SPRING 2008
FEBRUARY 29 - MARCH 6, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9pm
NEW 35MM PRINT!
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
(Woody Allen, USA, 1986, 35mm, 103 min)
Woody Allen's ANNIE HALL began a decade-long string of masterpieces from the director - one of the most consistent runs in American cinema. HANNAH AND HER SISTERS is perhaps Allen's warmest film, a vital, expressive and upbeat work from the notoriously pessimistic director. A series of marital misunderstandings and emotional complications mushroom as Hannah (Mia Farrow) and sisters (Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest – who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this role) tangle with mates, parents and friends over the course of two years, beginning and ending at family Thanksgiving dinners. This film earned Allen an Oscar for Best Screenplay and a nomination for Best Director.
"The best movie he has ever made. Allen's writing and directing style is so strong and assured in this film that the actual filmmaking itself becomes a narrative voice." –Roger Ebert
MARCH 1 – 2, Saturday-Sunday at 1:30, 4pm
SEE YOU IN THE FUNNY PAGES
POPEYE
Sponsored by Fantagraphics and Cupcake Royale
(Robert Altman, USA, 1980, 35mm, 113 min)
An often overlooked masterpiece from director Robert Altman, starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall in the screen roles they were born to play, and featuring an unforgettable series of songs written by Harry Nilsson. Need we say more? The story of the spinach-eating, one-eyed sailor man seems a perfect adaptation for Altman, drawing strong connections to the stories and wisecracking anti-heroes of his most acclaimed films of the 70s. Williams proves himself in his first big screen role, bringing impeccable timing and depth to the character. POPEYE will warm the heart and leave you screaming "I YAM WHAT I YAM!"
MARCH 1, Saturday at 8pm
WHAT THE FUNNY : Season One
(Lynn Shelton, USA, 2007, DVD, 110 min)
This is what happens when an accomplished film director and a group from the Seattle fringe theater community set out to make an Internet serial show! WHAT THE FUNNY is an eleven-part comedic series about a comedy theater troupe in Seattle. Witty and well written, the show is evocative of "The Office" and proves director Lynn Shelton's (WE GO WAY BACK) strength with comedies. Created by Wayne Rawley (MONEY & RUN) and shot by Ben Kasulke (BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!), it showcases Seattle acting talent, including Darragh Keenan, Shannon Kipp and Richard Lefebvre. Produced by Caution Zero Network.
MARCH 4, Tuesday at 8pm
FREE FOR MEMBERS!
SEARCH AND RESCUE: SOUND FOUND
Join us for a rare 16mm screening of a lost sci-fi epic from the dawn of sound film. Lionel Barrymore and Lloyd Hughes star in this Vitaphone "part-talkie," meant to be a million-dollar answer to METROPOLIS. With spectacular art direction and effects, the film features some of the most striking images of the genre, including armies of undersea "gill men," a giant octopus and diving suits that look like something from ALIEN. Unfortunately, the film premiered just days before the great stock market crash, failed at the box office and sank into obscurity. With only a few black and white prints surviving today, this is very rarely shown and unavailable on home video in any format. The feature will be preceded by the first Talkartoon by legendary animators, the Fleischer brothers. These rare prints come courtesy of The Sprocket Society, our latest partners in the never-ending effort to preserve, protect and defend endangered cinematic treasures.
MARCH 6, Thursday at 8pm
FREE
BYDESIGN 08 PRESENTS
OPENING NIGHT EVENT
Featuring performances from Kamran Sadeghi and Randy Jones
ByDesign 08 kicks off with a blast! Join us for this free opening reception and audiovisual event featuring the latest video work by UK group Semiconductor and live video and sound performances of new work by digital artists Kamran Sadeghi (Son Of Rose) and Randy Jones (Caro) exploring the synchronization of colors, shapes and type with sound.
MARCH 7, Friday at 8pm
BYDESIGN 08 PRESENTS
THE DOT AND THE LINE
Sponsored by AIGA-Seattle, Cornish College of the Arts and Digital Kitchen
Creative Shorts of the 60s & 70s
(Various directors, US/Canada, 1965-77, 16mm, 75 min)
This selection of rarely seen short films made in the 1960s and 70s presents a variety of unique perspectives and inventive techniques. Bound by a common curiosity and creativity, these experiments in animation, motion graphics, and live action filmmaking bring design concepts to the screen. The program includes short films by Saul Bass, Charles and Ray Eames, Norman McLaren, Frank Mouris, Charles Braverman, Chuck Jones and Jim Henson- four of them Oscar-winners.
MARCH 7-13, Friday-Thursday at 7:15, 9pm
BYDESIGN 08 PRESENTS
HELVETICA
Sponsored by AIGA-Seattle, Cornish College of the Arts and Digital Kitchen
(Gary Hustwit, UK, 2007, BETA-SP, 80 min)
Chances are, you’ve seen the Helvetica typeface several times today. It’s all around us. This engaging new documentary looks at how the 50-year-old Swiss font became one of the most pervasive and well known, and initiates a larger conversation about graphic design and global visual culture. Director Gary Hustwit explores type in urban spaces around the globe and talks with a who’s who of renowned designers about the aesthetics of typography. HELVETICA invites us to take a second look at the thousands of words we see every day.
www.helveticafilm.com
"A thoroughly engaging and gleefully funny investigation into the world’s most ubiquitous typeface." -TIME OUT LONDON
"The real achievement of the picture is the way it sharpens your eye in general and makes connections between form and content, and between art and life." -CHICAGO TRIBUNE
MARCH 8, Saturday at 1pm
BYDESIGN 08 PRESENTS
FREE FOR NWFF AND AIGA MEMBERS
SEATTLE MOVES:
Screening and Discussion
Sponsored by AIGA-Seattle, Cornish College of the Arts and Digital Kitchen
Join us for this special forum in which Seattle motion graphics designers from Digital Kitchen, SuperFad, and World Famous Inc. will screen recent projects and discuss their inspirations, creative processes, technical challenges and their quickly evolving field.
MARCH 8 – 9, Saturday at 7:30, 9pm and Sunday at 9pm
BYDESIGN 08 PRESENTS
ENTROPY
New Short Works
Sponsored by AIGA-Seattle, Cornish College of the Arts and Digital Kitchen
Each year, ByDesign showcases new work by innovative designers, directors and VJs from around the globe. This year’s survey features the Seattle premieres of over a dozen new short films, including work by Light Surgeons, Semiconductor, Impactist, Max Hattler, Stewart Smith, Guilherme Marcondes and others. Ranging from lo-fi to high tech, from the ethereal to the downright silly, this sampling of inventive new shorts gives us a glimpse at the rapidly dissolving lines between design, art, film and music.
MARCH 9, Sunday at 7pm
BYDESIGN 08 PRESENTS
A HISTORY OF COMPUTER GRAPHICS IN FILM
with Alvy Ray Smith
Sponsored by AIGA-Seattle, Cornish College of the Arts and Digital Kitchen
Legendary computer graphics innovator Alvy Ray Smith will discuss the evolution of computer animation and show clips ranging from John Whitney’s early experiments in the 1960s to landmark visual effects and animation in popular cinema of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Smith headed the Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute of Technology in the ‘70s, was founding Director of the Computer Division at Lucasfilm, and co-founded Pixar. He’ll give us a brief history of the innovations that made modern computer animation possible, and discuss the challenges that he and his colleagues faced when the field was in its infancy.
MARCH 8, APRIL 12, AND MAY 17
Saturdays at 4pm
INDIGENOUS FILM FESTIVAL SCREENINGS
Join us for the second annual Northwest Indigenous Film Festival, now expanded to a full series! On February 9, March 8, April 12 and May 17, the festival will screen a diverse group of new and experimental short and feature films either created by or made about indigenous peoples. March 8 features IMPRINT, a contemporary Native American dramatic supernatural thriller filmed on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, by Linn Productions and Native filmmaker Chris Eyre. Imprint has redefined what we've come to expect of a film depicting Native America. It is the winner of Best Picture, Best Actress (Tonantzin Carmelo), and Best Supporting Actress (Carla-Rae Holland) at the American Indian Film Festival; Best Picture at the International Cherokee Film Festival and South Dakota Film Festival and Official Selection at South by SouthWest. Other festival screenings include the last film by the late Native filmmaker Phil Lucas and films by the youth of Native Lens. Audience discussions will follow the screenings.
MARCH 14 - 20, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9pm (plus Sat and Sun at 5pm)
NEW 35MM PRINT!
NOT ON DVD
LA CHINOISE
(Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1967, 35mm, 90 min)
Finally, a great print of "Godard's best film by far since BREATHLESS" (NY TIMES), which as been unavailable for years! Shot in pulsing primaries (especially red), scored with Stockhausen, Schubert and Vivaldi, and paced with breakneck wit, LA CHINOISE is oddly ebullient given its dire subject. A five-member Maoist cell spends summer vacation in a Parisian apartment discussing the Chinese Cultural Revolution and plotting an assassination. Though clearly sympathetic to their rejection of bourgeois ideology, Godard portrays the members of the cell as bunglers, revisionists and poseurs. When the would-be “Chinese woman” of the title (played by Godard's future wife) finally gets around to a terrorist act, it seems accidental, thoughtless without affect or effect.
"Brilliant, distinctly disquieting as well as gratifyingly funny...this film stands as a prophetic and remarkably acute analysis behind the events of May 1968 in all their desperate sincerity and impossible naivete." -TIME OUT
MARCH 14 - 20, Friday-Thursday at 7:15, 9:15pm (plus Sat and Sun at 3:15, 5:15pm)
DIRECTORS Q&A ON FRIDAY!
MEETING RESISTANCE
Sponsored by American Friends Service Committee and KBCS 91.3 FM
(Molly Bingham, Steve Connors, USA, 2007, BETA-SP, 84 min)
Rare are the films that take us deep inside the Iraqi insurgency to expose us a complex cross section of Iraqi society. Meet a teacher, an imam, a housewife, a former Special Forces Officer and a mysterious traveler among others. Some were tortured by the Saddam regime, none care for Al-Qaeda, many come from mixed Shia and Sunni backgrounds, and all share a deep love for their country. Each one brings his or her own perspective on the motivations that fuel their journey: anger, resentment, love and devotion. For ten months, starting in August 2003, directors Steve Connors and Molly Bingham filmed in the streets, alleyways, rooftops and teashops of the Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad. What emerges is an intense experience of palpable danger and paranoia, a disturbing and emotional portrait of people struggling to retain a sense of dignity in the midst of an occupation.
www.meetingresistance.com
Read more about the directors
"A remarkable piece of war reporting." -THE WASHINGTON POST
"A breakthrough film. Astonishing!" -Salon.com
MARCH 21 - 27, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9pm
THE KILLING OF JOHN LENNON
(Andrew Piddington, USA, 2007, 35mm, 114 min)
THE KILLING OF JOHN LENNON is a fictionalized chilling insight into the mind of Mark David Chapman, the 25-year-old narcissist who gunned down John Lennon outside his Dakota apartment in New York in 1980. Meticulously researched and filmed over three years on locations where the events occurred, this is a gritty and imaginative examination of a celebrity stalker's mind leading up to the kill and a look into his descent into madness. Several scenes echo Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER, one of Chapman's inspirations. The voiceover (taken from Chapman's interviews) gives us chilling insight into the mind of a stalker and gives actor Jonas Ball's unforgettable performance an eerie, chilling precision.
www.thekillingofjohnlennon.com
See the trailer
"THE KILLING OF JOHN LENNON is a harrowing, impressionistic, widescreen tour-de-force that unfolds with the propulsive urgency of a scrapbook thrown into a howling wind." -VARIETY
MARCH 21 - 23, Friday-Sunday at 7:15, 9:15pm
DIRECTOR MURRAY LERNER IN ATTENDANCE FRIDAY & SATURDAY!
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR: BOB DYLAN LIVE AT THE NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL, 1963-1965
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
(Murray Lerner, USA, 2007, BETA-SP, 83 min)
With all the controversy surrounding Todd Haynes' exploration of Bob Dylan's public evolution from the folk scene's hayseed crown prince to electrified superstar in I'M NOT THERE, NWFF still believes there ain't nothing like the real thing. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR is comprised of never-before-seen footage of Dylan's complete Newport performances in workshops and night concerts during three festivals. It's wall-to-wall Dylan, seen in a revealing and powerfully nuanced progression from the awkward youth of "North Country Blues" to the scorned idol of "Maggie's Farm." Nineteen songs include "Only a Pawn in Their Game," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Chimes of Freedom," "Like a Rolling Stone," and "It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue."
MARCH 22, Saturday at 4pm
FREE!
KING CORN
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3FM and KCTS9 TV
(Aaron Woolf, USA, 2006, DVD)
Two friends from the big city plant a single acre of the nation's most powerful crop, corn, and then follow it from seed to the dinner plate. John Hartl of the Seattle Times calls KING CORN, "simultaneously nostalgic and sinister." Part horror film and part documentary, KING CORN exposes the truth behind what you're eating. Have you been wondering why Americans are so overweight? Or why certain foods are so cheap? Have you heard our average life expectancy is headed down, not up? Find out why!
MARCH 25, Tuesday at 7pm
Late addition!
Northwest Film Forum and Prost Amerika present
SENATOR OBAMA GOES TO AFRICA
(Bob Hercules, Keith Walker, USA, 2007, BETA-SP, 52 min)
Award-winning filmmakers Bob Hercules and Keith Walker accompanied Senator Barack Obama and his wife on a historic trip to Barack's ancestral homeland. This timely and poignant documentary follows Senator Barack Obama as he travels to South Africa, Kenya and a Darfur refugee camp in Chad. Obama explores the vast continent that is gaining increasing importance in this age of globalization. This is a fascinating and unique insight into the man who may be our next President where we get to see the man away from the artificiality of the presidential campaign trail. Bob Hercules most recent documentary, FORGIVING DR. MENGELE, won prizes at both at the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival and Heartland Film Festivals."
Link to film information at Prost Amerika
MARCH 27, Thursday at 7:30pm
THIRD EYE CINEMA PRESENTS
FILMS BY KARN JUNKINSMITH: DANCE OUTSIDE AND OTHERWISE
Join us as Seattle choreographer Karn Junkinsmith presents her slate of experimental dance films. Her dance film work began in 1990, when she collaborated with Lena Sharpe on GIRLS FIND WAYS TO GET THERE, a dance of three female archetypes: Joan of Arc, witch and pregnant virgin. Her directorial debut, the whimsical DAY OFF, was produced in association with NWFF, and was shot by Lynn Shelton (WE GO WAY BACK). This program also includes recent efforts such as BUS STOP, in which citizens discover shared passion for public dancing, and ALCHEMY OF THE ORACLES, an extravaganza of bopping female bodies lacking wardrobe control, shot by Benjamin Kasulke (WE GO WAY BACK, BRAND UPON THE BRAIN). Several of the films will be accompanied by live music by Jeff Junkinsmith and friends that will have you dancing in your seats.
HELD OVER! See additional dates below
MARCH 28 - APRIL 3, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9pm (plus Sat and Sun at 5pm)
BOARDING GATE
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
(Olivier Assayas, France, 2007, 35mm, 106 min)
The rising international star Asia Argento (daughter of Dario) steams up Assayas's lovingly down-and-dirty nod to Hong Kong genre films and B-movie Eurotrash. BOARDING GATE is a grimy, erotically charged mash-up of the director's earlier demonlover and IRMA VEP. Earning a midnight movie slot at this year's Cannes Film Festival (and suitably shocking most critics), the film splits its focus between the bland industrial estates of Paris and the chaotic urban clutter of Hong Kong. The two are connected through the sexual maneuverings and power struggles of the dangerously attractive drug runner Sandra (Argento), her sleazebag ex-lover (Michael Madsen) and her current lover and boss, a Hong Kong "importer" (Karl Ng). Propulsive, lurid and filled with vigorous performances (especially Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, as a Cantonese-speaking gangster), BOARDING GATE is a testament to low-budget, high-energy filmmaking and a feisty scorn for the new global marketplace (including, as Assayas notes, "the new order of film finance").
More on Olivier Assayas
Watch a clip here
Additional shows added!
APRIL 4 - 8, Friday-Tuesday at at 7, 9pm (plus Saturday and Sunday at 5pm)
Must close Tuesday, April 8!
APRIL 3 – 24
EVERY THURSDAY IN APRIL AT 7pm
QUEER THURSDAYS
I LOVE THE NIGHTLIFE!
Looking for a hip homo hangout? Explore the "underground" gay social scene in the world of queer film. Every Thursday in April, Three Dollar Bill Cinema will screen a film in which queer gathering spaces play a memorable or central role.
From the seedy haunts of NYC to the "anything goes" bars of Berlin, see what the gays were doing back in the day...or what they were imagined to be doing!
April 3 - CRUISING
April 10 - CABARET
April 17 – SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE
April 24 – THE DETECTIVE
Click here for full descriptions
For more information on other events from Seattle Queer Film, go to www.seattlequeerfilm.org.
ZIDANE will be screening again June 13-15 - More details are below
APRIL 4 - 6, Friday-Sunday at 7:15, 9:15pm
ZIDANE, A 21ST CENTURY PORTRAIT
Sponsored by Brian and Victoria Owen Klein
Sponsored by Easy Street Records, KBCS 91.3 FM, and Cafe Presse
Sunday night screenings to be introduced by Henry Art Gallery Associate Curator Sara Krajewski
(Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, France / Iceland, 2006, 35mm, 92 min)
Acclaimed contemporary artists and filmmakers Douglas Gordon (24 HOUR PSYCHO) and Philippe Parreno have taken a unusual approach in creating this film portrait of soccer superstar Zinédine Zidane. They focused seventeen synchronized 35mm and HD cameras (equipped with the most powerful zoom lenses ever made) solely on him for the entirety of a soccer match from the first kick of the ball to the final whistle. The result of this 360-degree, real-time portrait is a startling connection to the sensations, the psychology and the body of the athlete. The film’s brilliant sound design captures the ebb and flow of the stadium crowd (one clue to the game’s activity off-screen), and incorporates an original score by the band Mogwai that emphasizes the calm intensity of the player (and the sport.) Something of a mixture between sports film, nature documentary and art portrait, ZIDANE is a truly unique cinematic experience.
See the trailer
"Sublime…the greatest film about football ever made. There was no more soulful an examination of the human condition to be found at Cannes than in watching Zidane at work." -THE OBSERVER
"By the end, Zidane has achieved the charisma and mystery of the hero from some lost Shakespeare play." - THE GUARDIAN
Tickets now available for the June 13-15 shows!
$5/NWFF and Henry Art Gallery members, $6/children and seniors, $8.50/general. To buy tickets online please visit our current calendar page listing.
More details will be announced in our Summer calendar (on the web May 12 and on the streets May 19)
APRIL 5 - 6, Saturday & Sunday at 5pm
FOOTBALL AS NEVER BEFORE
Sponsored by Easy Street Records, KBCS 91.3 FM, and Cafe Presse
(Hellmuth Costard, 1970, 16mm>DVD, 105 min)
In conjunction with ZIDANE, we're pleased to present special screenings of a rarely seen, earlier and very similar work by one of the most important German experimental filmmakers of the 60s and 70s. For FOOTBALL AS NEVER BEFORE, director Hellmuth Costard trained eight 16mm cameras solely on mercurial soccer maverick George Best for the duration of a match in late 1970. The game was not particularly important, and Best had already begun to drown his talents in white wine. But, following the progress of the game only through his actions and reactions, this time-and-motion portrait of the soccer legend stands as fascinating precursor and companion to the acclaimed new film.
APRIL 7 - 10, Monday-Thursday at 7:30, 9pm
BUILD A SHIP, SAIL TO SADNESS
(Laurin Federlein, UK, 2007, BETA-SP, 68 min)
Laurin Felderein's BUILD A SHIP, SAIL TO SADNESS follows Vincent, a solitary young man in a bright red helmet and a blue raincoat (a la Leonard Cohen), as he rides on his yellow moped along the winding roads of the rural Scottish Highlands in a desperate bid to convince the locals to embrace his idea of a traveling discotheque. Driven by messianic determination and an addiction to petrol fumes, he struggles to keep his disintegrating vision afloat amidst the hostile landscape and stubborn indifference of the locals. Accompanied by some of the most heartbreaking pop songs in recent memory, BUILD A SHIP, SAIL TO SADNESS is a sublimely melancholic feature film debut.
APRIL 9, Wednesday at 8pm
NORTHWEST FILM FORUM AND EMERALD CITY SOUL CLUB PRESENT
SOUL NITE!
Sponsored by Easy Street Records and Cafe Racer
Aaahh yeah. SOUL NITE! is back with more sights and sounds from the golden age of soul. As always, we’ll be showing great vintage soul performance footage from the 1960s, Emerald City Soul Club djs will be serving up funky 45s for your moving and grooving pleasure and, of course, refreshments will be served. Don’t miss the party. Dancing in the aisles is encouraged!
APRIL 11 - 17, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9:15pm
NEW 35MM PRINT!
MURIEL
(Alain Resnais, France, 1963, 35mm, 115 min)
Director Resnais plunges into the labyrinthine corridors of memory in MURIEL, a film that was years ahead of its time with its complex editing and its refusal to validate or discount its characters’ conception of the world around them. It premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in 1963, where it was hailed as a triumph by Jean Cocteau, Jean-Luc Godard and Henri Langlois, and won the award for Best Actress (Delphine Seyrig). A middle-aged widow living in an antique-stuffed apartment in Boulogne summons her ex-lover from Paris. At the same time, her stepson is dealing with the aftermath of his Algerian war experiences. Aided by cinematographer Sacha Vierny, the exquisite music of modernist Hans Werner Henze and the underrated contribution of soundman Antoine Bonfanti, Resnais creates a remarkably rich tapestry of emotional detachment that paradoxically becomes almost unbearably moving.
"One of the ten greatest films in the history of cinema." -SIGHT & SOUND
"Alain Resnais' 1963 film surpasses his better-known LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD and HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR." -CHICAGO READER
APRIL 12 – 13, Saturday-Sunday at 1:30, 4pm
SEE YOU IN THE FUNNY PAGES
ANNIE
Sponsored by Fantagraphics and Cupcake Royale
(John Huston, USA, 1982, 35mm, 127 min)
The most successful adaptation of a comic strip, Little Orphan Annie leapt to the big screen under the direction of John Houston (TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, KEY LARGO). This classic rags-to-riches musical set in Depression Era New York distills every girl's orphan fantasy into a series of dance numbers, pillow fights and trips to the White House. Perfectly cast as Annie, Aileen Quinn is accompanied by a memorable group of supporting actors including Albert Finney as Daddy Warbucks, Tim Curry as Rooster and Carol Burnett in an indelible performance as Miss Hannigan.
APRIL 12, Saturday at 8pm
DIRECTOR IN ATTENDANCE
THIRD EYE CINEMA PRESENTS
ELECTRIC DREAMS / VOLCANIC VISIONS: THE CINEMA OF JANICE FINDLEY
Janice Findley's fiercely original films explore enchanted, uncharted territory with a unique sensibility. Utilizing meticulous stop-motion and live-action techniques, brilliant set and costume design and beguiling musical scores by musician/composer Paul Hansen, Findley creates a subterranean world of emotions that evoke waking dreams. By turns menacing, inviting and funny, these adventures of the mind dare the viewer to enter into the realm of dreams... or is it nightmares? Findley's films have been showcased in a retrospective at MoMA in New York, where her work is part of the permanent collection, as well as in the hinterlands of the U.S. by a widely traveled bicycling projectionist. This evening's program includes "Tripletime", "A Nermish Gothic", "Beyond Kabuki", "I Am The Night" and "Faux Paw" plus Maya Deren's "Meshes Of The Afternoon."
"Equal parts illusionistic film techniques and the filmmaker's refreshingly untethered imagination. Imagine 'Alice in Wonderland' done by a collaboration of ...F.W. Murnau ...Maya Deren ...and Jan Svankmajer." -THE OREGONIAN
APRIL 15 - 23
THE SHORT FILMS OF APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL
"World cinema's premier maker of mysterious objects, Apichatpong Weerasethakul is on a one-man mission to change the way we watch movies. Rich and strange, postmodern and prehistoric, his films foster an experience of serene bewilderment and –for the willing viewer – euphoric surrender. They are suffused with a sense of wide-open possibility that sometimes explodes into epiphany."–Dennis Lim, THE VILLAGE VOICE
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY, TROPICAL MALADY) is a key figure in modern Thai film and a highly original moving-image artist. He studied architecture at Khon Kaen University before completing a Master of Fine Arts in filmmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Influenced by American experimental film, Weerasethakul is one of a small group of independent filmmakers working outside the Thai studio system. His video installations, shorts and feature films explore the genres of documentary and fiction in uniquely Thai contexts. Thai television, radio and comics provide story elements that may be enacted or embroidered by the characters that drive Weerasethakul's films. These two programs comprise rarely seen short works made by the acclaimed director over the past 14 years.
Special thanks to Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jed Rapfogel (Anthology Film Archives), Lee Chatametikool, Mark McElhatten and Isabelle Park (Jeonju International Film Festival).
APRIL 18 - 24, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9pm (plus Sat and Sun at 3, 5pm)
CHOP SHOP
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM
(Ramin Bahrani, USA, 2007, 35mm, 85 min)
Ramin Bahrani, following up his auspicious debut MAN PUSH CART, sets his story of a 12-year-old Latino boy and his older sister in Willet's Point, Queens, a 20-block stretch of junkyards and chop shops (where stolen cars are dismantled for parts). Perhaps it is because Bahrani and co-author Bahareh Azimi are both foreign born that they are able to accurately render an outsider's experience with palpable compassion and realism. With no sentimentality, CHOP SHOP suggests that, for many, New York City is closer to a third world country than the glittering jewel in the "land of opportunity's" crown.
See the trailer
"Miraculous! Now we have an American film with the raw power of CITY OF GOD or PIXOTE, a film that does something unexpected, and inspired, and brave." -Roger Ebert
APRIL 19, Saturday at 4pm
FREE!
A DREAM IN DOUBT
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM and the Seattle Office for Civil Rights
(Tami Yeager, USA, 2007, DVD)
Rana Singh Sodhi's life is forever altered when his brother is killed just for wearing a turban days after 9/11. The story of the first post-9/11 hate crime fatality still resonates in Seattle with the recent brutal attack on a local Sikh cab driver after the Apple Cup Game. The victim of A DREAM IN DOUBT is a Sikh man in Mesa, Arizona, where his family had sought religious freedom and "the American Dream." Meet a family still determined to believe in that dream, even as the nightmare climate of xenophobia continues for many religious and ethnic minorities.
APRIL 25 - MAY 1, Friday-Thursday at 7pm
SEX COMEDY - ITALIAN STYLE
NEW 35MM PRINT!
DIVORCE - ITALIAN STYLE
(Pietro Germi, Italy, 1961, 35mm, 104 min)
Germi's most famous and successful film, DIVORCE – ITALIAN STYLE became the first foreign-language film to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (it was also nominated for Best Actor and Best Director). Mastroianni gives one of his most brilliant performances as a smug and scheming Sicilian aristocrat who has to dispose of his unpleasant wife in order marry another. Divorce is frowned upon by Italian courts, but crimes of passion are winked at, so if the inconvenient missus could be maneuvered into taking a lover… Longtime Germi admirer Martin Scorsese called this beautifully photographed black comedy "one of the greatest films about Sicily...a film that truly haunts me."
"One of the most perfect comedies ever filmed!" –A. O. Scott, NY TIMES
APRIL 25 - MAY 1, Friday-Thursday at 9pm
SEX COMEDY - ITALIAN STYLE
NEW 35MM PRINT!
SEDUCED AND ABANDONED
(Pietro Germi, Italy, 1963, 35mm, 117 min)
Many critics consider this follow-up to DIVORCE--ITALIAN STYLE to be even better--blacker, funnier, and more sharply satirical in its skewering of macho attitudes. The story starts with fifteen-year-old Agnese and her family problems. The comic spotlight shifts to the girl’s furious father (a role for which portly Saro Urzì won the Best Actor award at Cannes), who resorts to a series of ever more desperate schemes in an attempt to restore family honor. Seeing the film again ten years after its release, Roger Ebert wrote, “At the time, I thought it was hilarious. . . my reaction the second time around is more complicated. SEDUCED AND ABANDONED has a lot of laughs in it, all right, but it’s not so much hilarious as painfully funny.”
"A lusty, vital satire of Sicilian mores—and a glory of Italian movie comedy! The movie is a masterpiece of mock verismo; everything accelerates into high-octane opera buffa. Pietro Germi directs with such deftness that he gets mileage from small laughs and can afford to tread lightly on big ones." -THE NEW YORKER
APRIL 26, SATURDAY
Northwest Film Forum pulls out all the stops for
YOU ASKED FOR IT!
The Spring Gala
At breathtaking China Harbor, 2040 Westlake Avenue N.
Here’s How it Works
You tell us your desires and curiosities:
What would Ira Glass sound like on my answering machine?
What is it like to sit in front row seats at a Mariners game?
How do I get a kiss from Tom Waits?
Can you get me a private house party with my favorite musician?
Only you know what you really want.
Our panel of experts will comb the earth seeking what you covet.
ASK FOR IT and on April 26 BID ON IT.
Funnel your greatest desires – whatever they may be – directly through our web site and come prepared to spend!
GET IT? GOT IT? GOOD!
www.nwfilmforum.org/gala
THE GALA IS SOLD OUT!
APRIL 29 - MAY 14
DUEL OF THE COOL
BELMONDO vs. MASTROIANNI
In the 1960's, two actors defined the finger-snapping confidence of Europe’s post-war boom: France's Jean-Paul Belmondo and Italy's Marcello Mastroianni. These leading men found themselves cast as Casanovas, wanderers, gangsters and of course lady-killers. Belmondo was the brute, the thug in a fedora and tight pants with lips no woman could deny. Mastroianni was the lover, the romantic idealist with unattainable desires.
These men became stars thanks to two of Europe's top directors of the time, Jean-Luc Godard and Federico Fellini. Belmondo emerged with his performance as Michel Poiccard, the antihero of Jean-Luc Godard's groundbreaking BREATHLESS. The actor was one of the key figures of the 'New Wave' and became a major international star by the early 1970s. With the look of a boxer, Belmondo projects a tough yet sensuous persona. Fellini made Mastroianni into a sex symbol, casting him in such classics as LA DOLCE VITA and 8 1/2. He was an elegant, understated actor who could command the screen while never monopolizing it. The men performed opposite such bombshells as Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot, and Sophia Loren, and under direction of masters such as Ettore Scola, Francois Truffaut and Michelangelo Antonioni, among others.
THE MAIN EVENT:
In the cinematic bout of the century, Belmondo and Mastroianni duke it out in three rounds of classic European cinema! We'll be running a month-long audience survey to determine which actor wins the title of “King Of Cool.”
Series Pass $25/NWFF Members, $40/General
COMPLETE LIST OF FILMS
MAY 1, Thursday at 8pm
DIRECTOR IN ATTENDANCE
THIRD EYE CINEMA PRESENTS
THE FILMS OF STEPHANIE BARBER
(Stephanie Barber, USA, 1997-2007, 16mm)
Prolific Baltimore-based filmmaker and artist Stephanie Barber has been featured in solo shows at the New York Film Festival's Views From the Avant-Garde and the Museum of Modern Art's Cineprobe series. She has established herself over the past decade as an extraordinary filmmaker, winning awards and acclaim at festivals and venues all over the world. For this program, Barber brings together a diverse selection of her work including FLOWER, THE BOY, THE LIBRARIAN, DOGS, METRONOME, TOTAL POWER DEAD DEAD DEAD; SHIPFILM; LETTERS NOTES; and CATALOG. Barber will discuss her films throughout the presentation of this short work.
More on Stephanie Barber
MAY 2 - 8, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9pm (plus Sat and Sun at 5pm)
LOVE SONGS
(Christophe Honoré, France, 2007, 35mm, 100 min)
A musical that transcends expectations of relationships, love, and sexuality, LOVE SONGS comes from one of French cinema’s most interesting new talents, Christophe Honoré. Riffing on Jacques Demy’s UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, Honoré has created a charmingly scruffy musical about love and loss in contemporary France. In a 'Chanson' style reminiscent of George Brassens and Serge Gainsbourg, this is a poetic and touching film about being in and out of love, set against the bewitching backdrop of present-day Paris.
"A joy...Profound and affecting...(a) tribute to the playfulness of the French New Wave." -Sean Axmaker, SEATTLE P-I
"Not since I was a boy watching Cyd Charisse in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN has a musical made me feel so happy." -SIGHT & SOUND MAGAZINE
"Christophe Honore’s films aren't just films you like. You develop weird little crushes on them." -FILM COMMENT
Watch the trailer!
MAY 3 - 4, Saturday-Sunday at 2, 4pm
SEE YOU IN THE FUNNY PAGES
DICK TRACY
Sponsored by Fantagraphics and Cupcake Royale
(Warren Beatty, USA, 1990, 35mm, 105 min)
Mob bosses, machine gun fights and Madonna - could this really be family entertainment? Absolutely! Warren Beatty's surprisingly bloodless take on Chester Gould's comic strip crime-stopper will be a relief to parents who’ve shied from taking their kids to darker cartoon adaptations. Upon its release, critics cheered the film's stylish production, and audiences of all ages delighted in film’s cheerful good vs. evil smackdown. Beatty turns in an appropriately square-jawed performance as the heroic gumshoe, with Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman playing the grotesquely visaged villains to the hilt and none other than Madonna playing the sultry Breathless Mahoney. Stephen Sondheim wrote several exuberant songs for the film, including a stellar slower number sung by Mandy Patinkin as the luckless Club Ritz piano player.
NOTE: This PG-rated film contains violence (though no gore) and some sexually suggestive costumes and scenes courtesy of Madonna (which stop well short of anything explicit). Recommended for ages 8 and up.
MAY 8, Thursday at 8pm
SPECIAL PRESENTATION
ROOTS AND BRANCHES: AMERICAN MUSIC ON SCREEN
NARRATED BY TOM SAUBER, MARK GRAHAM AND ORVILLE JOHNSON, FOLLOWED BY LIVE SET OF MUSIC BY THE KINGS OF MONGREL FOLK
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM and Easy Street Records
This musical trip back in time features motion picture and newsreel footage from the 1920s and 30s of country, blues and jazz performers. Clips range from the iconic Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills and early jazz masters Ted Weems and Frank Westphal, to anonymous jugs bands, fiddlers and field hands. The footage captures musicians at work in a vanished America – at barn dances, street corners, fiddler conventions and in the fields. Tom Sauber, Mark Graham and Orville Johnson will share their encyclopedic knowledge of Americana and old-time music as they narrate these rarely seen film clips. The trio will also perform a set of their own music, inspired and informed by blues, bluegrass and American roots music.
More information on ROOTS AND BRANCHES program and performers
MAY 9 - 15, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9pm (plus Sat and Sun at 5pm)
SHOTGUN STORIES
(Jeff Nichols, USA, 2007, 35mm, 90 min)
The backdrop of Jeff Nichols' first feature is small-town Arkansas, but the scale is grand tragedy. This tale of bloody ties and vengeance combines the breadth and texture of a Cormac McCarthy novel with the lyrical naturalism of a David Gordon Green film (who co-produced it and mentored Nichols). While SHOTGUN STORIES relishes its influences, it also carves a singular space for itself as a chronicle of rural and familial decay. As Eddie Cockrell noted in VARIETY, this is "a point-blank buckshot blast of inarticulate American rage." Winner of the New American Cinema Grand Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival.
www.shotgunstories.com
See the trailer
MAY 10, Saturday at 4pm
FREE!
NEW YEAR BABY
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM and Amnesty International
(Socheata Poeuv, Cambodia/USA, 2006, DVD)
Although born in a Thai refugee camp on Cambodian New Year, filmmaker Socheata Poeuv grew up in the United States never knowing that her family had survived the Khmer Rouge genocide. In NEW YEAR BABY, she embarks on a journey to Cambodia in search of the truth and why her family's history had been buried in secrecy for so long.
MAY 15, Thursday at 8pm
SPECIAL PRESENTATION
GEORGES MELIES: IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGER
Join us for a special celebration of the father of special effects, Georges Melies, featuring his greatest epics from the early 1900s. A stage magician turned filmmaker, Melies produced more than five hundred whimsical "trick films," crafting tales of the fantastic that pushing nearly every technical boundary of the time. His spectacular images remain some of the most iconic in film history, and continue to instill wonder and delight a century later. This special presentation includes rare tinted and hand-colored film prints accompanied by non-traditional musical selections including world music, avant-garde jazz and early electronic music. The film THE IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGE (1904) will include a rare live performance of Melies' original narration combined with an audio collage of period 78-RPM records (compiled by Robert Millis and Jeffrey Taylor of Climax Golden Twins) played live on real Victrolas. Co-presented by The Sprocket Society and NWFF.
MAY 16 - 22, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9:15pm (plus Sat and Sun at 4:30pm)
FROM THE DIRECTOR OF GUMMO AND JULIEN DONKEY BOY
>MISTER LONELY
(Harmony Korine, USA/France, 2007, 35mm, 112 min)
Werner Herzog, Michael Jackson, Samantha Morton, Marilyn Monroe, Abe Lincoln, Shirley Temple, and Charlie Chaplin come together in Panama and Paris for MISTER LONELY, the latest feature by wunderkind American director Harmony Korine. The titular Mister Lonely is a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) who ekes out a living in Paris. He bumps into Marilyn Monroe (Morton) who brings him to a castle in Scotland where she lives in an impersonator community that includes her husband, Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant) and various others. It’s a wild world, and Harmony Korine is its playful mischievous master.
More on Harmony Korine
See the trailer
"Like (Carlos) Reygadas, Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely could be considered the first self-consciously mature work by a onetime enfant terrible." -Dennis Lim
MAY 16 - 22, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9pm (no 7pm on Tuesday, May 20)
Northwest Film Forum and Artist Trust present
ALICE NEEL
(Andrew Neel, USA, 2007, 35mm, 82 minutes)
Portrait painter Alice Neel (1900-1984) beautifully, and often hauntingly, captured the image and spirit of each of her hundreds of subjects over six decades. When the theatrics of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art consumed the art world, Neel's figurative humanism was so unfashionable that she lived on welfare and was marginalized until the 1970s, when the counterculture embraced her and major museums began showing her work. Her grandson, filmmaker Andrew Neel, directs this unique documentary portrait of the artist that both celebrates her determination and explores the effects of her choices and sacrifices. The film traces Alice Neel’s tumultuous biography, as well as delving into the conflicts that her children (the filmmaker’s father, uncle and aunt) still struggle with. By turns fascinating, uncomfortable and inspirational, ALICE NEEL is a thought provoking, personal journey.
www.aliceneelfilm.com
"The fascinating documentary Alice Neel illuminates history while also demonstrating how an artist’s style reveals his or her personality." - New York Times
Tickets $5/NWFF and Artist Trust members, $6/children and seniors, $8.50/general
MAY 20, Tuesday at 7pm
ANTHEM FILM CHALLENGE
This quarter we screened Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s short film ANTHEM (April 15, 16, 22, 23), created as a nostalgic tribute to a tradition in Thailand in which a Royal Anthem honoring the King is played before all movies and is therefore an integral part of the experience of going to the cinema. This quarter’s film challenge charged Seattle filmmakers with creating their own unique anthem films, using the Star Spangled Banner or ANY anthem as a basis. For further incentive to filmmakers, tonight's audience will determine the best film and the winning film will be screened before all future film challenges as a sort of Film Challenge Anthem.
Click here for entry rules!
