Seattle-born Jean Smart will be back in town to receive the Hollywood Reporter’s Trailblazer Award on Saturday afternoon. THR’s Stacey Wilson Hunt will sit down with Smart for a career retrospective that began with Seattle Rep roots. The event also includes a sneak preview of episode seven of the exceptionally great new season of Hacks; so make sure you’re all caught up! The Tribute Event event is at SIFF Cinema Downtown at 2:30 pm ($26.50, tickets currently on standby).

Closing Night comes early this year with festival-capping festivities a day before the in-person festival actually ends. SIFF is, after all, fifty-something years old and staying out late on Sunday night just hits different for festivals of a certain age. Instead the 50th SIFF will celebrate on Saturday with a screening of Sing Sing, featuring Colman Domingo, Paul Raci, and a host of non-professional actors in a story of inmates finding redemption through the power of Shakespeare. Based on a real-life theatre program inside New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility, the plot also sounds a bit like Bushra Azzouz’s wonderful northwest-set documentary A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Prison, which played last fall’s Local Sightings festival. The film screens at SIFF downtown where Director and co-writer Greg Kwedar will be in attendance to participate in a Q&A. Members of the film’s ensemble cast will also be on hand to receive a Golden Space Needle Award for excellence in Ensemble Acting. Following the film, attendees will make the walk over to MOHAI for a closing night gala with music, drinks, snacks, and a chance to catch-up with fellow SIFF-goers to gossip about festival hits and misses.
(Film & Party Tickets – $86.50 / $76.50 SIFF Members; Party-only $51.50 / $46.50)

Below, we each highlight some other selections to consider for SIFF’s closing weekend. As a reminder, individual tickets are available (and limited) for both in person and onlinescreenings. 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:

Resynator (2024 | USA | 96 minutes | Alison Tavel)

A hit with audiences at Sundance and featuring interviews with Grace Potter and Peter Gabriel, among others, Resynator is on my to-see list. Director Alison Tavel’s father died before she was three months old but not before he was present at the creation of electronic music as we know by creating one of the earliest synthesizers.

• FRIDAY, May 17 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 6:45 PM
• SATURDAY, May 18 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 3:00 PM
• Streaming – MONDAY, MAY 20 – MONDAY, MAY 27, 2024

Tenement (2024 | Cambodia | 84 minutes Sokyou Chea, Inrasothythep Neth)

SIFF’s penultimate midnight feature might be intriguing enough to lure me into staying awake significantly past my bedtime. A Cambodian manga artist returns home after the passing of her mother only to learn that there are some secrets that come to light. SIFF calls it “An immersive and nightmarish journey into madness,” which sold me.

• FRIDAY, MAY 17 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 11:59 PM
• SUNDAY, MAY 19 – AMC Pacific Place – 4:00 PM

Fragments of a Life Loved (Frammenti di un Percorso Amoroso) (2023 | Italy | 95 minutes |  Chloé Barreau)

 Officially in SIFF’s documentary competition, filmmaker Chloé Barreau retraces her romantic life through interviews with twelve exes and/or hookups since she was 16. It’s impressive that she saw this through when every instinct and muscle would tell me this is a terrible, terrible idea.

• FRIDAY, MAY 17 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 12:30 PM
• SATURDAY, MAY 18 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 8:30 PM

Josh:

Ghostlight (2024 | USA | 110 minutes | Kelly O’Sullivan, Alex Thompson)
Directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson leverage the chemistry of a real-life family (actors Keith Kupfererin, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, and daughter Tara Mallen) crafting a drama about a working-class Chicago-area household reeling from the aftershocks of an unspecified trauma and the stress of a looming lawsuit. Like the closing night feature, the film captures a staging of a play by unlikely actors, with the mounting parallels between Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy and the real pains of a wounded family culminate in a rousing testament to the enduring and transformative power of treading the boards.

• FRIDAY, MAY 17 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 6:30 PM
• SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2024 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 1:30 PM

Dìdi (弟弟) (2024 | USA | 96 minutes | Sean Wang)
Set in three turbulent weeks of summer before high school, Sean Wang has made a winning semi-autobiographical story of growing up as a Taiwanese-American teen in the age of LiveJournal, MySpace, and AIM. Izaac Wang turns in a sensitive performance as a kid trying to figure out where he fits in the world of girls, skating, hormones, uncertain friendships, and the terrible giant feelings of being a teenage boy. Another Sundance favorite making a stop at SIFF.

• SATURDAY, MAY 18 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 6:15 PM
• SUNDAY, MAY 19 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 1:00 PM

All We Carry (2024 | USA,Mexico | 87 minutes | Cady Voge)
Cady Voge’s exquisitely-observed documentary follows young asylum seekers Magdiel and Mirna from a dangerous open air train to the surprising embrace of a West Seattle synagogue where Seattle where they spend two years awaiting a decision on their claim. Sensitive camerawork and delicate editing allows us to watch as their family grows, their traumas linger, uncertainty looms, and the pandemic complicates everything. Among the best of this year’s Northwest Connections.

• SATURDAY, MAY 18 – AMC Pacific Place – 6:30 PM
• SUNDAY, MAY 19 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 2:30 PM
• Streaming – MONDAY, MAY 20 – MONDAY, MAY 27, 2024

Morgen:

Making Of ( 2023 | France | 114 minutes | Cédric Kahn)
I’m a huge fan of meta films, especially when it’s a film crew making a film inside the actual film with comedic results. So when I saw that Making of, from France of all places, had such a film in SIFF this year I couldn’t resist. With the wry, snarky sense of humor that typically comes from France, I knew it would be a perfect fit for me. There’s only one more opportunity to catch it and that’s this Friday at 6. I have yet to catch a film at the newly dubbed Cinema Downtown so I’m really excited to catch this showing in particular at the old Cinerama. 

• FRIDAY MAY 17 – SIFF Cinema Downtown – 6:30 PM

Dragon Superman (1968 | Taiwan |  90 minutes | Satoru Kobayashi, Shao Lo-hui)

I’m a big fan of the black and white classic Adam West Batman with baddies that can be defeated in one show with a “pow!” so powerful they were thrown to the ground with x’s on their eyes. It was cheesy, fun and no dark creepy smiles to keep you awake at night (those do have their place but not in Adam West’s world). So Dragon Superman brought back all those memories of watching at home on Sunday as Batman and Robin saved the day. This one seems to have a little more camp, but I’m all about that at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon to finish out my SIFF. 

• SUNDAY MAY 19 – Egyptian – 4:00 PM

Tony, Shelly and The Magic Light (2023 | Czech Republic | 82 minutes | Filip Pošivač)

I think I’ve got a theme going in these recommendations, but that’s pretty typical for me..  I look for the funny, silly and happy whenever I’m at a fest because I have enough of the other stuff already. This sweet-looking stop-motion animation is about a boy named Tony who meets a girl named Shelly that helps him discover magic within himself that can help to defeat the evils of the world. If only it were that simple for all of us. Check it out on Sunday at 1 and I bet you’ll come out smiling. 

• Sunday May 19 – SIFF Cinema Downtown – 1:00 PM

Tony:

On the (Guest) List

Finally, as you plan your schedule, keep in mind that a bunch of screenings will have guests in town. A quick rundown if Q&A’s are your tiebreaker. 

THURSDAY, MAY 16

• Sono Lino – Director/Producer Jacob Patrick, Editor Lano Medina, and Executive Producer Jacopo Vecchiato
• Bring Them Home – Directors Ivy Macdonald and Ivan Macdonald, and Director/Producer Daniel Glick
• Holy Mother – Director Antonio Chavarrias
• Iron Mask – Director Kim Sung Hwan
• The Black Sea – Directors Crystal Moselle and Derrick Harden
• Merchant Ivory – Director/Writer/Producer Stephen Soucy

FRIDAY, MAY 17

• Moloka’i Bound – Director Alika Tengan, Producer Nina Yang Bongiovi, and Cast Kawika Kahaipo
• The Tundra Within Me – Director Sara Margrethe Oskal
• Ghostlight – Co-Directors Kelly o’Sullivan and Alex Thompson, and Cast Keith Kupferer, Katherine Mallen Kupferer and Tara Mallen
• Resynator – Director Alison Tavel

SATURDAY, MAY 18

• Sing Sing – Director/Co-Writer Greg Kwedar, Executive Producers/Actors John Whitfield and Clarence Maclin; and Actors Sean San Jose, Jon Adrian Velazquez, and Sean Johnson
• We Strangers – Director Anu Valia
• All We Carry – Director Cady Voge
• Dìdi (弟弟) – Director Sean Wang