A Seattle moviegoing lifestyle magazine
Seattle International Film Festival
The in-person portion of the 51st Seattle International Film Festival is past its halfway point and is barreling toward closing weekend. Featuring 245 films playing in theaters around town until May 25th (and several making online encores the week after), there’s still plenty of time to catch our city’s biggest film festival in the company of other cinemaniacs.
We share some film’s we’ve seen and are eager to recommend as well as a few that are still at the top of our watchlists.
Over the weekend, I caught up on a few films playing in competition, all connected in one way or another with books.
I grouped these three films together as they have one key factor in common, incredibly strong female characters. While each lead is completely different from the other two, they all have a power that captivates you on screen and keeps you invested in the story from beginning to end. I recommend seeking out all three as you make your way through SIFF.
Boong (Gugun Kipgen) is a precocious kid that lives for getting into playful trouble, more annoying than harmful, with his best friend Raju (Angom Sanamatum). He’s too smart for his own good sometimes, but he knows what’s important.
Although “International” is right there in SIFF’s name, each festival also showcases a series of films made or set closer to home. This year’s Northwest Connections program includes five films. Here, we review of the two documentary features that’ll play throughout the festival: Suburban Fury and Wolf Land.
SIFF prides itself on its selection of offbeat films and for that, I am thankful. Man cannot subsist on documentaries about indigenous water rights and unfairness in the Mexican penal system alone. I don’t know if these are going to be the weirdest movies at SIFF (Fucktoys and Spermageddon issue some promises in their respective titles I expect them to deliver on), these are some of the notable, uhh, unique offerings so far.
Although “International” is right there in SIFF’s name, each festival also showcases a series of films made or set closer to home. This year’s Northwest Connections program includes five films. Here, we review of the two narrative features that’ll play throughout the festival: Evergreens and Monarch City.
The 51st Seattle International Film Festival kicks off tomorrow! Running in person from May 15–25, the festival features 245 films playing in-person across the city — including daily programming at the recently-reopened Cinerama — with many getting online encore screenings the following week. Sorting through the whole program and/or film finder can help you to dial into your exact needs for a cinematic holiday (per SIFF’s vacation-themed, “Trip to the Reel World”), but we’re also here to help.
Last week, we gave you some quick picks in the wake of the press launch. Now, with some more time with the program and some screeners, we have a few more suggestions for how to spend the opening days of the festival.
Starting today, tickets and passes are now available to the public for the 50th Seattle International Film Festival. 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.
People who know me IRL (mostly) know that I’m a cross stitcher. I spend dozens of hours a week on my couch, usually 2-3 hours nightly and more on weekends stitching. Outside of work and sleeping, it takes up the next biggest block of my time. I’ve even made some stitching projects that combine my hobby with movies. This is all to say that I am delighted that SIFF is offering one of their theaters for crafty movie fans this Sunday at noon, promising a place to congregate while the beloved (though not by me) movie Labyrinth plays on screen.
