Northwest Film Forum

September 14-16, 2010
Director in attendance!

The films of Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes ooze amazement. The viewer never ceases to wonder what will happen next. His two feature films and six short films are jammed with bizarre themes, wild and meandering structures and unrestrained fantasy. They are willful in many ways, while all the time inventive, playful, frisky, disorderly, anarchical and absurd. Gomes ignores genre boundaries and conventional methods of story telling; he doesn't play by the rules and is fearless in using all the tricks and tools of the filmmaking trade. He confuses perceptions of time, artfully blurs the line between documenting and directing and takes unexpected turns within each film, jumping from one genre to the next. His films are fairytales, musicals, comedies and melodramas, all at the same time. Very often he deals with the process of coming of age, or more specifically, with the fear and denial of adolescent men becoming adults. And music always plays an important role.

These films are unique, and yet they are closely connected to the history of cinema. It's impossible to watch his films without picking up references to some of cinemas greatest masters, from Rivette, Minelli, Sirk, Demy, or fairytales, screwball comedies, animated films and silent movies. Gomes is always moving us along, jumbling us up, spacing us out in simple but ingenious ways, creating what every great filmmaker should: a singular informed and engaging voice.

“Gomes’ film offers its own, remarkable vision of an ‘expanded cinema’, a cinema of multiple levels interacting in space and time—freeing the viewers’ minds and letting their emotions roam. It is, indeed, a revelation.” —Adrian Martin, Rouge

Special thanks: Cristina Garza, FiGa Films; Haden Guest, Harvard Film Archives; Jose Torrealba, NEIAFF.

September 2010-May 2011

For its second season, LIVE AT THE FILM FORUM continues to bring innovative new work to our audiences. This year, local artists present newly commissioned performances that take cinema off the screen and into live theatre, combining elements of cabaret, comedy, dance, theater, performance art and, of course, film.

Following the tradition established in the inaugural season, which featured multi-sensory performances by Paris Hurley, Amy O'Neal and Marya Sea Kaminski, this year's projects will also bridge disciplines, connect artists with audiences and integrate the temporary exhilaration of live theatre with the lasting qualities of film.

This year's lineup includes the pop-musical musings of The French Project, comfort-food choreography by the multi-talented Alice Gosti, sensory dance instrumentation from Ezra Dickenson and Paurl Walsh and a new statistical musical from the Film Forum's longtime poetic pals The Vis-A-Vis Society. The 2010-11 season promises to be fresh, exciting and, as always, a little daring.

Season Passes $40/Film Forum members, $50/General
(Choose from Thursday Opening Nights Package, Friday Nights Package or Saturday Closing Nights Package)

Individual Tickets $12/Film Forum members, $15/General

Click here to read about the inaugural 2009-2010 season.

September 25-30, 2010

Fifteen years ago Northwest Film Forum opened its doors with the hope of establishing a local cinema, and the promise of cultivating a distinctly Northwest voice that would forever change the nature of filmmaking. It was a bold mission, inspired by the double notion that the region held in its light, soil and climate all the nutrients that a filmmaker's seeded idea needed to thrive, and that an ideal environment could be found in a habitat other than New York or Los Angeles. And so we began our quest to sow a new cinematic timberland.

Some fifteen years later, a forest of old growth trees now stands tall and is aiding the second growth beneath. Our cinematic promise of a dense Northwest film forest nurtured by a Forum of filmmakers has become reality, all birthed from the seedlings planted by Northwest Film Forum some fifteen years ago.

Join us as we admire the growth of our local filmmaking harvest! This week we present fifteen shorts and fifteen features whose roots are tethered tightly to our filmmaking programs and artist support.  

Series pass $15/Film Forum members, $19.95 general 

October 29-November 4, 2010

Co-Presented by Earshot Jazz

All films $6.00/Film Forum and Earshot Jazz members, $6.50/Seniors, Children under 12 and Students  with valid photo student ID, $9/General.

Silent Crime Spree
At the Paramount Theatre

Seattle Theatre Group (STG) and Northwest Film Forum (NWFF) present Trader Joe's Silent Movie Mondays this October at The Paramount Theatre in Seattle, Mondays at 7pm. This all-classic silent film series, Silent Crime Spree, is accompanied by live music from the historic Mighty Wurlitzer Organ, one of the last three remaining organs of its kind to reside in its original environment, played by critically acclaimed organist Jim Riggs.

Silent Crime Spree stars crooked cops, double-dealing mistresses, and high-tension jewel thieves - perfect crimes that go perfectly wrong! All four films, A Cottage on Dartmore (1929), Beggars of Live (1928), Underworld (1927) and Regeneration (1915), were produced before censorship and the restrictive Hays Code, showing a time when criminals were more important than the enforcers of the law.

Purchase your series pass now! 

Tickets: Individual film tickets are $12.00 and are available online at www.stgpresents.org, by phone at (877) 784-4849, in person at The Paramount Theatre box office, Monday through Friday 10:00am-6:00pm and The Paramount and Moore Theatre venue kiosks, 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, powered by Tickets.com. Group sales are available through STG's Group Sales Hotline at (206)315-8054. The Paramount Theatre is located at 911 Pine Street in downtown Seattle.

About The Mighty Wurlitzer Organ: The Paramount Theatre is home to the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ, one of the last three remaining organs of its kind to reside in its original environment. Installed March 1, 1928 as part of the theatre's grand opening, The Paramount's Mighty Wurlitzer is one of the most ornate organ consoles ever produced. True to the Silent Film presentation of the day, each film is accompanied by Jim Riggs on the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ to present the series as part of our rich cultural identity. STG remains committed to showcasing these rare treasures in the way they were originally shown.

About Jim Riggs: Jim Riggs is in his twentieth year as house organist at The Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California. He has previously appeared at the Grand Lake Theatre (in Oakland), Castro Theatre in San Francisco and at Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto. Having regularly appeared at every major Bay Area movie house equipped with a Mighty Wurlitzer, Riggs has entertained well over one million toe-tapping patrons and is know as the "Wizard of the Wurlitzer".

Though over one million movie patrons have been entertained by Riggs melodies on the organ, few realize he is in global demand as a silent film accompanist. From the Stanford Theater in California to the wilds of northwestern Pennsylvania to Manchester, England to Perth, Australia, Riggs has brought musical life into the silent shadows of the silver screen. He has composed and performed original scores for the films of such screen giants as Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Greta Garbo, Harold Lloyd, Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton, Gloria Swanson, Joan Crawford, Laurel & Hardy and many others.

Although Riggs appreciates the use of existing original music or light classics to provide scoring material, he prefers "...a much more creative and, for me, musically satisfying approach. I call my scores 'highly prepared improvisations.'" The key, he says, is to "...know the film very, very well. By that I mean everything from the general pacing and flow of the cinematic narrative to the length of the intertitles to where the dramatic action points are---you know, gunshots, pratfalls, quick cuts and so on." He then composes a short theme, or motif, for each major character, crafting it to reflect that character's film personality. Additionally, he says, "...there are often major---sometimes climactic---scenes which warrant their own special music. I'll compose suitable treatments for those, with an ear towards leaving room to slip in a character motif here and there." It all comes together during the performance. In his words: "There I am, sitting at the organ. My eyes are seeing images unfold on the screen, my brain's processing them, and my hands and feet are weaving together all that previously prepared material. I'm thinking about the action on screen plus I'm anticipating the action to come. And on top of it all, I'm manipulating the resources and dynamics of the organ itself. All of this happens simultaneously. The result, I think, is a completely fresh and dramatic blending of moving image and music. It's a very in-the-moment creative thing for me, almost Zen-like in nature. And it's my absolute favorite thing to do on the theatre organ."


About Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society: The Theatre Pipe Organ and its music are a truly unique American art form.Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society (PSTOS) is a non-profit organization furthering the appreciation, preservation and use of the Theatre Pipe Organs of yesteryear. Our members include musicians, technicians, and enthusiastic listeners - all devoted to the preservation and continued enjoyment of what we believe to be a national treasure.

As movies changed to "talkies" in 1929, the organs soon became unnecessary. Many were lost to fire, flood, vandalism, and neglect. Just a very few today remain in their original homes-the Seattle Paramount Wurlitzer is one of those, and as such, has genuine historical significance. For the past 45 years, it has been lovingly maintained by members of the PSTOS.

About STG: STG is the 501 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization that operates the historic Paramount and Moore Theatres in Seattle, Washington. Our mission is to make diverse performing arts and education an integral part of our region's cultural identity while keeping these two landmark venues alive and vibrant. STG presents a range of performances from Broadway, off-Broadway, dance and jazz to comedy, concerts of all genres, speakers and family shows - at both historic theatres in Seattle and venues throughout the Puget Sound and Portland, Oregon.

November 19-20, 2010
Director in attendance!
 

The work of American filmmaker, author and video installation artist Amie Siegel, as she puts it, “mines the voyeuristic gaze," while exploring and challenging various media and its capacity to communicate human perceptions and history. The films in this series explore themes of cultural memory and identity in particular relation to Germany, her adopted country. The restrained self-reflexivity and deadpan humor that unite Siegel’s films lend them richness that actively questions the limits of traditional nonfiction cinema.  

Exhibitions and screenings include The Talent Show, Walker Art Center; Auto-Kino! Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin; The Russian Linesman, The Hayward, London; 2008 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art; Forum Expanded, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Berlin International Film Festival; Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; BFI Southbank; Frankfurt Film Museum, and Film Forum in New York. Her first book of poetry, The Waking Life (North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA) was published in 1999. Siegel has been a guest artist of the DAAD Berliner-Künstlerprogramm, the Fulton Fellow in Non-Fiction Filmmaking at the Film Study Center at Harvard University and a recent recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship.