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.

Seattle Film Critics Society has been hard at work bringing attention to Pacific Northwest filmmakers and productions over the last several years. …

Directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson leverage the chemistry of a real-life family in crafting a drama about a working-class Chicago-area household. When we first meet the family in a principal’s office as they’re still reeling from the aftershocks of an unspecified trauma and the mounting stress of a looming lawsuit.

These are three films Morgen was incredibly eager to view and it ended up being a mixed bag of contentment and disappointment. She talks of a French meta-film about film, an over-the-top South Korean dark comedy, and an intimate portrait of male prostitution.

With a smattering of films Morgen was able to see during SIFF, she tells us why these three, that are all set to have a wider release or show at a SIFF cinema near you, are worthy of your time… or at least strange enough to experience for yourself.

The in-person portion of the Seattle International Film festival closed this weekend — first with a Gala screening of Sing Sing and a party at MOHAI on Saturday, then with the Golden Space Needle Brunch on Sunday morning. The festival continues through the weekend with about 50 titles still playing online, but we took this transition from theatrical to home-viewing to catch our breaths and share our experience with this year’s big birthday event.

Two SIFF features with different approaches to portraying the transformative power of theater, be it in the carceral system or the prison of one’s own heart.

A trio of imperfect films that nevertheless give viewers entry into the past and present of unfamiliar parts of our world.