Shelton (Image: NWFF)
Capitol Hill’s Northwest Film Forum will honor Seattle filmmaker Lynn Shelton — a director who put so much of the city including Capitol Hill and Central District neighborhoods into her works — with a special live broadcast Thursday:
Director Lynn Shelton passed away suddenly on Friday, May 15th, 2020. A long-time friend of Northwest Film Forum and one of the Seattle film community’s brightest lights, she will be deeply missed.
On Thursday, May 21st, Lynn had planned to chat along to a livestream of her film We Go Way Back on NWFF’s Facebook Videos page. This event will still take place, with the accompanying live chat repurposed as a space to share memories of Lynn.
The livestream event and screening of Shelton’s We Go Way Back will show on the NWFF Facebook page at 6 PM Thursday, May 21st.
Shelton, 54, found wide success with a string of stories about relationships and human quirks in productions often set and filmed around the central city. She opened 2009’s Humpday with a joint NYC-Capitol Hill debut at the now long gone Harvard Exit theater:
A good showing this weekend will help propel the flick into a wide national release: “The more butts I can get into seats this opening weekend the more the likelihood that this film will open in some multiplex in Podunk, U.S.A.”
The director’s work hit CHS’s radar from time to time as neighbors saw production trucks arrive and film crews swing into motion. In 2012, we found Shelton at work in the parking lot of the Central District’s Grocery Outlet, a shoot that became part of her film Touchy Feely.
@Mikeattebery TF was pretty much all shot in the CD and Capitol Hill.. a little bit in Laurelhurst, Fremont, and down at LoFi.
— Lynn Shelton (@lynnsheltonfilm) August 26, 2013
We encountered a Shelton production again on a frosty night in 2013 as she turned E Pike at 11th Ave into a scene for Lucky Them. CORRECTION: Sorry! As folks have pointed out in comments, Lucky Them wasn’t a Shelton film. Sorry for the error.
Seattle filmmaker Megan Griffiths says Thursday’s streaming of We Go Way Back will transition from a showcase of the film to a remembrance of the filmmaker: “The intention was for Lynn to commandeer the comments section with stories from the set, but in her absence, we’d like to use the space as a place for this community to come together and remember Lynn. Please join.”
You can learn more about the event and supporting NWFF here.
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Shelton’s passing is a heartbreaking loss to Seattle and to filmmaking worldwide. Her star was on a steady trajectory upwards (though she had already accomplished so much).
She didn’t make “Lucky Them,” however, as you note in the article and in the photo caption. Her friend, colleague, and another great indie film director, Megan Griffiths, made that movie. Some of the crew overlapped, but it wasn’t a film made by Shelton.
BTW, “Lucky Them” is a fabulous Seattle film, a time capsule of a bit of our cultural history.
Just a clarification: Lucky Them was actually directed by Lynn’s good friend Megan Griffiths.
The following year, Lynn filmed many scenes for her film Touchy Feely in Capitol Hill and the Central Area:
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2012/04/lynn-shelton-indie-film-shooting-underway-around-hill-central-district/
sorry for the error!