Festivals SIFF

SIFF 2022: Quick Picks, Tips, and Tricks

by Sunbreak Staff

Starting today, tickets and passes are now available to the public for the 48th Seattle International Film Festival. Running from April 14-24th, the eleven-day festival features hundreds of films playing in-person in venues across the city, with more than half of the selections also available online. We’re still soaking up the trailers, digesting the full lineup, and strategizing the best ways to get the most out of this year’s event, but we thought we’d start by each highlighting a film (or two) from the program that we’re most excited to see or recommend.

  • Josh: Cha Cha Real Smooth was easily my favorite of this year’s Sundance. Like Oscar-winning CODA before it, Cooper Raiff’s sentimental crowd-pleaser was quickly acquired by AppleTV+ soon after its premiere; so I’m very excited for people to have a chance to see it on a big screen before it inevitably grabs a prime position on the homescreen of your favorite streaming device and maybe even in next year’s awards race. (April 23 – 8:30 pm, April 24 – 1:30 pm at the Uptown).
  • Chris: I spend a lot of time watching the Food Network, and I can identify more celebrity chefs than is necessary. So I’m excited to watch Love Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter. The legendary Chicago chef lived a pretty turbulent life with incredible highs and a low that included (allegedly) selling fake wine before his untimely death in 2013. (April 22 – 6:45 pm Pacific Place, April 23 – noon at the Uptown)
  • Morgen: I admit I was swayed by the festival curators at the press/donor event this week when they highlighted the Iranian film Hit The Road. Director Jafar Panahi has previous SIFF showings under his belt and seems to keep getting better with every entry. With the makings of a heartwarming family adventure/drama (a la Little Miss Sunshine) I have a feeling it’s going to be a festival favorite. (April 19 – 6:30 pm, April 20 – 3:30 pm at the Uptown)
  • Jenn: I also really loved the new Raiff film when I saw it at SXSW. As far as new-to-me stuff for this fest, I’m very much looking forward to local hero Megan Griffiths’ newest, I’ll Show You Mine, which looks to be a thoughtful exploration of shifting gender identity and sexuality, featuring music by another local hero (who’s also a former Lynn Shelton collaborator), Tomo Nakayama. (April 16 – 5:00pm at the Uptown, April 20 – 4:15 pm at Pacific Place)
  • Josh: Since I’m editing this post, I’m going to cheat and squeeze in a documentary pick from one of my favorites from SXSW 2021: Alien On Stage. An unlikely true story of a crew of Dorset bus drivers who earnestly stage an amateur production of Ridley Scott’s science fiction horror film, complete with lovingly made costumes and effects, and bring it all the way to London’s West End for a triumphant one-night-only performance. It’s available online, but I suspect you’ll want to see it with an audience to participate in a standing ovation when the credits roll. (April 20 – 6:00 pm in Shoreline; April 22 – 9:15 pm at the Egyptian). 

As a reminder, to  SIFF like a pro, revisit our time- and fest-tested tips, lightly-updated for 2022, subject to updates as we see how the festival plays out on the ground and in the virtual realm.

PERUSING THE PROGRAMMING

  • Opening and Closing night films are the only parties this year. Grab your tickets to Navalny and Call Jane as soon as possible if you want to see them with a crowd and toast the festival in style. If you just want to party, standalone gala tickets are also available. 
  • Consider booking early for the so-called Spotlight Presentations: they’re likely to be the films with the broadest appeal and will sell-out most quickly.
    • The Duke: Jim Broadbent steals a Goya for a good cause. (April 15/18)
    • Inu-Oh: Masaaki Yuasa animates the story of a collaboration between Inu-kong, a 14th-century masked performer, and a blind biwa player. (April 20/23)
    • Marcel the Shell with Shoes On: feature-length festival darling about an adorable one-eyed, one-inch-tall seashell (April 23/24)
    • Nothing Compares:  emotional and inspirational Sinéad O’Connor documentary. (April 17/18)
    • Spin Me Round: Alison Brie and Aubrey Plaza in a story of a culinary educational immersion program in Italy, where absolutely nothing goes right. (April 15/16)
    • The Territory:  a Sundance standout documents the illegal incursion of settlers into protected rainforests, in close collaboration with the indigenous people who live there.  (April 21/22)
  • The festival is organized into multiple intersecting systems, suitable for satisfying various worldviews or problem solving styles. For the analytic among us, Film Finder lets you search the program with simple queries or dizzying arrays of categorical complexity. Start with the fairly straightforward – Country/Region, Director, Genre – to narrow your choices. Or get whimsical by throwing in a mood like Creative Streak, Love, Make Me Laugh!, Open My Eyes (still no exclamation point), Show me the World!, Provocateurs, Thrill me!, or WTF. Yes, “WTF” is both a mood and a programming category. We’re through the looking glass. 
  • A very practical search: Film Finder shows you exactly which movies can be watched from home.
  • If you’d rather match your tastes against expert juries, consider following one of the competitions and see if your favorite aligns with the pros. This year’s juried race includes the  Official Competition, Documentary Competition, New American Competition, New Directors Competition, Ibero-American Competition, as well as a Short Films Competition.
  • Finally, SIFF has selected films as part of an an array of programs, grouped by geography/identity (African Pictures, Asian Crossroads, cINeDIGENOUS, Ibero-American Cinema, New American Cinema, Northwest Connections), themes (Culinary Cinema, Face the Music), appropriateness for younger audiences (Films4Families, FutureWave), interest in boundary-pushing (Alternate Cinema and WTF), as well as format (Archival Films and Short Films). Yes, Short films are both a competition and a program and a festival within the festival. Even over eleven days, SIFF contains multitudes.
  • This re-entry into the real world might mean fewer special guests, tributes, and panels, but aside from the galas, special events include the 4th World Media Lab, the Bigfoot Script Challenge Awards and Live Reading 2022 with Aldis and Edwin Hodge, and two new works in progress sessions for Motherland and Broadcast.
  • If you’re still stuck, browse the expert advice of the Programmer Picks. This year, 16 tireless SIFF programmers collectively identified top bets among the festival’s riches. You could either choose one programmer and follow their lead or go with the consensus.

PLANNING

  • Plan ahead. Get to know the freshly-facelifted SIFF website. Browse the sortable searchable Film Finder. Check ahead to see if guests will be at the screening for a Q&A, for timing and scheduling purposes, if not for celeb-watching, and monitor the various SIFF Facebook, Twitter; YouTube, and Instagram feeds as well as their News page for updates, so you’ll have the heads up before a screening sells out.
  • Technology is your friend! SIFF is never as tech-integrated as one would like, but the mobile website and an app to keep track of your tickets are still there to fill the void.
  • This year’s festival has both in-person and virtual components. More than half of the programming can be viewed on the SIFF Channel (watch.siff.net) and on the SIFF TV app for SIFF TV app via Roku, AppleTV, FireTV, or AndroidTV.  Most virtual offerings are geoblocked to the United States. The whole library is available to passholders of all flavors (except Secret Passes) and tickets are also available for individual films (and can, theoretically, sell out). All of your questions, and more, are answered here.
  • The festival also posts daily updates to their online calendar, coding screenings as “limited availability” or “standby” to alert you to whether tickets are selling fast. 
  • Festival Resources: The festival typically posts a page with all sorts of fun stuff like an Excel sheet of all the films, the film guide, and the whole schedule grid, suitable for printing on a couple sheets of paper and keeping in your back pocket for the whole event. Perfect for survivalists, Luddites, or people worried about being without the schedule in the case of a drained battery.

BUYING

  • Consider buying in bulk. Individual tickets are $15 ($12, members). Although there’s nothing quite like the flexibility of joining the ranks of the passholders, even if you don’t want to spring for that level of commitment, you can still ticket packages in sets of six ($75/$63) to save a bit of money. 
  • If you want to make a commitment to the passholder line, a Film Pass ($650/$525) gets you admission to all regularly-priced screenings as well as the press-preview week leading up to the festival’s launch. Platinum ($1600/$1300) and Platinum Plus ($2500/$2200) give you even more perks like reserved seating, line skipping, and just looking extremely cool with the shiniest badge at the party. All passes get you access to online films on the SIFF Channel.
  • As previously mentioned, the Virtual Pass gets you an all-you-can-watch buffet of the ~ 60% of the programming available in both in-person and online format. 
  • Or be adventurous, swear yourself to silence, and buy into the aforementioned Secret Fest— you’ll get two Sunday morning screenings that you can see only by signing a contract promising never to reveal what you saw.
  • If a film is sold out, all hope isn’t lost, but getting into a film via the standby line is a complete crapshoot — don’t count on it for a popular film. But if a miracle does occur, those tickets are full price and “cash preferred.”

VENUES

  • The core venues for this year’s festival are: SIFF Cinema Uptown, SIFF Cinema Egyptian, the SIFF Film Center, and Pacific Place. Together this makes for seven screens and the majority of screenings.
  • You can still enjoy SIFF outside of the Seattle core! SIFF will spend time in Ballard at Majestic Bay in Columbia City at Ark Lodge Cinemas, and at Shoreline Community College (all venues, May 15-21)
  • If you’re trying to make a day of it, Lower Queen Anne offers you the closest thing to one-stop SIFF-ing. All three SIFF Uptown screens will be showing festival films, two blocks  away the SIFF Film Center opens for weekend screenings.
  • For those straying from SIFF central, it’s a fairly short walk between the Egyptian and Pacific Place (slightly less easy the other uphill way around). Light rail stops on Capitol Hill, Westlake Center and in Columbia City ease the venue-hopping experience for those shuttling between The Egyptian, Pacific Place, and/or Ark Lodge. Getting to-and-from the Uptown, you’re at the mercy of downtown traffic; so plan accordingly and then double your transit estimates if you’re relying on the bus.

PRACTICALITIES

  • Covid Safety: Masks are required except “when you’re at your seat”, which is an interesting policy to wrap one’s head around. At minimum, you’ll need a mask when entering the theater and buying concessions, but it’s a free-for-all once the lights go down. Ultimately, if you’re worried about catching a case of coronavirus or common cold in a theater, best to stock up with your own N95 and lay off the popcorn (or eat and sip strategically).
  • If you’re particular about where you sit, there’s no such thing as arriving too early. In normal times, it was fair to expect every screening to have a long line and a full house. Still, as long as you have a ticket, you’ll have a seat. Ticketholders are usually let into the theater about 30 minutes in advance of showtimes, but SIFFgoers are a bunch who love to queue. Passholders get in first, but there are a limited number of seats set aside for them; so even with a pass, you should show up in time to secure a spot, particularly for movies with big buzz.
  • Regarding those long lines: be prepared with an umbrella, sunglasses, sunscreen, a light jacket, and some reading material to pass the time.
  • Bathrooms! One way to avoid the line is to either head straight to the restroom as soon as you get into the theater, or wait until the lights go down. From there, you’ve got about 7 minutes of ads, trailers, and announcements before the film begins.
  • Consider subtitles. If your film has them and you’re not fluent, find a seat with a clear view of the bottom of the screen. Aisle left or right is generally a good bet. Although the seats on the center aisle (exit row) at the Egyptian have tons of room to stretch your legs, the raking of the theater flattens out for the aisle, so you’re likely to have an obstructed view of the subtitles if anyone of average height or above average skull circumference sits in front of you.

Finally, despite all of this strategic advice, it really never hurts (too much) to try your luck with whatever happens to be playing on whatever night you happen to be free. Not every screening has an interminable line, sometimes that scary-looking line is just hard-core SIFFers with time on their hands and/or an ingrained sense of promptness. Many many times you may walk right into a half-empty theater and end up seeing your favorite movie of the year. It’s the chance to experience seeing something you enjoy on some level, if only just a window to a different world/experience than what you’re used to. We look forward to seeing you at the movies!

Keep up with us during the Seattle International Film Festival on Twitter (@thesunbreak) and follow all of our ongoing coverage via our SIFF 2022 Index and our SIFF 2022 posts