Festivals Roundtables

NBFF 2021: That’s a wrap!

The films have been watched, the ballots have been marked, and the commute back home from North Bend has been made: the 4th annual North Bend Film Festival is officially in the books.

With one slight exception: a huge chunk of the festival’s virtual event offerings were actually extended in their availability through this Friday, July 23rd – not the films themselves, but bonus panels, podcasts, and games are still available to dive into on the festival’s Eventive platform! Lots of good stuff still to dig into there.

Now that we’re back home from the adventure, Jenn and Chase have a bit of a debrief on this year’s hybrid festival to share.

Our Festival Experiences

Swan Song

Jenn: I had a magical time, like I always do at this fest and in fun ways both new and familiar. I’ve by now gotten to see all but 2 of the features the fest showcased, plus a few shorts and most of the extraneous podcasts, panels, and other events, and at least moderately liked all of them and loved quite a few. I really loved the hybrid style of this year’s fest; getting to take Saturday off from the IRL portion to stay in, recharge my social batteries, but still get to participate in the fest from home felt like a real gift.

It’s going to be hard to separate the emotions that the films of this festival legitimately evoked, from my emotional experience of simply being in a movie theater for the first time in almost exactly 16 months. I’ve got a strong suspicion that many others had some variation of this same reaction, which I think had to have been a contributing factor to Swan Song winning the audience award: I liked that film a lot more than you did, Chase, but I definitely did not think it was the very best of the fest. It was, however, the first of the fest, and it’s tough to beat that first-time-back high.

I can’t say I wasn’t anxious, and am still not entirely sure that gathering indoors is the right thing to do in this moment as the virus still looms large, but just kept repeating to myself the true facts that King County vaccination rates are some of the highest in the country, the shots really do work, and I was going to have to get back out there SOMEtime soon if I don’t want to turn into an actual permanent hermit. Probably good for my ultimate mental health to have this special event push me into it. And I’m so glad I did seize this chance to hang out with so many of my favorite film festival pals, make a few new ones, and get to take in so many great films and experiences!

Chase: Similarly, it was surreal for me as well. I had been surprised when people were not being asked about vaccination status at all. I would have happily volunteered that information and had been expecting that to be a part of the event. Perhaps I missed all the times people were being asked, but on the whole it seemed like that was just not a consideration at any time. 

I enjoyed the experience generally and think all the presentations of the films were well put together. The lineup and selection allowed me to catch up on many of the films I had missed at prior festivals and it was definitely nice to see them in person.  

Jenn: You didn’t miss it; that wasn’t asked. The organizers did mention from the stage sometimes that people without their shots should keep their masks on, and that’s as far as that went from what I observed. I did choose to keep my mask on in the theater anyway despite also being vaccinated, but I was part of less than 10% of folks in any given room I was in over the weekend to do so. This is going to be a tough and tricky path for all live venues to navigate as they reopen – it seems like it’d be so easy to fake/lie about vaccination status that I’m not sure it’s even worthwhile to require that proof, not to mention the time and manpower (and thus cost burden) it’d add for venue staff to check it reliably – but on the other hand I too would feel better knowing everyone I’m sharing air with had had the shot. I’m not sure there’s a best way to go about this. It did feel like a plus for the fest, from an audience standpoint, that none of these screenings were close to sold out so it was still possible to space ourselves out in the room, at least.

Our Favorite NBFF Films

A still from We're All Going to the World's Fair.
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

Chase: Definitely We’re All Going To The World’s Fair followed by Tailgate. Anna Cobb as Casey in We’re All Going To The World’s Fair (a broken record best for me, though it truly is a standout) was absolutely transcendent and precise in her performance. I can’t think of a more impactful debut that made me appreciate every single moment of her role. 

Jenn: I think World’s Fair was probably my favorite I watched of the fest as well. I also really loved Cryptozoo when I saw it at Sundance, although I didn’t watch it again during this fest; I’d say as a second-favorite screening I specifically watched last weekend, I’d single out Superior, with its highly production-designed aesthetic, mysteriously tense tone, and use of twin actors to play with identity. 

Awards

La Veronica

The fest gave out several awards – both juried and audience-based, for both shorts and features. We haven’t addressed shorts much in our coverage of this fest, but the juried feature-length awards are below (and then the audience award winner, as mentioned above, was Swan Song):

Stranger than Fiction (documentary):

  • Best Film, Best Screenplay – Red Post on Escher Street (Sono Sion)
  • Best Director, Best Editing – The Witches of the Orient (Julien Faraut)

Nightmares and Dreamscapes (narrative):

  • Best Film – La Veronica
  • Best Director – Yngvild Sve Flikke (Ninja Baby)
  • Best Screenplay – Johan Fasting, Yngvild Sve Flikke, Inga Sætre (Ninja Baby)
  • Best Achievement in Visual Storytelling – Dash Shaw (Cryptozoo)
  • Unclassifiably Awesome Film – We Are All Going to the World Fair
  • Best Performance – Mariana Di Girólamo (La Veronica)
  • Best Supporting Performance – Willem de Beukelaer (Tailgate)
  • Best Action Choreography – Slate

Non-Film Standouts

Jenn: Featuring the Strange Storytelling Hour on opening night was exactly the right choice, in my opinion. It was the fest’s only official in-person evening event (still trying to remain somewhat conscious of avoiding potential super-spreaders, I assume – and it was also recorded and put up as a virtual event moving forward), and it was exactly what was needed to set the tone for the weekend. Emmett Montgomery’s gentle, offbeat, and lovingly comedic hosting style shepherded the small crowd gathered at Volition Brewing into this strange new world of unknown possibilities, rediscovering what it was like to occupy physical space around each other. The stories were odd and funny and human, and the beer was delicious.

I also tried out the alien-themed scavenger hunt “Marcia Needs Space”, and really enjoyed it. Creators Allyson Morgan and Kevin Laibson were actually able to make this self-guided interactive event available as both an in-person experience and a virtual one (and it’s one of those virtual offerings that’s still available through this Friday!); I chose to go through it in person, following the clues around to various North Bend hotspots. It worked by using QR codes in each location to trigger web pages that led me to solve word puzzles and watch videos, telling the story of an alien named Fred getting dumped by his girlfriend Marcia. Poor Fred! I think I blew through it a little more quickly than intended – my phone was loading web pages so slowly I didn’t even realize there were videos in them at first, so I just solved the puzzle and moved on to the next spot real quick rather than sticking around for the story in the first few spots; also this probably would have been more fun with a friend, puzzling out the clues together and then lingering at the spots we were led to in order to patronize those local businesses, but I was on my own for the afternoon – but even so, I found it to be a genuinely innovative and fun twist on a narrative-driven scavenger hunt, and a really cool way to incorporate filmed content into a live event. The quirky story hit just the right tone for this particular festival, and I loved this opportunity for unusual “audience participation” without actually being put on the spot in any kind of performance setting. I would absolutely do such a thing again.

Chase: I didn’t get to take part in many non-film events, though exploring North Bend outside of the structured programming was quite a joy. I ended up getting to see many of the iconic locations of Twin Peaks that were interesting to see in-person. 

Concluding Thoughts

Chase: I look forward to going back next year when hopefully COVID is more under control. 

Jenn: Yeah, definitely. I’m also looking forward to the second annual edition of the virtual genre fest NIGHTSTREAM, which the creators of this fest are a part of, coming up in October!


You can check in on the rest of The SunBreak’s NBFF 2021 coverage by following along with our NBFF 2021 tag.

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