Tag Archives: film

In-person, and online, the Seattle International Film Festival returns — Capitol Hill’s Egyptian has survived to help screen it

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SIFF is coming up on the end of the ten-year lease it forged in 2014 to keep the screen lit at Capitol Hill’s Egyptian Theatre. What started with a triumphant overhaul that kept the Egyptian a working cinema has been a rougher showing in recent years as SIFF and theaters across the city tried to survive the pandemic.

This week SIFF’s signature event, the Seattle International Film Festival, returns for its 48th iteration to present 262 films, a slimmed-down number compared to past years and a slimmed down version of the event. Kicking off Thursday night, the 10-day festival will screen films at a handful of local theaters including Capitol Hill’s SIFF Egyptian Cinema, which will host a number of headlining films.

After SIFF was canceled entirely in 2020 due to the emergence of COVID-19 and subsequently hosted online in 2021, this year will be a return to form in some regards– though it will feature the first in-person screenings and festivities in two years, the 2022 festival will be conducted in a hybrid format, with over 100 films being made available for streaming on the SIFF Channel.

Though partially in-person once again, the offerings this year are much more streamlined than usual– past festivals have generally boasted over 400 films, far more than the 262 coming this time around. Around two-thirds of the films shown this year were created by either first- or second-time filmmakers, and a similar amount may not screen commercially in the U.S. after their screening at the festival. Continue reading →

Director who guided it through pandemic and CHOP delivers Capitol Hill’s Northwest Film Forum to its next step: finding a new home it can own

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NWFF: “Rest assured: we will be in Capitol Hill for at least a couple more years, but the pandemic has illuminated the need for organizations like ours to secure ownership of their venues. We have seen arts organizations lose their spaces all around the city. In each year of our 26-year history, we have welcomed more audiences and offered more services; we want to continue that work well into the future.”

Hua

The art house chain theaters disappeared long ago. Now, Capitol Hill’s remaining independent and nonprofit screens are struggling through the pandemic to stay lit including on 12th Ave where the neighborhood’s Northwest Film Forum has started a search for a new home. First, the organization must find a new leader.

After leading the organization through months of pandemic restrictions and its time within the borders of the CHOP protest zone, executive director Vivian Hua has announced plans to step down from the nonprofit film and arts center to start 2022.

“It has been a wonderful adventure to serve an arts organization which intentionally takes action towards evolving for the better,” Hua said in the announcement. “l have been heartened to welcome new audiences and hear personal stories from diverse creators who feel the Film Forum has become a home for them. Being NWFF’s first POC Executive Director has also been a significant milestone.”

Earlier this month, Hua told CHS the NWFF’s new capital campaign is the start of what should be about a two year process of finding a new home for the organization.

“We’ve outgrown the space, especially in terms of education,” Hua said, saying the forum is interested in long term stability. “Owning the space is loosely the goal,” the filmmaker and writer said. Continue reading →

Local Sightings 2021: You can attend an in-person film festival on Capitol Hill

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(Image: Thin Skin)

This summer, CHS checked in with the unique mix of Capitol Hill area movie theaters to learn more about how the venues were approaching reopening after months of COVID-19 restrictions. The answer? In slow motion with caution and safety.

On 12th Ave, the Hill’s Northwest Film Forum is tip toeing into the new world of pandemic-era theatergoing this week with screenings as part of its annual Local Sightings film festival. Masks and proof of vaccination are required: Continue reading →

Slow motion: For Capitol Hill-area movie theaters, reopening means taking time to do it right

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We’re still a long way from scenes like this inside the Northwest Film Forum. In the meantime, you and friends can rent the theater for your own screenings for $350 a night (Image: Northwest Film Forum)

By Jethro Swain

Prior to the pandemic, Capitol Hill’s access to three flesh and blood, living, breathing movie theaters has been a cultural blessing for this day and age. With the state’s economic reopening and the growing evidence that powerful variants of the COVID-19 virus could be impactful even in a city with 73% of its population now vaccinated, Capitol Hill-area theaters are taking a slow and steady approach to reopening.

The Northwest Film Forum, the 12th Ave nonprofit film and arts center has continued its mission through the pandemic using online screenings to continue their showings.

“We’re looking at mid-September for reopening, which is a week before our Local Sightings Film Festival,” said Northwest Film Forum’s executive director Vivian Hua. The Local Sightings Film Festival will run from September 16-26. “That will be the big reopening, but we’ll have a lighter reopening a week before that with a standard film run,” said Hua.

Hua said that the theater is working on upgrades to the venue, as well as hiring new staff for training to get the theater ready for reopening. “Also upgrading our accessibility stuff, our signage, things on the outside that people might not care about until they come into our space which will hopefully look and feel a little bit different,” said Hua. Continue reading →

For second year, the Translations: Seattle Transgender Film Festival moves online

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The F*ck F*scism short film collection is part of this year’s Translations festival (Image: F*ck F*scism)

With plans coming together for a safe, in-person Pride celebration on Capitol Hill later this summer, another neighborhood celebration of LGBTQ+ culture will mark its second year as a virtual event.

Hopefully by 2022, we can gather in theaters again but the 2021 edition of the Translations: Seattle Transgender Film Festival from Capitol Hill cinema nonprofit Three Dollar Bill will begin Thursday on phones, laptops, and home theaters near you: Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Northwest Film Forum centers 2020 Local Sightings festival on underrepresented BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists

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From Danny Denial’s CONDITIONER

By Lena Mercer

Though its home screens at 12th Ave’s Northwest Film Forum remain dark, the Local Sightings Film Festival will feature over 135 short films from the Pacific Northwest from September 18th to the 27th. The ten-day event will be fully online this year to accommodate COVID-19 pandemic gathering restrictions. In an effort to maintain affordability during the economic woes of the pandemic all festival passes and programs are available on a sliding scale.

In 2020, Local Sightings has a theme that will resonate after a summer of protests and the nearby CHOP as it “centers BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists” and examines “how film and mediamakers traditionally underrepresented in mainstream media hold perspectives which are vital to furthering the important conversations of the current moment.”

Local filmmaker Danny Denial says that kind of space is something that BIPOC and LGBTQ+ have been fighting for.

“It feels like each movement or wave such as this gets us one step closer. I love that NWFF is committing to that initiative and elevating the artists in that ‘othered’ category.” Continue reading →

2020 Seattle Black Film Festival streams this weekend

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Delayed and moved online by the COVID-19 crisis, the Seattle Black Film Festival begins Friday with a streamed schedule of screenings and events. The delay makes for a timely arrival of Langston’s annual festival after weeks of Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle and also means a busy weekend for film as the city gets a slow, cooler start start to summer.

No tickets are required to participate in all festival events, but donations to Langston are encouraged. You can find a full schedule and more information at langstonseattle.org.

While the online experience might lack some of the social aspects of attending the festival in person, an online film festival can match much of the urgency of making your way through a packed schedule of screenings and speakers. The event is streamed as a live festival — not an on demand archive: Continue reading →

Northwest Film Forum remembers director Lynn Shelton with We Go Way Back stream and chat

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Lynn Shelton

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. Continue reading →

2020 edition of Translations brings Seattle’s transgender film festival online

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Closing night film So Pretty shows Sunday, May 10th

Seattle’s Pride is moving online in 2020. The city’s transgender film festival — now in its 15th year — is, too.

The 2020 edition of the Translations festival, organized by Capitol Hill film nonprofit Three Dollar Bill Cinema, opens Thursday — on small screens across the neighborhood and the world:

Translations: Seattle Transgender Online Film Festival is a groundbreaking film festival that provides the Pacific Northwest with a venue for films by, for, and about transgender, non-binary, and gender-diverse people and the issues facing the community. Launched in 2006, Translations is one of only a few transgender film festivals in the world and places emphasis on visibility and positive representations.

With COVID-19 restrictions shutting down real-world venues, the film festival will brings its works direct to “stay at home” fans. Tickets are being sold at threedollarbillcinema.org/translations on a sliding $0 to $25 scale or you can buy a festival pass for $75. All proceeds go to support Three Dollar Bill.

Continue reading →

Celebrate the neighborhood’s arts — and your seventh week of COVID-19 ‘stay home’ — with the Capitol Hill Arts District Streaming Film Festival

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Photographic Center NW & CD Forum opens the festival Wednesday night

COVID-19 has taken its toll on Seattle artists and performers — Many rely on Capitol Hill’s thriving nightlife for gigs and income. With live performances and gatherings on hold, many creatives are suddenly out of work. A new streaming film festival is hoped to bring some of that work and energy into homes around Seattle and the world while raising money to help artists make ends meet.

The Capitol Hill Arts District Streaming Film Festival starts Wednesday and runs through May 3rd featuring a dozen Capitol Hill arts organizations. Facilitated by the Northwest Film Forum, the event is free to all, but purchasing sliding scale festival passes are encouraged. All proceeds will go to the COVID-19 Artists Trust Relief Fund.

https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/event/capitol-hill-arts-district-streaming-festival-2020/

“Given all of the circumstances around COVID-19, with artists really being displaced and out of work, and a lot of people having a difficult time with this, we thought this would be just an excellent opportunity to provide that platform for artists to showcase their work, to provide resources for them, and to connect them with engaging audiences,” said Terry Novak, chair of Capitol Hill Arts District and executive director of Photographic Center Northwest. “I’m very proud of the district and the work that we do, and we’re just happy that we have the resources and the talented team to be putting something together like this,” Continue reading →