.
"Truffaut's personal exploration of Hitchcock's fascination with love, secrets and guilt...It stands as vital testimony to one filmmaker's deep regard for the legacy of another." –Seattle Times
Objectified
Additional dates added by popular demand!
Jul 10 - Aug 16, 2009
(Gary Hustwit, USA/UK, 2009, 75 min)
This new documentary from Gary Hustwit (director of last year’s Helvetica) brings us behind the scenes of our material world and introduces us to masters who’ve created some of the most successful products of our time. Interviews with industrial design gurus Jonathan Ive of Apple, Dieter Rams of Braun, David Kelley and Tim Brown of IDEO, Karim Rashid of Dirt Devil and others demonstrate that every object has a story to tell.
"The Stranger Suggests: [a] sharp, brainy documentary obsessed with design...Gary Hustwit takes a kaleidoscopic view of industrial design, from interviews with design superstars to biographies of objects that set the world on fire (the iPod! The Dirt Devil! The Braun toothbrush!) to inquiries into the meaning, purpose, and dangers of our object-drenched planet." -The Stranger
Le Gai Savoir
Aug 14 - Aug 20, 2009
(Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1969, 35mm, 95 min)
Le Gai Savoir begins to integrate the director’s formal concerns with his political ones, building a case for the historical necessity of revolution. This film essay is an account of young militants who meet in a darkened TV studio to discuss, and ultimately deconstruct, the oppressive connection between language and capitalism.