Tag: SIFF

by Sean Axmaker, Contributors, Seattle Screens

Seattle Screens: Remembering Chantal Akerman

Written by Sean Axmaker April 22, 2016

The legacy of filmmaker Chantal Akerman, who took her life in 2015, is celebrated in a brief retrospect co-sponsored by SIFF and NWFF. It begins on Friday, April 22 at SIFF Film Center with screenings of No Home Movie, a personal documentary on her mother, a Holocaust survivor sharing her memories with her daughter, and I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman, a documentary by Marianne Lambert. They play in rotation for a week, and then the series shifts to NWFF for single screenings of three more films.

NFFTY 2016 marks the 10^th anniversary for the National Film Festival for Talented Youth. It launches on Thursday, April 28 with an event at the Cinerama, which is already sold out, but the festival continues with screenings and events at SIFF Uptown through Sunday, May 1. Complete schedule his here.

Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days plays for a week at NWFF. Showtimes and tickets here, and read Robert Horton’s review at Seattle Weekly.

As Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some opens wide, Dazed and Confused (1993) comes back for a midnight showing at the Egyptian on Saturday, April 23.

Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003) screens on Tuesday, April 26 at NWFF to mark the 17th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre and the 9th anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting with a pre-screening discussion with Professor Frederick P. Rivara, MD.

SIFF Uptown presents encore screenings of four films from the Wim Wenders retrospective—The American Friend (1977), Paris, Texas (1984), Wings of Desire (1988), and Until the End of the World: Director’s Cut (1988)—playing through Wednesday, April 27. Schedule here.

The Seijun Suzuki retrospective continues with screenings of Ziguernerweisen (1980) on Saturday, April 23 and Kagero-Za (1981) on Sunday, April 24 at Grand Illusion and Tattooed Life (1965) on Wednesday, April 27 at NWFF.

Fathom Events presents On the Waterfront (1954) on the big screen in select theaters across the country for two nights this week: Sunday, April 24 and Wednesday, April 27. You can find participating theaters in your area here.

The Things of Life (1969), directed by Claude Sautet and starring Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider, plays on Thursday, April 28 at SAM’s Plestcheeff Auditorium. It’s the first of five films by Sautet featured in the series. Individual tickets are available on the day of show on a first come, first served basis.

Visit the film review pages at The Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, and The Stranger for more releases.

View complete screening schedules through IMDb, MSN, Yahoo, or Fandango, pick the interface of your choice.

by Kathleen Murphy, Contributors, Essays, Film Reviews

Weird Tales, True Confession

Written by Kathleen Murphy June 7, 2014

Love, Death, and the Imagination in Dan Ireland’s The Whole Wide World

This appreciation was written for Film Comment magazine in 1996. Reflecting fond memories of SIFF film-going, this review also expressed my delight in discovering The Whole Wide World, a terrific movie by Dan Ireland, one of the founders of SIFF and an old friend. – KAM

Dan Ireland passed away on April 14, 2016, at the age of 57. We revive the piece in honor of his memory. – Editor

Vincent D’Onofrio as Robert E. Howard in ‘The Whole Wide World’

The citizens of Rain City have been passionate devotees of the Seattle International Film Festival for nigh on to two decades. Founded by Dan Ireland and Darryl Macdonald, a couple of optimistic entrepreneurs from Vancouver, B.C, SIFF bowed in 1976 with an l8-day slate of movies by the likes of Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta, Luis Buñuel, Lina Wertmüller, Claude Lelouch, Claude Chabrol, Paul Verhoeven, Ken Russell, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Hot stuff in the days when the small but dedicated Seattle Film Society was practically the only reliable purveyor of cutting-edge foreign film north of San Francisco. Under the quiet rain, Seattleites queued up happily.

In the two decades that followed, the Ireland-Macdonald baby kept growing, until the Seattle fest now screens 250 films over a period of nearly a month. Though three or four other theaters are often in play as venues, the true heart of this film orgy is the cavernous 800-seat Egyptian Theater, which for the faithful becomes home away from home every May-June. Those spring evenings with the likes of Krzysztof Zanussi and Michael Powell are among my happiest cinematic memories.

This past June, I returned to the city where, in spite of mildew, I thrived for nearly a quarter-century; there was an American-independent competition for best first film, and I was one of four jurors. Among the more than a dozen films in contention were Jim McKay’s Girls Town, Sal Stabile’s Gravesend, and Alan Taylor’s Palookaville—all examples of the currently fertile genre of flavorful ‘hood movies, featuring ethnic tribes of argot-speaking boys or girls looking for a way to stay alive, make a living, and/or crash out of their mean streets. Rachel Reichman’s uncompromising Work fell into this category as well, only the neighborhood is rural New York, economic and spiritual dead end for a not especially beautiful or gifted girl left behind by her summer love, a college-bound black woman.

But The Whole Wide World, the film unanimously voted best of the bunch, is a very different kind of ‘hood movie, set in a couple of backwater Texas towns in the mid-Thirties, and the boy and girl who speak its special language break out mostly through their imaginations. That The Whole Wide World (to be released at Christmas by Sony Classics) should be a first film by old friend and fest co-founder Dan Ireland brought me full circle in my remembrance of things past, and made this latest of many Egyptian bacchanals the best kind of reunion.

by Sean Axmaker, Contributors

The 10 Best Reasons to Celebrate the Seattle Film Scene in 2011

Written by Sean Axmaker December 21, 2011

For Seattle cinema lovers, 2011 was a good news/bad news year. For the bad, there was the May closure of the Columbia City Cinema and the February conversion of the Neptune into a music and events hall. The empty Uptown reminded us of another neighborhood theater with history gone dark. And the rush to digital projection in the minimally manned multiplexes left too many screens getting dimmer because of 2-D digital prints run through 3-D splitters (no, it’s not your eyes going bad) and more digital prints replacing 35mm screenings of classic films. But let’s not forget the good. Here are the 10 best reasons for movie-loving Seattleites to celebrate this year.

1) SIFF saves the Uptown! And in the same year the Seattle International Film Festival left its McCaw Hall time-share for its own year-round theater/permanent headquarters at Seattle Center. The Uptown deal came together more quickly (over the past year), and its October reopening gave SIFF four screens with both film and digital capabilities. Two blocks apart, the two venues will expand local access to the kinds of foreign, art-house, and independent films that other cities can experience only on Netflix and VOD.

2) The Cinerama 70mm Festival. Paul Allen just gave his pet movie palace a costly new renovation, and brought in independent management (Greg Wood of Portland’s Roseway Theater) to replace national operator AMC. So while it can and does show big blockbusters and digital 3-D, the Cinerama celebrated its makeover in September with 16 days of 70mm and Cinerama prints of classic films (the original high-def). Change is inevitable, but every movie lover deserves to see the texture and color of actual film

Continue reading at Seattle Weekly

by Richard T. Jameson, Contributors, Industry

Uptown Theatre to take on a new glow

Written by Richard T. Jameson August 7, 2011

SIFF has announced the acquisition of Lower Queen Anne’s beloved Uptown Theater, which has been closed since last winter. The moviehouse will re-open Oct. 20 in conjunction with the Grand Opening of the new SIFF Film Center a couple of blocks east. SIFF will begin programming at the new SIFF Cinema—the former Uptown—which effectively replaces the screening facility in McCaw Hall’s Nesholm Lecture Hall. The Uptown location has three screens, which should afford increased programming opportunities along with more seating.

A SIFF press release quotes Greater Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce vice president Ann Pearce expressing the Chamber’s especial pleasure in “endors[ing] the acquisition of the Uptown Theater by the Seattle International Film Festival. We applaud their actions in preserving a valuable part of Seattle’s Uptown neighborhood and creating more opportunities for Queen Anne community businesses. Another wonderful forum for unique entertainment will now be available for residents and tourists alike to enjoy for years to come.”

Adds Carl Spence, Artistic Director at SIFF, “We couldn’t have scripted a better opportunity for our organization than to have SIFF Cinema at the Uptown and the new SIFF Film Center in such close proximity and located in such a vibrant part of the city. Seattle Center and Queen Anne are the perfect locations for us to expand in and we’re excited to be opening our doors in time for Seattle Center’s ‘Next 50’ celebration next year.”

For more info, visit www.siff.net.