The long-running SIFF Seattle International Film Festival will return in May with screenings across the city including on Capitol HIll. In the meantime, a brand new film festival will debut this week in the neighborhood.

With screenings at SIFF Cinema Egyptian, Northwest Film Forum, West Hall at Century Ballroom, and Queer/Bar, The Make Believe Seattle Film Festival is a very Capitol Hill event.

“Genre film festivals thrive in highlighting the truly indescribable – telling stories that refuse to be contained within typical cinematic categories like comedy or drama, but that exist in the murky boundaries in-between,” Make Believe Seattle film programmer Kasi Gaarenstroom says about the new festival. “These stories push narratives and beliefs and are a catharsis to many that may not see themselves in mainstream media.”

Make Believe Seattle will feature 31 programs, including narrative features, documentaries, mid-length films, short film blocks, the Be Kind, Rewind series of archival and anniversary screenings, and the inaugural Imagination Award presented to celebrated boundary-pushing filmmaker Guy Maddin (THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD, MY WINNIPEG, THE FORBIDDEN ROOM). A cinephile game night, live podcasts, filmmaker Q&As, and parties round out the film festival lineup that also boasts two World Premieres and seven West Coast Premieres, organizers say.

The festival is the creation of Three Dollar Bill Cinema managing director Billy Ray Brewton.

“Make Believe is all the things I have ever wanted in a genre film festival,” Brewton said in the announcement. “There are few areas of the country more steeped in the mysterious and fantastical than the Pacific Northwest. We plan to harness that energy coursing through this region’s veins to celebrate the many facets of the genre film category.”

Make Believe Seattle runs March 23rd to 26th on screens across Capitol Hill. Learn more and buy tickets at makebelieveseattle.com.

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