It’s here! SIFF opens its 49th annual festival on Thursday night with Celine Song’s exceptional debut feature Past Lives. It’s a must-see film, possibly among the year’s best, and the party afterwards will be a welcome opportunity to catch up with fellow filmgoers on the Paramount’s big stage and in the unseasonably nice weather as the gala spills into the streets.  

Also of note: on Saturday night, SIFF has a spotlight presentation of Megan Griffiths’s Year of the Fox, along with the director, writer/producer Eliza Flug, producer Lacey Leavitt, and actors including Balthazar Getty and Sarah Jeffery will be in attendance along with numerous extended cast and crew members who will be present to celebrate the film’s premiere.

Here at the SunBreak, we’re excited to dive back into the city’s biggest festival for film fans. Below, we each identified a few recommendations for films premiering over this coming weekend or into the first days of coming week. Films are listed with in-person showtimes as well as an indication of whether they’ll have online “encore screenings” the week after the festival.

As a reminder, individual tickets are available (and limited) for both types of screenings. Keep an eye on SIFF’s Blog, where daily posts indicate which films are selling fast, on standby, or whose online availability has changed.

Chris:

The Night of the 12th (2022 | France | 115 minutes | Dominik Mull)
The incumbent Best Picture in France is one of the SIFF movies I’m most excited about. It’s a police drama about a real-life unsolved murder of a French woman. I plan on seeing The Night of the 12th on the night of (May) 12th. 

• FRIDAY, MAY 12 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 9:00 PM
• SATURDAY, MAY 20 – Shoreline Community College – 8:00 PM
• Available Online: Yes

Fremont (2023 | USA | 91 minutes | Babak Jalili)
Part of the New American Cinema competition, SIFF promises this dramedy will be one of the most comforting movies of the festival. It’s about an Afghani translator who moves to the US and works in a San Francisco fortune cookie factory. She quickly gets promoted into one of my childhood dream jobs: writing fortunes. An actual Afghani refugee, Anaita Wali Zali, stars as Donya.

• SATURDAY, MAY 13 – AMC Pacific Place – 6:30 PM
• SUNDAY, MAY 14 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 12:30 PM
• Director Babak Jalali, Executive Producer Nickhil Jakatdar, and Producer Sudnya Shroff scheduled to attend.
• Available Online: No

Satan Wants You (2023 | Canada | 90 minutes | Steve Adams, Sean Horlor)
I’m fascinated by Satanic panics because they often involve rational, smart, thoughtful people who somehow start believing something nonsensical and irrational. This Canadian documentary is aboot the famous case of Michelle Smith and the memoir she wrote in 1980 with her psychiatrist and  soon-to-be husband Lawrence Pazder. 

• SUNDAY, MAY 14 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 6:30 PM
• MONDAY, MAY 15 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 4:00 PM
• Producer Melissa James and Directors Steve Adams and Sean Horlor scheduled to attend.
• Available Online: Yes

Josh:

The Eight Mountains   ( 2022 | Italy | 147 min. | Felix Van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch)
This story of friendship shared the jury prize at Cannes last year with my beloved EO, which is endorsement enough to spend two and a half ho urs in the Italian Alps with city-boy Pietro and Bruno. One stays in his mountain village, the other comes and goes, destinies unfold and true friendship endures. 

• FRIDAY, MAY 12 – Shoreline Community College  – 7:00 PM
• SATURDAY, MAY 13  – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 11:00 AM
• Available Online: No 

20 Days in Mariupol (2023 | Ukraine | 94 min. | Mstyslav Chernov)
As the brutal war rages on in Ukraine, see this documentary about the Associated Press reporters who covered the earliest days of the conflict on the ground. The film sounds harrowing, but it took the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award at this year’s Sundance, suggesting it’s more than worth the watch.

• FRIDAY, MAY 12 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 2:30 PM
• FRIDAY, MAY 19 – Ark Lodge Cinemas – 6:00 PM
• Available Online: Yes

Passages (2023 | France | 91 min. | Ira Sachs)
In Ira Sachs’ latest, Franz Rogowski takes a heel turn as an artiste with an emotionally voracious black hole at his core. Upon finishing his latest film, his character embarks on an impulsive fling with a woman (Adèle Exarchopoulos), much to the surprise of his husband (Ben Whishaw). It’s a sexy European drama with prickly roles for each of these exceptional actors to inhabit. They aren’t easy to like, but their ever-shifting emotional and physical attachments are never not compelling. 

• SUNDAY, MAY 14 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 9:00 PM
• THURSDAY, MAY 18 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 4:00 PM
• Available Online: No 

Tony:

Douglas Sirk – Hope as in Despair (2022 | Switzerland | 76 minutes | Roman Hüben)
Filmmakers from socially-aware visual stylist Todd Haynes to  horror auteur Ti West owe a debt of gratitude to director Douglas Sirk’s obscenely lush style and the (sometimes heavily) veiled social commentary he brought to the table. This exploration of the man’s career through interview footage and excerpts from his wife should be a good primer for the man’s body of work and legacy. 

• FRIDAY, MAY 12 – Pacific Place – 4:00 PM
• TUESDAY, MAY 16 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 6:00 PM
• Available Online: Yes 

Irati (2022 | Spain | 114 minutes | Paul Urkijo Alijo)
If director Paul Urkijo Alijo’s mesmerizing dark fairy tale Errementari blew the top of your head off at SIFF 2018, then–like me–you’ll want to be front and center for this reportedly phenomenal period fantasy. 

• SUNDAY, MAY 14 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 9:00 PM
• MONDAY, MAY 15 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 8:45 PM
• Director Paul Urkijo Alijo scheduled to attend.
• Available Online: No 

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957 | USA | 81 minutes | Jack Arnold)
SIFF  boasts another solid lineup of revival screenings for 2023, but the one I’m most excited for is Jack Arnold’s still-effective and unexpectedly profound sci-fi epic, which boasts an eloquent screenplay by Richard Matheson and an outstanding lead performance by the underrated Grant Williams. This screening is dedicated to the recently departed Seattle Times film critic (and one of Shrinking Man’s most vocal supporters) John Hartl. 

• SUNDAY, MAY 14 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 1:30 PM
• Available Online: No 

Morgen:

The Mattachine Family (2023 | USA | 99 minutes | Andy Valentine)
As if fostering and adoption aren’t hard enough, having to let a child go after coming to love them like your own. In this self-proclaimed dramedy, Thomas is struggling with what fatherhood means while his semi-absent partner is preoccupied with his career. I see tears and some laughter, but it’s up in the air which one there’ll be more of. Produced by Zach Braff, it’s bound to have a little corny dad humor and sappy moments.

• FRIDAY, MAY 12 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 6:30 PM
• SATURDAY, MAY 13 – Pacific Place – 1:00 PM
• Available Online: Yes 

Year of the Fox (2023 | USA | 97 minutes | Megan Griffiths)
Imagine a world where people throw around phrases like “It’s only money.” The lavish town of Aspen set in the 90s offers everything a billionaire could want but it’s littered with pitfalls for young locals  to plummet helplessly into, and more importantly they have no helping hand to pull them out… if they even wanted to escape. Drugs, drinking, parties, sex, all the stuff your mother warned you about, but she could never have imagined what Aspen has in store. Young Ivy, despite the allure of the wealthy elite, seems to see them as they are behind the money and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. Little did she know how deep her own family was embroiled. I had the opportunity to chat with Director Megan Griffiths about her film and I can’t wait to share that with you in the coming week. Meanwhile, definitely catch a showing, it’s worth being in a crowd for this one.

• SATURDAY, MAY 13 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 6:45 PM
  • Director Megan Griffiths, Writer Eliza Flug, Produce Lacey Leavitt, and Actors Balthazar Getty and Sara Jeffery will all be attending
• SUNDAY, MAY 14 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 12:00 PM
• Director Paul Urkijo Alijo scheduled to attend.
• Available Online: No 

Table for Six (2022 | Hong Kong | 120 minutes | Sunny Chan)
A romantic comedy full of ridiculous moments, Table for Six is about three brothers all living together in the restaurant that their parents left them. When they start bringing home their girlfriends for dinner, hijinx ensue and old flames are reignited. With some focus on the delicious food them make along the way, this seems just silly enough to satisfy me and I can’t wait. I would put this one in my top five anticipated films of SIFF this year. 

• MONDAY, MAY 15 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 9:00 PM
• THURSDAY MAY 18- Shoreline Community College – 5:45 PM
• Available Online: No 

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