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Seattle International Film Festival
A lighter look at midlife crisis and how we define ourselves through the relationships we have. Emilia (Christiane Paul) a once well-received actress now stay at home mom is throwing a critical eye on her life and the once perfect relationship with her husband Paul (Christoph Maria Herbst).
After eleven days of virtual and in-person screenings, partying, and celebrating independent filmmakers, the 48th Seattle International Film Festival closed on Sunday with a morning awards ceremony and an evening gala. In the afterglow of our individual festing, the SunBreak’s SIFF team gathered on the internet to debrief on this year’s event.
Seattle rarely looks as good on film as when Zia Mohajerjasbi’s directing. Having made his name over a decade ago with breakout videos for Blue Scholars and Macklemore, picked up a Stranger Genius Award, and built a resume with short films, he’s returned to familiar geographies for his feature film debut. In collaboration with cinematographer Nicholas Wiesnet, he brings the rich textures of the city to the screen in a poetic narrative about the wayward path of an oversized suitcase on its way from the Central District to East Africa.
The overriding objective of Brettan Hannam’s film of self-discovery is conveying the multifaceted diversity of the Mi’kma’ki people and territory in Nova Scotia. While the plot armature to support that ambition is veers between melodramatic and creaky, it does succeed in presenting a rich array of compelling images and communicating heartfelt feelings.
D.B. Cooper could be almost anyone so he could just as easily be an old man with a limp and a Goofy sweatshirt out on bail for an assault charge named Rodney.
In her feature film debut, Annika Pinske brings an insightful slice-of-life to the screen. Concerned with the intersecting identities of German woman, her nuanced portrait centers on a Clara, a philosophy PhD candidate in Berlin who’s creating a “second act” for herself on the precipice of turning forty.
A dark comedy with plenty of moments to chuckle at, Everybody Hates Johan follows the life of a man, Johan Grande, born in the small town of Titran Norway. This small town had the misfortune of being close to the frontlines of World War II, but lucky for Titran the Grandes had a knack for blowing up bridges… but they also had a knack for rubbing every other townsperson the wrong way.
Some things that we learn from Christoffer Sandler’s sweet-hearted coming-of-age story: there’s apparently no Swedish word for the concept of “easy going” and there are people in Sweden who fall through the social safety net and can’t get their prescriptions filled at the pharmacy. So much for the Scandinavian image of social democracy utopia.
Even though we’re at the halfway point of the 2022 Seattle International Film Festival, there’s still plenty of time to soak up an array of movies leading into the final weekend. Films continue to play all around town as well as online through the SIFF channel. Below, we scrutinized the remaining program and came up with a few movies each that we either recommend or can’t wait to see for ourselves.
“Y.”, the Israeli filmmaker at the center of Nadav Lapid’s semi-autobiographical tale of overboiling frustrations has a lot on his mind. He’s in the the early stages of conceiving a new film about a Palestinian activist that takes inspiration in reaction to an incendiary tweet. His mother, who’s also happens to be his frequent collaborator and screenwriter who also happens to be his mother is gravely ill; and paid appearance in a tiny remote village to show his previous work for the Ministry of Culture has taken him away from both of these more pressing concerns.
