NOV 30 - DEC 6, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9:15pm

30TH ANNIVERSARY ENGAGEMENT
NEWLY RESTORED 35MM PRINT

ERASERHEAD

(David Lynch, USA, 1977, 35mm, 108 min)

One of the truly groundbreaking works of American cinema, ERASERHEAD is the first and boldest feature film from celebrated auteur David Lynch (BLUE VELVET, MUHOLLAND DRIVE). Famously described by Lynch as “a dream of dark and troubling things,” his now classic surrealist-horror film about the interconnectedness of sexuality, identity, violence and loss was born from 22 pages that read more like free form poetry than a screenplay. With a small grant and donations from friends and family, Lynch shot the ultra low budget film intermittently over the course of six years. It was rejected by the Cannes and New York Film Festivals, and after its Los Angeles premiere Variety called it “a sickening bad-taste exercise” with “little substance.” Thankfully, the film made its way to independent cinemas and became popular among a diversity of freaks, film fans and fellow directors, from Stanley Kubrick (who screened it for the cast of THE SHINING before production) to Mel Brooks (who hired Lynch to direct THE ELEPHANT MAN), In the decades since its release, Lynch’s bold debut feature has become a staple not only of American cinema but also of world culture, influencing and inspiring countless filmmakers, visual artists and musicians. There are many different interpretations of this story of mangled, tormented reality. But all agree that ERASERHEAD must be seen on the big screen to be truly experienced. Join us in celebrating the 30th anniversary of this brilliant and provocative work of American independent cinema. Newly restored 35mm print!

NOV 30 - DEC 2, Friday - Sunday at 7:15, 9pm

LYNCH (ONE)

(blackANDwhite, USA/Denmark, 2007, BETA-SP, 84 min)

See the most enigmatic and original of modern filmmakers at work and at play. A must for David Lynch fans everywhere, this glimpse behind the scenes of his 2006 feature INLAND EMPIRE is an irresistibly charming vignette on the life of an undisputed cinema great. The prevailing image is one of a gifted and driven eccentric, always willing to go the extra mile for his sculpture, his painting and his filmmaking, not without warmth and an infectious sense of humor. As he works with collaborators old and new we witness, and share, the respect and affection that he commands. Shot in color and black and white, using extreme close-ups and a naturalistic approach that shows Lynch at his most relaxed and mischievous, LYNCH is a fitting portrait of a genuinely likeable and deeply fascinating artist at work.

DEC 1 - 2, Saturday & Sunday at 3, 5pm

SHORT FILMS OF DAVID LYNCH

Special screenings of the visionary director’s rarely screened short films, which he has described as "stupid, crude and absurd." To understand the surrealist mastermind behind MUHOLLAND DRIVE, TWIN PEAKS, and BLUE VELVET, these films offer a glimpse at the development of the director's style, from painting and sculpture to short film to feature and television work. The program includes SIX MEN GETTING SICK, THE ALPHABET, THE GRANDMOTHER, THE AMPUTEE, THE COWBOY AND THE FRENCHMAN and LUMIERE.

DEC 3, Monday at 7:15, 9:15pm

STILL LIVES: THE FILMS OF PEDRO COSTA

O SANGUE

Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 fm
(Pedro Costa, Portugal, 1989, 35mm, 95 min)

“A prodigious debut film bursting with visual and narrative ideas, homages, and a desperate romanticism, Costa’s O SANGUE is a thrilling movie/movie for cinephiles. (It will remind you moment to moment of NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, Murnau, Bresson [that opening slap, straight out of MOUCHETTE], Cocteau, SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE, BOY MEETS GIRL.) Shot in splendid, inky black and white and lushly scored with Stravinsky, O SANGUE is a moody nocturne—even in broad daylight, it seems to be the dead of night—set during Christmas and New Year’s in a provincial riverside town. Two brothers, the young, frail Nino and the older Vicente, who is deeply in love with school teacher Clara Danièle, are set upon by evil men (an uncle from Lisbon and two violent debt collectors) after their father disappears. At once a fairy tale, film noir, love story, and murder mystery, O SANGUE announced a major new talent in European cinema.” -James Quandt, Cinematheque Ontario

Special introduction by CINEMA SCOPE editor Mark Peranson

DEC 4, Tuesday at 7:15, 9:15pm

STILL LIVES: THE FILMS OF PEDRO COSTA

CASA DE LAVA

Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 fm
(Pedro Costa, Portugal/France/Germany, 1995, 35mm, 110 min)

Costa’s fascination with the Cape Verdean immigrant population in Lisbon began with his second film, which takes place mostly on the island, a former Portuguese colony. Leão (Isaach de Bankloe), a Cape Verdian man working on a construction site in Portugal, has an accident and ends up in a coma. A nurse, Mariana (Ines de Medeiros), ready for a change of scene, volunteers to accompany him home, but upon her arrival, finds that nothing is as she expects. Mariana gets increasingly involved with the mysterious Cape Verdian community, which seems to have been transported from Jacques Tourneur’s I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (Tourneur being another Costa favorite). Shot with the stunning backdrop of Mount Fogo, the peak of Cape Verde, and an active volcano (reminiscent of Rossellini’s Stromboli), CASA DE LAVA is a mysterious film marred by a notoriously difficult shoot that's integral to his filmography. Note also the first appearance of the poem that Ventura repeats in COLOSSAL YOUTH, in part adapted from the last writings of Surrealist poet Robert Desnos.

DEC 5, Wednesday at 7:15, 9:15pm

STILL LIVES: THE FILMS OF PEDRO COSTA

OSSOS

Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 fm
(Pedro Costa, Portugal/France/Denmark, 1997, 35mm, 94 min)

As Jacques Rivette has said about OSSOS, a film that out Bressons Bresson, “I think it’s magnificent, I think that Costa is genuinely great.” In the slums on the outskirts of Lisbon, a child is born into extreme poverty. Tina, his young mother, tries to commit suicide in order to spare her son an impoverished life lost in advance. Saved by his father, the child is shunted around the city’s sordid streets and becomes the symbol of the fierce fight of love against death. Like CASA DE LAVA, OSSOS was shot by Bresson’s last cinematographer, Emmanuel Machuel, and features striking portraits of the leads, all plucked from the streets. Vanda Duarte, an immense presence of ambiguous sexuality, makes a memorable debut as the baby’s aunt, and her desire to continue filming, albeit in a less structured manner, spurred Costa to move to digital video and find his calling.

DEC 7 – 12, Friday-Wednesday at 7, 9:15pm

BACK TO THE FACTORY: Revisiting Stories and Works From The Warhol Factory
Esther Robinson in person Friday & Sunday

A WALK INTO THE SEA: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory

Sponsored by Easy Street Records and KEXP 90.3 FM
(Esther B. Robinson, USA, 2007, BETA-SP, 75 min)

Esther Robinson's engrossing, dream-like portrait is of her uncle Danny Williams, Warhol's onetime lover and collaborator and a filmmaker in his own right. Robinson's behind-the-scenes peek into the Factory era and the story of William's mysterious disappearance at age 27 offer both an homage to Williams' largely unrecognized talent and another chapter in the saga of the enigmatic Warhol legend and its many causalities. Winner of Best Documentary at the Berlin Film Festival.

"It's always useful to be reminded that Warhol perversely got off on setting acolyte against acolyte and standing back to survey the emotional (and sometimes physical) damage (and, of course, profiting immensely) . . . Fascinating stuff." -David Edelstein, NEW YORK MAGAZINE

Read an interview with Esther Robinson

DEC 7 & 9, Friday & Sunday at 8pm

BACK TO THE FACTORY: Revisiting Stories and Works From The Warhol Factory
Esther Robinson in person Friday & Sunday

DANNY WILLIAMS FACTORY FILMS

Sponsored by Easy Street Records and KEXP 90.3 FM

As a perfect companion piece to A WALK INTO THE SEA, we present Danny Williams: Factory Films, a rare movie and music spectacular. This event will showcase four of Williams' shorts in their entirety: THE FACTORY FILM, HAROLD STEVENSON PART 1 AND PART 2, and the US premiere of THE VELVET UNDERGROUND. All will be screened silent with the exception of the 40-minute Harold Stevenson film, which will feature live accompaniment by A WALK INTO THE SEA composer T. Griffin, along with Catherine McRae. Griffin and McRae are part of the critically acclaimed electronic Americana band The Quavers. They are also known for their creative collaborations with film cult legend Jem Cohen, and others including, Vic Chesnutt, members of Godspeed you! black emperor, and Patti Smith. Now, drawing on bubblegum pop, Lamon Young-inspired drones and of course The Velvet Underground, they will lend their intricate and immersive sounds to Williams' luminous work.

Special Admission Price $12/NWFF members, $15/general

DEC 8, Saturday at 1, 2:30pm


HOLIDAY HIGH NOTES

Featuring The Northwest Boychoirs

The old meets the new in this rollicking and not-so-silent film presentation! Don't miss Seattle's renowned Northwest Choirs as they sing in joyful accompaniment to holiday film footage, including vintage animation. The sparkling voices of Northwest Boychoir's Advanced and Intermediate Choirs is the perfect complement to this cinematic holiday card, filled with images of winter wonderlands, cartoon Santas, busy elves, happy children, and some of the most memorable Christmas characters from years gone by.

Considered the premier children’s choral program in the Pacific Northwest, Northwest Choirs has been committed for 35 years to helping young people discover the challenges and joys of music as a performing art. The Choirs are an integral part of the region’s cultural life. Northwest Choirs members perform regularly with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, as well as other high-profile performing arts groups in the area. For more information, visit http://www.northwestchoirs.org.

DEC 8, Saturday at 4pm

ITVS COMMUNITY CINEMA AND NORTHWEST FILM FORUM PRESENT

MAPPING STEM CELL RESEARCH: Terra Incognita

(Maria Finitzo, USA, 2007, DVD)

Join the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington and the University of Puget Sound Departments of Religion, Science, Technology & Society for an informational discussion about stem cell research. The documentary film features Dr. Jack Kessler, a prominent neurologist, who shifts his diabetes research to stem cell research when his daughter is paralyzed from the waist down.

DEC 10, Monday at 6, 9:15pm

STILL LIVES: THE FILMS OF PEDRO COSTA

IN VANDA’S ROOM

Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 fm
(Pedro Costa, Portugal/Germany/Italy/Switzerland, 2000, 35mm, 178 min)

Costa’s superlative documentary/fiction hybrid IN VANDA’S ROOM gives viewers a close-up look at the lives of slum dwellers in Lisbon, as the saying goes, warts and all. “The film is the extraordinary portrait of Vanda, a young drug user from Fontainhas, the Cape Verdian quarter of Lisbon. Costa shot the film with a very small digital video camera, allowing him to meet his subject face-to-face, and it’s hard to say whether or not Vanda was even aware of the camera’s presence. While initially intending to stay within the confinements of Vanda’s room, the filmmaker finally decided to include the rest of the quarter and to complete the study of ‘another way of living’ with the inhabitnts of Fontainhas. Thus, he creates a seemingly impossible equilibrium between what lies in front of and what lies behind the camera." -Viennale 2005

DEC 11, Tuesday at 6:30, 9:15pm

STILL LIVES: THE FILMS OF PEDRO COSTA

WHERE LIES YOUR HIDDEN SMILE?

Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 fm
(Pedro Costa, France/Portugal, 2001, 35mm, 109 min)

One of the best films about filmmaking ever made, Costa’s documentary on Straub-Huillet is also comedy of the highest order. “This film portrait presents an extraordinary look into the creative process of filmmaking through a case study of longtime collaborators Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, who are carefully observed at work reediting their recent feature SICILIA! …Costa meticulously records the dialectic, argumentative mode the filmmakers use to reach decisions about each cut... Equally compelling is the documentation of Straub’s close commentary on techniques from such diverse influences as Chaplin and Eisenstein. This remarkable documentary, an episode from the landmark series ‘Cinema of our Time,’ is a brilliant examination of the art of editing and a meditation on the aesthetic and political implications of film technique.” -Harvard Film Archive

Preceded by
NE CHANGE RIEN (2005, BETA-SP, 13 min)
Costa films actress-turned-chanteuse Jeanne Balibar.

Followed by
6 BAGATELAS (2001, BETA-SP, 18 min)
Six additional moments of life with Jean-Marie and Danièle Straub.

DEC 12, Wednesday at 6, 9:15pm

STILL LIVES: THE FILMS OF PEDRO COSTA
SEATTLE PREMIERE!

COLOSSAL YOUTH

Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 fm
(Pedro Costa, Portugal/France/Switzerland, 2006, 35mm, 155 min)

Acclaimed by many critics as the best film of 2006, COLOSSAL YOUTH follows the adventures of Ventura, a new addition to Costa’s makeshift studio system. Many of his friends, including Vanda (now with child), have been relocated from Fontaínhas to an antiseptic housing block. Partly disabled from a workplace accident, Ventura is concerned his home won’t have enough room for his “children”: as Costa encounters them, he hears their deeply personal stories of struggle. A luminous glow radiates from Ventura and his friends, revealing them as souls unable to find rest. Costa shot 320 hours of footage over 15 months to make this cryptic masterpiece. As usual, Costa presents a chorus of voices, but here the words are clearly thought out, creating a precision that is overwhelming.

DEC 14 – 15, Friday-Saturday, beginning at 8pm

BACK TO THE FACTORY: Revisiting Stories and Works From The Warhol Factory

CLOCKWORK REDUCTION LIVE

A Conceptual Project By Seattle School
Sponsored by Easy Street Records and KEXP 90.3 FM

FEATURING:
Virginia Bogert - "Tootie Pie"
Sue Corcoran - "She's a Dog"
Daniel Gildark - "Cthulhu"
Kris Kristensen - "Inheritance"
Christian Palmer - "Forcefields"
Lynn Shelton - "We Go Way Back"

  WITH: 
Rob Millis - Climax Golden Twins
Jacob Stone - Punch Drunk Productions
Kris Moon - Fourthcity

  AND:
Aaron Allshouse, JD Barton, Kyle Bliss, Danielle Gibeson, Dustin Kemp, Abby Klein, Caitlin Ngo, and more ...

Six years before Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Andy Warhol adapted the Anthony Burgess novel for his classic, black and white Factory film, VINYL. In homage to Warhol, Seattle School will transform the entire Northwest Film Forum building for a unique Factory-style recreation of the film. This grand, live happening restages the film in parts, with simultaneous live performance, filming, and screening in our two cinemas and lobby. Northwest filmmakers Lynn Shelton, Daniel Gildark, Virginia Bogart, Sue Corcoran, John Jacobsen and Kris Kristensen will direct models cum actors in cinema 1. Their footage will be projected live in cinema 2, where the audience intervenes in the creative process and composers (including Rob Millis of Climax Golden Twins) perform an improvised score. In the lobby, VJs (including Jacob Stone of Opticlash and Kris Moon from the Decibel Festival) will merge and edit the video and audio feeds from both cinemas in real time, creating a live finished film projected onto a translucent screen. The audience can move around freely between rooms throughout the evening, witnessing the different stages of the event’s unique filmmaking process. The event ends when the final new interpretation of VINYL is complete. In keeping with Seattle School tradition, everyone is invited to stay after for fresh waffles (and yes, there will be Cool Whip.)

More details here!



DEC 16, Sunday at 8pm SPECIAL SCREENING

Attending this Sunday night screening event will get you inside the muddy heads of the filmmakers. Both of the previous nights' films will be screened in both theaters, with the directors adding their own live dvd-style commentary. Admission is free for those who attended Friday and Saturday events! All others are standard admission prices

DEC 17, Monday, Starting at 7pm, going till late

FREE!

NWFF HOLIDAY PARTY!

Presented by Northwest Film Forum, Three Dollar Bill Cinema, and Longhouse Media

The sun is setting at 4:15pm, so it must be our annual Holiday Party!
 
    Featuring  

• DJ Notorious N. O. G. playing a night of mashups and forgotten holiday musical disasters
• The Trouble at Home Blues Band
 
• Vintage holiday TV shows
 
• Back alley dreidel games
 
• Your favorite film critic as Santa!

The film community’s coming out for some holiday cheer.  Join us for dancing, camaraderie and the first annual building-wide eggnog competition.

DEC 18 – 27, Tuesday-Thursday at 7, 9:15pm (no show Dec 25)

SPECIAL 9-DAY RUN
NEW RESTORED 35MM PRINT

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

Sponsored by Broadway Market Video
(Fred Zinnemann, USA, 1953, 35mm, 118 min)

NWFF pays special tribute to six-time Oscar nominee Deborah Kerr, who passed away in October at the age of eighty-six, by screening a newly restored print of her most memorable role. Thought unfilmable, James Jones' blockbuster novel was shorn of its profanity, with its brothel turned into a "club" and the horrors of the stockade banished offscreen, but the film's view of the Army remained mighty scabrous, and Lancaster & Kerr's illicit make-out session on the beach is still one of the screen’s most iconic sex scenes ("I never knew it could be like this!"). There's no better way to celebrate Kerr than with this kiss on the beach. Winner of eight Academy Awards.

DEC 28 - JAN 3, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9:15pm (no 9:15pm screening Dec 31)

FIVE EASY PIECES

Sponsored by Broadway Market Video
(Bob Rafelson, USA, 1970, 35mm, 96 min)

American cinema lost one of the definitive cinematographers of the second half of the 20th century this year. Laszlo Kovacs passed away in July after over 50 years of being on the cinematic cutting edge. It just so happens that he also shot one of Northwest Film Forum's favorite films, produced in the Pacific Northwest, FIVE EASY PIECES. Kovac's cinematogaphy in heightened is this new 35mm print. The film features Nicholson’s tour-de-force performance as a talented pianist who doesn't want to be tied down, and includes one of Nicholson's most infamous scenes, in which he tries to get plain toast in a diner by ordering a chicken salad sandwich and asking the waitress to hold the chicken -- between her knees. This is classic Nicholson in a classic 1970s road movie.

More about cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs

JAN 4 – 10, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9pm

WORLD THEATRICAL PREMIERE

ALL MY LOVE

(Brian Short, Seattle, 2006, 90min)
OPENING NIGHT FREE FOR MEMBERS

Seattle filmmaker/composer Brian Short has created a bold, original first feature that weaves skies, landforms, structures and textures into "visual music." Following in the footsteps of such experimental documentary films as KOYAANISQUATSI and BARAKA, ALL MY LOVE features impressionistic photography from three distinctive parts of the globe: the deserts of the American Southwest, the Mongolian Gobi, and the urban landscape of modern Berlin with an evocative ambient/electronic score. The result is a hypnotic journey through light, movement and form that is at once global in its scope and deeply personal in its vision. This unique Seattle creation won the prize for best feature at the 2007 Local Sightings Film Festival.

JAN 8 - 9, Tuesday-Wednesday at 7:15, 9:15pm

ELLIPTIC AND UNBRIDLED: THE EARLY FILMS OF BÉLA TARR

FAMILY NEST

(Béla Tarr, Hungary, 1977, 35mm, 106 min)

This impressive first film by Tarr heralded the arrival of one of late 20th century cinema's most compelling and original voices. Shot in a cinema vérité style, the film captures the lives of an ordinary family in a broken society. The housing shortage in Communist-ruled Hungary forces a young couple to live with the husband's parents in a cramped, one room apartment. The proximity of too many people in too small a space leads to tireless arguments and a feeling of unending hopelessness. Winner of the Hungarian Film Critics' prize for Best First Feature.

JAN 10 - 13, Thursday-Sunday at 7pm

JAN 10, 11, 13 - Thursday, Friday, Sunday at 7pm

CRISPIN HELLION GLOVER IN PERSON!

IT IS FINE! EVERYTHING IS FINE

(David Brothers, Crispin Hellion Glover, USA, 2006, 35mm, 74 min)

PLUS JAN 12, Saturday at 7pm
ONE NIGHT ONLY

WHAT IS IT?

(Crispin Hellion Glover, USA, 2007, 35mm, 72 min)

ALL SCREENINGS AT BROADWAY PERFORMANCE HALL

Sponsored by Scarecrow Video

Crispin Hellion Glover returns with the second installment of a trilogy that began with WHAT IS IT?. Glover's latest film is another mind-bending foray into unexplored territory that will challenge expectations and defy conventions. The screenwriter, Steven C. Stewart, is also the star (Stewart had cerebral palsy and passed away shortly after filming). The film begins in a nursing home, with our "hero" lying helpless on the floor. While he is being carried back to his bed, the world shifts into one where his charms are recognized and the ladies swoon, leading to a series of torrid sexual conquests. But the man's years of frustration at being an outcast have planted a dark and evil seed. Soon his actions take a morbid turn. Glover uses his visionary cinematic skills to bring to life the graphically explicit psychosexual fantasy world of a man shunned by women and society who lusts after intimacy, acceptance, and a full head of long hair. The beauty of Glover's direction lies in his ability to create an atmosphere that is strange and unsettling, sensual and erotic. Through Stewart's caustic fantasy life, Glover subverts the conventional devices of a suspense film and makes an audacious statement on the conundrum of sexual politics. Join us on Saturday night as we reprise Glover's unique, mythic, visionary film WHAT IS IT!, which screened to three sold out crowds last year.

All performances proceeded by Glover's one-hour slide show, which consists of ten different stories dramatically narrated by Glover himself. The slides are from pages of books that he has reworked with original and transformed art.

JAN 11 – 21

HELD OVER THROUGH JANUARY 21!
Monday-Friday, Sunday, and Monday (Jan 14-21) at 7, 9pm
Saturday and Sunday (Jan 19-20) at 3, 5pm

WAR MADE EASY

Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM
(Loretta Alper, Jeremy Earp, USA, 2007, BETA-SP, 73 min)

WAR MADE EASY reaches into the Orwellian past to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations. WAR MADE EASY gives special attention to parallels between the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq. Guided by media critic Norman Solomon's meticulous research and tough-minded analysis, the film presents disturbing examples of propaganda and media complicity. These are presented alongside rare footage of political leaders and leading journalists from the past, including Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, dissident Senator Wayne Morse, and news correspondents Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer.

Norman Solomon (1951- ) is an American journalist, media critic and antiwar activist. A longtime associate of the media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), Solomon is also the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts which works pro-actively to provide alternative sources for journalists. His weekly column, "Media Beat", has been in national syndication since 1992.

Listen to Norman Solomon on DEMOCRACY NOW

Listen to Norman Solomon talk with Daniel Schorr on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

Watch Norman Solomon on the GLENN BECK SHOW

More on Norman Solomon

JAN 14, Monday at 7pm

THE INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY CHALLENGE SEATTLE SHOWCASE

The International Documentary Challenge is a timed filmmaking competition where teams from around the world have just five days to make a short documentary film. Last March, ninety-five filmmaking teams from ten countries participated with the finalists premiering at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in Toronto. This showcase includes the Seattle-area produced films presented with several of the international winners. The Doc Challenge is produced by Doug Whyte of KDHX Community Media and sponsored by Hot Docs, SILVERDOCS, The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, the International Documentary Association and the Documentary Organization of Canada. More information about the event can be found at www.docchallenge.org.

JAN 15 - 16, Tuesday-Wednesday at 6:30, 9:15pm

ELLIPTIC AND UNBRIDLED: THE EARLY FILMS OF BÉLA TARR

THE OUTSIDER

(Béla Tarr, Hungary, 1980, 35mm, 146 min)

Tarr's second feature film (and one of only two shot in color) further explores ideas introduced in FAMILY NEST. Tightly framed shots convey the claustrophobia of close living quarters, in this look at a directionless young male nurse and factory worker who escapes life's frustrations by dancing, drinking, and playing the fiddle in local taverns. Seeing it as both a reaction against contemporary Hungarian cinema and a political commentary, Tarr says, "We weren't knocking at the door, we just beat it down. We were coming with some fresh, new, true, real things. We just wanted to show the reality—anti-movies."

JAN 17, Thursday at 8pm

FREE FOR MEMBERS

SEARCH AND RESCUE: FILM SOUP

Film Soup is the second in a series of Search and Rescue collaborations with the University of Washington Libraries Special Collections historical film archive. This eclectic evening is culled from a wide variety of one-of-a-kind, rarely seen films recently restored by the University of Washington Libraries as part of an ongoing effort to save our visual history and make it accessible to the public. The program includes titles like A BIT OF EVERYTHING—FROM PIG RODEO TO WEIRD SCIENCE, DEPENDING ON YOUR POINT OF VIEW, SPOTLIGHT ON ALASKA, and PENGUINS, PUBLIC OPINION LAB, AND OTHER TREATS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON. From home movies of Barrow, Alaska and Saudi Arabia, to amateur footage of Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy, to educational films like FIGHTING SHIPS FOR FIGHTING MEN, Film Soup is the best kind of cinematic soul food you can find. Join us as we imagine the past and remember the future. The screening will include program notes and comments from Nicolette Bromberg, Visual Materials Curator, and Hannah Palin, Film Archives Specialist.

Visit the UW Libraries Special Collections website

JAN 18 - 24, Friday - Thursday at 7, 9:15pm

NEW 35MM PRINT

DEEP END

Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM
(Jerzy Skolimowski, UK, 1971, 35mm, 90min)

This quirky black sex comedy is one of the great lost films of the late 1960's. From Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, DEEP END captures the sense of impending dread and spiritual breakdown at the end of the decade like no other movie. John Mouler Brown stars as Mike, a teen who gets a job as a bathhouse attendant in London and has his first taste of distasteful lust when the older ladies start coming onto him. Tongue-tied when it comes to sex, and just about anything else, this immature youth makes Friends with another employee, Susan -- a pretty, older woman (barely in her twenties) -- and begins to fall for her leggy charms and flirtatious ways. Redheaded Jane Asher makes a lovely object of desire, and embodies the pros and cons of that carefree era of swinging London. She's capricious, seductive, cruel and vapid. After one long kiss from Susan, Mike finds himself stalking her to edgy, comic effect. Eavesdropping on her plans to marry a weaselly sort, fondling her in an X-rated cinema, and wallowing in his downward emotional spiral. With a score by Cat Stevens and Can, DEEP END is an increasingly tense, dreamlike drama from an uncompromising filmmaker. Recently named by SIGHT AND SOUND as one of the 75 Hidden Gems of cinema.

"Jerzy Skolimowski has finally put it all together in DEEP END: passion without hysteria, intelligence without derision, and compassion without special pleading. DEEP END is the best of Godard, Truffaut, and Polanski, and then some; nothing less, in fact, than a work of genius on the two tracks of cinema, the visual and the psychological." – Andrew Sarris, THE VILLAGE VOICE

JAN 19, Saturday at 7pm

NORTHWEST FILM FORUM AND THIRD EYE CINEMA PRESENT

AN EVENING WITH BRUCE BAILLIE

We're pleased to welcome filmmaker Bruce Baillie, founder of the nation’s preeminent avant-garde film distributor Canyon Cinema, for this quarter's Third Eye Cinema program. His 1964 film MASS FOR THE DAKOTA SIOUX inspired one of America’s first avant-garde film festivals in a little town called Bellevue. Baillie’s films are intensely poetic, lyrical evocations of people and places where the subject matter is transformed by the subjective methods used to photograph it. Many of his films display a strong social awareness, describing attitudes critical towards, and alienated from, mainstream American society. We'll present several films from Bruce's oeuvre, and are thrilled to have him here to introduce them!

JAN 22 - 23, Tuesday-Wednesday at 7, 9:15pm

ELLIPTIC AND UNBRIDLED: THE EARLY FILMS OF BÉLA TARR

PREFAB PEOPLE

(Béla Tarr, Hungary, 1982, 35mm, 102 min)

A soul-baring portrait of proletarian life in socialist Hungary, THE PREFAB PEOPLE offers a detailed examination of an unhappy family's struggle for survival. Tarr's third feature, his first to use professional actors, is exemplary of his early cinema: loose in structure, improvisational in acting style, and generous in it's use of a handheld camera. Beginning with a terrible argument between husband and wife, Tarr subsequently examines the minute details of his character's lives to see what brought them to this moment.

"The best of Tarr's early forays into Cassavetes-style social realism" -Jonathan Rosenbaum, CHICAGO READER

JAN 25-FEB 3 (Additional screenings for groups scheduled Monday-Friday, February 4-8, 11-15, and 18-22)

CHILDREN'S FILM FESTIVAL SEATTLE

Sponsored by KUOW 94.9 FM, Plexipixel, Braincandy, Cupcake Royale, and Izilla Toys

Now in its third year, Children's Film Festival Seattle is pulling out all the stops with its biggest, boldest, and best celebration of international children's cinema yet. This year's festival features a whopping 88 films from 21 countries. In our cozy cinemas, parents and kids will find history lessons, whirlwind trips to faraway lands, sneak peeks at world premieres, and opportunities to chat with filmmakers and producers. Kids will also have the chance to delve deeper into moviemaking through exciting workshops. (Films made during the workshops will premiere on the festival's closing night.) Join us for a fantastic journey through a wide world of moving images!

JAN 26, Saturday at 7pm

FREE!

ITVS COMMUNITY CINEMA AND NORTHWEST FILM FORUM PRESENT

BANISHED

(Marco Williams, USA, 2006, DVD)

From the 1860s to the 1920s, dozens of towns and counties across America violently expelled entire African American communities, forcing thousands of black families to flee their homes. BANISHED tells the story of three of these all-white communities and their black descendants, who return to uncover shocking histories. Join the Seattle Office for Civil Rights and Langston Hughes African American Film Festival for a discussion following the film.

JAN 24, Thursday at 8pm

ACTRESS(ES) FILM CHALLENGE

What if the whole city made a film with the same actress? This quarter's film challenge asks Seattle filmmakers to use the same actress in some way in their film. Because this is a heck of a lot to ask of an unpaid actress, a pair of identical twins is taking the challenge. You film must employ either Adrienne or Cara Stacey. You'll contact them directly, and work with them during your filmmaking process.

Rules: Films must be no longer than 5 minutes, and must contain one of the Stacey twins. Formats accepted are Super-8, 16mm and DVD. Please include the title, filmmaker's name and contact information with submission. The project is open to all levels of skills and experience. Submissions are due January 10. Deliver them to Northwest Film Forum, c/o Adam Sekuler, 1515 12th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122. For more information, and the contact information of Adrienne and Cara, contact adams@nwfilmforum.org. Films will be screened on January 24 at 8pm.

JAN 29 - 30, Tuesday-Wednesday at 7, 9:15pm

ELLIPTIC AND UNBRIDLED: THE EARLY FILMS OF BÉLA TARR

ALMANAC OF FALL

(Béla Tarr, Hungary, 1984, 35mm, 119min)

In a crumbling apartment, an old woman, her son, her nurse, the nurse's lover, and a lodger quarrel, maneuver, and betray each other over money. The visual design, with its blue-gray and orange-red lighting, stresses the artificiality of the closed environment. In this dense setting, the inhabitants of the apartment reveal their darkest secrets, fears, obsessions and hostilities in a style that combines the anguish and existentialism of Bergman with the emotional intensity of Cassavetes.

FEB 1, Friday at 7:15, 9:15pm

SISU CINEMA: NINE FROM THE FINNISH NEW WAVE

SIXTYNINE 69

Sponsored by the Finlandia Foundation, UW Department of Scandinavian Studies, American Scandinavian Foundation
(Jörn Donner, Finland, 1969, 35 mm, 98 min)

SIXTYNINE, Jörn Donner's second Finnish production after having defected to Sweden for the early part of his career, is a gleeful game of sexual noughts and crosses, with two men and two women interacting with one another in a series of situations that poke fun at everything from dentistry to gynecology, post-sauna sex to dog breeding. The film gives a bittersweet account one woman's experience learning lessons of marriage and love lost and found. The title refers to the year the film was made.

FEB 1 - 7, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9pm

THE MONASTERY

(Pernille Rose Gronkjaer, Denmark, 2006, 35mm, 84 min)

Mr. Vig is an elderly, deeply eccentric, Danish bachelor. Living alone in a ramshackle castle, he dreams of donating his homestead to the Russian Orthodox Church as a potential monastery. In a long black overcoat, with a shock of unruly white hair and glasses perched on the tip of his nose, Mr. Vig looks like a character straight out of Dickens. Enter Sister Ambrosija, a remarkably attractive young Russian nun, who arrives with a small entourage and plans to whip the place into shape. A whirlwind of activity (days begin at 5:30am), she insists upon extensive repairs; Mr. Vig wants Band-Aids where she suggests surgery. Their contest of wills plays out in humorous, offbeat encounters that take unexpected turns as two unlikely people find companionship and common ground. Hauntingly shot, THE MONASTERY is a modern fairytale with timeless roots. This funny, sublime odd-couple comedy deservedly won the prestigious Joris Ivens Award at IDFA, Amsterdam's famous documentary festival.

“Vig looks as if he’s just strolled out of a Dreyer film; as for Ambrosija, this steely sister might eat Deborah Kerr for breakfast and spit out the bones.” -David Fear, TIME OUT NY

FEB 2, Saturday at 7:15, 9:15pm

SISU CINEMA: NINE FROM THE FINNISH NEW WAVE

ANNA

Sponsored by the Finlandia Foundation, UW Department of Scandinavian Studies, American Scandinavian Foundation
(Jörn Donner, Finland, 1970, 35 mm, 82 min)

Anna (Harriet Andersson) is a forty year-old anesthesiologist who takes a vacation with her teenage daughter (Maarit Hyttinen) and their maid (Pertti Melasniemi). She turns down her lover's request to marry because she believes the union will not maintain their status as equals. Next door to the trio live a boozy ex-politician (Papani Perttu) and his teenage son (Tapio Rautavaara). The maid and the neighbor boy engage in a passionate affair while Anna reflects on her middle age and examines her changing values in regards to life, love and career. Donner evokes the cool moodiness of Antonioni, using the Finnish countryside to evoke the sombre interior mood of ANNA. The feelings stirred by this film will stay with you long after you've left the theatre.

FEB 3, Sunday at 7:15, 9:15pm

SISU CINEMA: NINE FROM THE FINNISH NEW WAVE

FUCK OFF! IMAGES OF FINLAND

Sponsored by the Finlandia Foundation, UW Department of Scandinavian Studies, American Scandinavian Foundation
(Jörn Donner, Finland, 1971, 35 mm, 104 min)

FUCK OFF! IMAGES OF FINLAND is a carefree, many-faceted, and brazen portrait of Finland thirty years ago. Made in a time when impoverished farmers were moving to the cities and poor Finns hired themselves out as guest workers in rich Sweden, the film was considered too "free" for the board of censors. It could only be shown in its full length twenty years later. "This film is the craziest thing we have ever made yet. But I don't regret a minute of it for I believe that no one will ever see a rounder picture of the Finns. And if the film is crazy it's the Finnish people's fault," says director Donner.

FEB 7, Thursday at 8pm

Northwest Film Forum and Emerald City Soul Club present

SOUL NITE!

Sponsored by Easy Street Records and KEXP 90.3 FM

SOUL NITE is BACK! This installment of our quarterly soul music party brings to the big screen electrifying vintage soul performance footage from the late 1960s and early 1970s. An all-star line up including Curtis Mayfield, Sly and the Family Stone, Ike and Tina Turner transport us to the heyday of sweet soul lyrics, raw grooves and funky moves. Of course, before and after the screening we’ll be serving refreshments and DJs will be serving up platters of dusty soul for your listening and dancing pleasure! Come get your groove on.

FEB 8, Friday at 7:15, 9:15pm

SISU CINEMA: NINE FROM THE FINNISH NEW WAVE

SKIN, SKIN

Sponsored by the Finlandia Foundation, UW Department of Scandinavian Studies, American Scandinavian Foundation
(Mikko Niskanen, 1966, Finland, 35mm, 89 min)

This depiction of four urban youths and their excursion to the countryside was among the most popular films of the 1960s in Finland. It tackles a theme that is reminiscent of the German PEOPLE ON SUNDAY of 1929. The film marked Kaj Chydenius' start as a film composer and features several songs that have since become Finnish evergreens. Additionally, it showcases a brilliant cast of four actors who created a fun, but melancholy, portrayal of youth, sexual liberation and the obstacles to love. For the young people in this Finnish film, the countryside is no longer a place to work or live, but an embodiment of natural freedom.

FEB 8 - 14, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9:15pm

THE VIOLIN

(Francisco Vargas, Mexico, 2006, 35mm, 98 min)

His right arm maimed, the elderly, grizzled peasant Don Plutarco ties the bow of his violin to his damaged appendage in order to play. The Captain, leader of a squad of brutal Mexican army soldiers that have been sent in to repress a band of peasant guerrillas, is seduced by Don Plutarco’s music. But there is more to the crippled old man than the soldiers realize. Set in the early 1970s and filmed in striking black and white, THE VIOLIN evokes a Mexico inspired by the photographs of Manuel Alvarez Bravo and the cinematography of Gabriel Figueroa. Characters named Genaro and Lucio echo the names of real-life 70s guerrillas Genaro Vásquez and Lucio Cabañas. With mounting suspense, THE VIOLIN explores the basic humanity that moves ordinary people to fight oppression, regardless of the consequences.

“Exquisitely Suspenseful” –VARIETY

"Striking and Poetic" –THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

FEB 9, Saturday at 6, 7:15, 9:30pm

SISU CINEMA: NINE FROM THE FINNISH NEW WAVE

SONG OF THE SCARLET FLOWER

Sponsored by the Finlandia Foundation, UW Department of Scandinavian Studies, American Scandinavian Foundation
(Mikko Niskanen, 1971, Finland, 35mm, 62 min)

SONG OF THE SCARLET FLOWER, previously adapted for the Finnish screen in 1938, is based on a novel by Johannes Linnankoski. A likable but difficult drifter moves from place to place, unable to put down roots. On the way, he becomes involved with a number of women, all of whom he eventually leaves behind. A film that questions the moral contradictions of the Finnish soul, SONG OF THE SCARLET FLOWER pulls no punches. In questioning the double standard to which women are held, the film allegorically renders the plight of modernity, in which individuals find themselves without boundaries.

FEB 10, Sunday at 3, 6, 9pm

SISU CINEMA: NINE FROM THE FINNISH NEW WAVE

EIGHT DEADLY SHOTS

Sponsored by the Finlandia Foundation, UW Department of Scandinavian Studies, American Scandinavian Foundation
(Mikko Niskanen, 1972, Finland 35mm, 145 min)

Niskanen's saga is simply one of the finest works of the Finnish cinema. It challenges the boundaries between life and film by giving form to the grief and pity found in only the most profound works of art. In a small Finnish rural community in the winter of 1969, a man shot four policemen who came to arrest him at his home. Director Mikko Niskanen went to visit this man in prison and partially based the script of this fictional film on their conversation. EIGHT DEADLY SHOTS dramatizes the helplessness of an individual in an unjust society. The film portrays the hardship of life for a small farmer's family. Though an itinerant preacher promises the joys of heaven as liberation from the gloom, alcohol brings numbness, and violence a brief feeling of power and life, none of these can provide salvation. As stated by Niskanen in the introduction, “This film does not claim to reproduce a real event although the story is based on it in some important respects. This is the truth I have seen and experienced, born myself in these surroundings”.

FEB 11, Monday at 7pm

FREE!

BIG MOUTH

2007 Screenplay Competition Reading

Please join us for a reading of BIG MOUTH, a screenplay by our 2007 Screenplay Competition winner, Margaret Friedman. When an undersized 13-year-old kid with a gift for put-downs loses his voice, he must adopt a terrifying new arsenal of "alternative interpersonal skills" (friendship, ingenuity and empathy) to survive 8th grade and win his estranged father’s respect. Screenwriter Margaret Friedman originated in New Haven, Connecticut and moved to Seattle in 1995. Margaret writes political dramas that spotlight international issues, and comedies about the challenges of getting by closer to home. Several of Margaret’s scripts have distinguished themselves in the Oscar-sponsored Nicholl competition and other contests.

FEB 12, Tuesday at 7pm

DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND OUR CONTROL THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED

If you have purchased tickets for this event please contact us to be refunded.

KEEPING SCORE: LALO SCHIFRIN

AN EVENING WITH LALO SCHIFRIN

Sponsored by Sherman Clay Pianos, Easy Street Records and KBCS 91.3 FM

Ticket includes this event and admission to any two of our special screenings of COOL HAND LUKE and BULLITT

Join us for this special exclusive event in which honored guest, master composer Lalo Schifrin, will speak about his remarkable career creating music for films and television. Schifrin has written over 100 scores since the early 1960s, among them COOL HAND LUKE, BULLITT, THE FOX, ENTER THE DRAGON, THX 1138, DIRTY HARRY, and most famously, the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE theme. For the past half-century, this musical Renaissance man has continually shown a tremendous ability to shift between and even blend classical, jazz and popular music forms. With four Grammy Awards, six Oscar nominations and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Schifrin is revered as one of the great screen composers of our time. In this rare personal appearance, he will discuss his musical beginnings in his native Argentina, his early collaborations with jazz artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, his most notable feature film scores over the years, and the art of creating music for moving image. Seating for this event is limited. (A special screening of COOL HAND LUKE follows the program at 9pm.)
$15/NWFF Members, $25/General

FEB 12, Tuesday at 9pm; FEB 13, Wednesday at 6:30pm

KEEPING SCORE: LALO SCHIFRIN

COOL HAND LUKE

Sponsored by Sherman Clay Pianos, Easy Street Records and KBCS 91.3 FM
(Stuart Rosenberg, USA, 1967, 35mm, 126 min)

Lalo Schifrin’s Oscar-nominated score for the classic late-60s ode to nonconformity, COOL HAND LUKE, is among his greatest achievements. Paul Newman stars as Luke Jackson, a bored-with-life veteran who, after a drunken act of social defiance, finds himself doing hard time in a Southern chain gang. As the loveable loner’s “cool” style of rebellion uplifts the prisoners, the chain gang bosses are determined to break him down. The composer incorporates elements of blues and bluegrass, and utilizes a range of different instruments and tonal shifts, yet never overpowers the film. From the meditative recurring theme – a duet of acoustic guitars- to echoing banjos and violent staccato bursts, Schifrin’s music mirrors the complexities of Newman’s quiet rebel.

FEB 12, Tuesday at 6:30pm; FEB 13, Wednesday at 9pm

KEEPING SCORE: LALO SCHIFRIN

BULLITT

Sponsored by Sherman Clay Pianos, Easy Street Records and KBCS 91.3 FM
(Peter Yates, USA, 1968, 35mm, 113 min)

The hip score for Peter Yates’ classic action film is among Lalo Schifrin's most memorable jazz writing for the big screen. BULLITT stars the ultra-cool Steve McQueen as a tough cop whose simple assignment to guard a witness turns into a tangled and dangerous one-man mission. Schifrin’s West Coast-flavored jazz score by turns blends in with the late ‘60s San Francisco setting and rises up to drive the film’s sharp excitement and tension. Its main theme- a funky brass masterpiece- has become a favorite among both veteran jazz aficionados and a new generation of djs and collectors. Don’t miss this special single screening of a 35mm print on the film’s 40th anniversary!

FEB 15, Friday at 7:15, 9:15pm

SISU CINEMA: NINE FROM THE FINNISH NEW WAVE

SUMMER REBELLION

Sponsored by the Finlandia Foundation, UW Department of Scandinavian Studies, American Scandinavian Foundation
(Jaakko Pakkasvirta, Finland, 1969, 80 min)

Young photography model Susanna and her alienated teenage brother Veli spend the summer of 1969 traveling around Finland, mostly with another girl and her boyfriend. Sporting the latest fashions and trendy hairdos, they naïvely observe and criticize the modern consumer society, with its advertisements, expensive homes, and fancy lifestyles. The film delivers a political agenda with a cheerful, tongue-in-cheek mixture of documentary observations, witty fake commercials, contrived interviews, and a jazzy soundtrack by the prog-rock group Wigwam.

FEB 15 - 17

SEATTLE HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL

Amnesty International Puget Sound proudly presents the 16th Annual Seattle Human Rights Film Festival, featuring bold films from around the world that promise to educate and inspire with their powerful stories. With this year's theme of 'Justice Without Borders,' the festival aims to draw attention to overlooked human rights atrocities the world over, including a number of films that address violence against women. Discussions with filmmakers and activists will follow screenings. Complete program info is available at www.aiwashington.org/filmfest.html. Please email filmfest@aiwashington.org with any questions.

FEB 16, Saturday at 7:15, 9:15pm

SISU CINEMA: NINE FROM THE FINNISH NEW WAVE

THE DIARY OF A WORKER

Sponsored by the Finlandia Foundation, UW Department of Scandinavian Studies, American Scandinavian Foundation
(Risto Jarva, Finland, 1967, 35mm, 90 min)

Risto Jarva was a prominent and influential director in the Finnish New Wave, who was unfortunately killed at forty-three in a car accident following the premiere of his film YEAR OF THE HARE. Jarva used his skills to portray nature, young urban intellectuals, the worker, and visions of the future. He explored the possibility of love and companionship with a playful, humorous and contemplative touch. THE DIARY OF A WORKER was Jarva's breakthrough film, "the first Finnish worker movie," and was regarded by Finnish critics as the finest national film of the 1960s. In the film, a factory worker battles ennui as he struggles to balance his job and his home life. To advance his career, he accepts a position at a distant factory, leaving his wife behind.

FEB 17, Sunday at 7:15, 9:15pm

SISU CINEMA: NINE FROM THE FINNISH NEW WAVE

POOR MARIA

Sponsored by the Finlandia Foundation, UW Department of Scandinavian Studies, American Scandinavian Foundation
(Eija-Elina Bergholm, Finland, 1972, 81 min)

The debut film from Eija-Elina Bergholm, is tragic tale of a successful businesswoman, whose affair with a younger man is derailed by her growing fear of loneliness. When she objects to his making love to another woman in their apartment, he kicks her out. She moves back in with her mother after getting sick and losing her job. When she is forced to commit her aged grandmother to an asylum, she suffers an emotional breakdown. Winner of The Finnish State Award and the Karlovy Cary Film Festival.

FEB 18 at 7:30pm

SIERRA LEONE'S REFUGEE ALL STARS

(Zach Niles and Banker White, Sierra Leone/USA, 80 min)

Traumatized by physical injuries and brutal losses in Sierra Leone's civil war, a group of refugees fight back with the only means they have — music. The six-member Refugee All Stars came together in Guinea after civil war forced them from their homeland

FEB 18 - 21, Monday-Thursday at 7:15, 9:15pm

THE GREAT COMMUNIST BANK ROBBERY

Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM
(Alexandru Solomon, Romania, 2005, BETA-SP, 75 min)

Much has been made lately of the emergence of a new Romanian cinema, thanks in part to THE DEATH OF MR. LAZERASCU and 4 MONTHS 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS. But what about that country’s cinematic past? Join for THE GREAT COMMUNIST BANK ROBBERY, a look back at a singular event in Romanian cinema that took place in 1959. In that year the Romanian National Bank in Bucharest was robbed. This was a peculiar occurrence, since the local currency (the lei) could only be spent inside Romania, and bank robberies, along with most other kinds of crimes, were presumed not to happen in the socialist utopia. The Romanian police scoured the country and ultimately arrested six people who they declared to be guilty. After confessing, the robbers agreed to re-enact their crime. An hour-long film was made in which they duly played themselves. There is some evidence that they thought by so doing they would be spared a death sentence. But after trial, which was also filmed, they were shot. Alexandru Solomon's documentary is both a bizarre recreation of a crime of which the motive is still difficult to fathom and an astonishing evocation of a lost world of Romanian Stalinism.

FEB 19, Tuesday at 8pm

FILM SALOON: Critics Critiqued

The media have been full of stories questioning the relevance of print critics in an Internet era that has ushered in a new democratization of opinion. The prospect of babbling blogmeisters being the new kingpins of cinema has left many critics in a sour mood. This quarter our film saloon will round up a group of critics from print, television, radio, and of course, the blogosphere to ask them whether they think their role in entertainment is significant. We'll examine how criticism impacts the viewer, the state of art, and the opinions of other critics, and, if these critics are losing importance, what does one do about it?

Panelists include:
Kathy Fennessey (SIFFblog, Film.com, various national publications)
Charles Mudede (The Stranger)
Jay Kuehner (Cinema Scope, GreenCine Daily)

FEB 22 - 28, Friday-Thursday at 7, 9pm

NOTE BY NOTE (The Making of Steinway L1037)

Sponsored by Sherman Clay Pianos
(Ben Niles, USA, 2006, BETA-SP, 81 min)

While many documentaries have traced the experiences and influences that have shaped musicians, few have explored the labor and love that goes into the life of an instrument. NOTE BY NOTE follows the extraordinary journey of a single piano—the Steinway L1037—from its humble beginnings in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, through the meticulous construction and craft of the complex instrument, to a showroom in Queens where it awaits its destiny, whether in a living room or on the Carnegie Hall stage. Filmmaker Ben Niles leaves no detail uncharted, capturing the process and interviewing the myriad of people who come into contact with the instrument: skilled craftsmen, factory workers, eager salesmen, amateur pianists and concert aficionados (including Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Kenny Barron, Harry Connick, Jr., Hank Jones and Marcus Roberts.) This fascinating new film gives one an appreciation of how the celebrated “Rolls Royce of pianos” is borne of natural materials and carefully crafted by human hands, and reveals the extraordinary dialogue between man and instrument.

FEB 22 - 28, Friday-Thursday at 7:15, 9:15pm

THE COOL SCHOOL

Co-Presented by the Henry Art Gallery
Art critic Regina Hackett will introduce the Friday 7:15 screening
(Morgan Neville, USA, 2007, BETA-SP, 86 min)

In the 1950s, the West Coast was a veritable wasteland for visual artists, with little opportunity for innovators and even fewer options for work from elsewhere. Cutting edge modern art was considered “ugly” and even condemned as being Communistic or obscene. Having no past and little connection to the larger art world, a new generation of West Coast artists ignored the dictates of the New York scene and turned instead to urban boulevards, automobile graveyards and flashy billboards for inspiration. Documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville explores the emergence and impact of the beat-era LA art scene, focusing on its catalyst: Walter Hopps and Ed Kienholz’ Ferus gallery, a simple space with grand ambitions. Ferus hosted Warhol’s first gallery show (his "32 Campbell's Soup Cans" did not debut in New York!) and Marcel Duchamp’s first retrospective. But more importantly, Hopps and Kienholz created a nexus for area artists and built the foundations of a modern art scene from the ground up. THE COOL SCHOOL’s collage of period footage, kinetic soundtrack and great interviews with Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Billy Al Bengston, Walter Hopps, Dennis Hopper, Frank Gehry and others create a vivid picture of the inspiring scene and share the untold story of a group of scrappy artists that shook up the dull tastemakers, got arrested for obscenity, and ultimately established the importance of West Coast art.

FEB 23, Saturday at 4pm

FREE!

ITVS COMMUNITY CINEMA AND NORTHWEST FILM FORUM PRESENT

IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA

(Daniel Junge & Siatta Scott Johnson, USA, 2007, DVD)

Join the League of Women Voters and Langston Hughes African American Film Festival for a screening and discussion of this intimate documentary, which goes behind the scenes with Africa's first freely elected female head of state, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, president of Liberia. The film explores the challenges facing the new president and the extraordinary women surrounding her as they develop and implement policies to rebuild their ravaged country.