Starting today, tickets and passes are now available to the public for the Seattle International Film Festival. Download the whole program and flip through it on your lunch break or start clicking through the website to discover the cinematic riches heading our way. Running in person from May 7-17, the festival features 203 films playing across the city. In a change from recent post-pandemic editions this year’s SIFF is entirely in-person with no online screenings available.

The SunBreak got a preview this week at a reception for press and members, but we are still soaking up the trailers, digesting the full lineup of 66 narrative features, 34 documentaries, 3 archival presentations, 2 secret films and 98 shorts from 71 countries/regions. Although we got a head start on the list of films – which among the features include 2 world premieres, 9 North American premieres, and 4 US premieres. With a majority (62%) of the entries coming from first or second-time filmmakers, it’s a program rich for discovery. Just under half are directed by women/non-binary filmmakers and many of the films come from BIPOC (49%) or LGBTQIA+ (19%) communities. Further, most also don’t yet have US distribution (67%); so attending SIFF represents a chance to be among the first viewers to find some hidden gems!

First up, Opening Night. SIFF kicks off the festivities at the Paramount with I Love Boosters on Thursday May 7th. The latest from Boots Riley (who will be in attendance) features Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige as a trio of radical shoplifters in Oakland taking on the excesses of the fashion industry (as represented by a mogul played by Demi Moore). After the film, make your way over to Cannonball Arts for an afterparty featuring gallery exhibits, a signature photo activation, food, drinks, and a live set from DJ Eliogold. Note, this is SIFF’s only official party this year — the closing soiree at the MOHAI is now a historical artifact — so plan to start the festival off big. (Tickets: $75 for the whole event; $45 for the film alone with discounts for SIFF members)

While we’re digging through the schedule and plotting our own agendas, we thought we’d start by each highlighting a film (or two) from the program that we’re most excited to see or recommend.

ROUNDTABLE: QUICK PICKS!

OTHER SPECIAL EVENTS

Aside from Opening Night, SIFF has designated a few other screenings as spotlights and events. On Tuesday May 12th Cross Faded Cinema will employ the talents of SIFF stalwart DJ NicFit to spin a new soundtrack for Wes Craven’s franchise-ancohoring horror series A Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddie Kreuger inspired his share of sleepless nights; seeing him wreaking terrors upon the dreams of 80s teens on SIFF Downtown’s giant screen alongside trippy turntable beats is sure to bring its share of scares to generations new and old. On a still-musical, but slightly more wholesome note, John Carney’s latest entry in a career of moviemaking about musicians bonding over music Power Ballad features Paul Rudd as a wedding singer and Joe Jonas as a fading boy band star (range!). It plays Opening Weekend and is sure to get you up in the feels (if you’re susceptible to Carney’s frequencies). Finally, the festival closes on Sunday May 17th at SIFF Downtown with The Invite. Starring and directed by Olivia Wilde (who will be in attendance), the film co-stars Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz, and Edward Norton as couples at an awkward and incisive dinner party. Among the buzziest films at Sundance, A24 won the bidding war to distribute it. See it ahead of your own neighbors for $40 on the last night of the festival.

Finally, Secret Fest, SIFF’s most exclusive film club, is back. Buy a pass for $44 ($39 members) and get access to two Sunday morning movies that you’ll never be allowed to reveal that you saw. Allegedly/hypothetically/unconfirmed rumblings suggest that these can be anything from films promised to other festivals, rare archival presentations, or underground films rarely seen. The pass and an oath of secrecy get you in. 

Hyped yet? Let’s start memorizing this year’s trailer so that we can all quote along with it by Closing Night!

DEEP DIVES 

• Find your films: 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 (not yet ChatGPT-enabled, though). Start with the fairly straightforward – Country/Region, Director, Genre – to narrow your choices.Film Finder shows you exactly which movies can be watched from home during the festival’s streaming encore week (note that a few are limited to Washington only).
• The Awards Race: 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 races include the Official Competition, Documentary, New American Cinema, Ibero-American, and New Directors competitions as well as Short Film competitions divided between documentary, narrative, and animated juries.
• Themes: Finally, SIFF has selected films as part of an an array of programs, some of which partially overlap with each other and/or the competitions. They’re loosely grouped by geography/identity (African Pictures, Asian Crossroads, Ibero-American Cinema, World Cinema, New American Cinema, cINeDIGENOUS, Northwest Connections), themes (Culinary Cinema, Face the Music), appropriateness for younger audiences (Films4Families for kids of all ages), degree of boundary-pushing (Alternate Cinema experimentations all the way to WTF), as well as format (Documentary Films, Archival Films and Short Fest). Yes, some of these programs have competitions within them. Others are festivals within festivals. SIFF contains multitudes!
• Trust the experts: If you’re still stuck, browse the expert advice of the Programmer Picks. This year, 20 tireless SIFF programmers collectively watched something like 6000 films to build the program. They then each identified top bets among the festival’s riches so that you could benefit from their expertise. You could either choose one programmer and follow their lead or go with the consensus!

PLANNING

• Plan ahead. Get to know the SIFF website. Browse the sortable searchable Film Finder to drill down on your heart’s desires.
• Guestwatch: Getting to hear from the filmmakers is one of the biggest perks of an in-person film festival! Keep an eye out for festival guests if you like the opportunity to hear a filmmaker’s take on their work or to have them answer your awkward question following the screening (kidding, but also not). Be sure to 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.
• Technology is your friend! The SIFF app is no more, but you can keep an eye on the various SIFF Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram pages for updates, so you’ll have the heads up before a screening sells out.
• This year’s festival has is in-person only. You may have gotten used to being able to catch up with the festival from home, but this year you’ll have to join the queues and see them in theaters.
• 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. 

BUYING

• Individual tickets for most films cost $22 ($19 for members) and can be purchased online.
• Passes: Perhaps you’re ready to join the the ranks of the passholders? A film pass runs $500 ($350 SIFF members) and gets you into all regularly-priced festival screenings as well as to a series of preview screenings (typically three per weekday from April 27-May 7). A premiere pass gets you all of that plus you can cut ahead of regular passholders in line and get invited to the Opening Night Film and Party, Closing Night Film, and the Golden Space Needle Awards (on May 17th). At this point, that’ll cost you $1600 (or more likely $1200 if you’re a SIFF member).
• Packages: Even if you don’t want to spring for that level of commitment, you can still get a six pack of tickets for $110 ($92), which is close to a BFGO deal. You can use up to two tickets per screening, so feel free to split with a buddy. 
• Take a chance: 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

• Venues: With Pacific Place, the Egyptian (RIP), and Shoreline out of the mix, most films playing in or near SIFF’s Lower Queen Anne playground: SIFF Cinema Uptown (3 screens), the SIFF Film Center, and PACCAR IMAX at Pacific Science Center. Films also play a few blocks away at SIFF-e-rama (a.k.a. SIFF Downtown).

PRACTICALITIES

• 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: When you roll up, don’t be surprised to see a line stretching from the theater doors. Don’t panic, as long as you have a ticket and arrive ahead of time you should be fine. Instead, be prepared with an umbrella, sunglasses, sunscreen, a light jacket, and some reading material to pass the time. Layers and preparedness are core tenets of PNW culture.
• 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, particularly if you’re worried about someone with great posture or above average skull circumference directly 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!