Sunday, April 30, 2023

Seattle International Film Festival: May 11 - 21


Looking to the international festival circuit, there is abundant evidence that the world of cinema is not only expanding and developing in its style, content and form, but thriving. Reviews from the recent string of years since pandemic restrictions were lifted have seen reporting coming back from Cannes Film Festival, where "A Great Festival went Pear Shaped, Awarding the Palme d’Or to Ruben Östlund’s "Triangle of Sadness", or in the case of Berlin, where last year's festival it was seen "Women Dominate Berlin Film Festival Awards as 'Alcarràs' wins Golden Bear", and this year, where the festival was one of, "Prestige, Politics and Ethical Starpower". Then there's the two-year knockout of Venice, where both 2021 and last year produced historic festivals, even in the wake of the pandemic, setting the barometer, "As the Film Industry Aimed for a Return to Normality". Smaller but no less notable festivals in Locarno and Rotterdam presented vanguard work, detailed in RogerEbert.com's "Rotterdam International Film Festival Highlights", and the "Locarno Film Festival Returned to Pre-Pandemic Glory". Domestically these were then reflected in the programming seen in Toronto and New York which followed. All of the above were shared content agendas that once had prominence within SIFF. Those times though, are now many many years in the past. Very little of the above can be seen corresponding to the programming or general curatorial ethos of the Northwest's largest film festival. Annually, looking to San Francisco and Vancouver, one bears witness to these institutions programming festivals of a caliber that SIFF has seemingly un-learned. Even our neighbors in the relatively rural setting of the Orcas Island Film Festival have annually put together a significantly more incisive assembly of films.

This year's program continues the downward trend that began a decade ago with the painfully omissive lineups we saw in 2010 and 2011. What followed was a short string of years that suggested relief from the lackluster programming described above, which waned a bit in 2012 and expressed a further positive direction in 2013. For the 2014 festival, their 40th Anniversary was celebrated with SIFF's strongest programming in almost a decade, suggesting a renewed vision for the festival. Both 2017 and 2018 also saw a nominal return to the strength of seasons past. Those years marked a trend away from the previously seen glut of middle-ground postmodern contemporary romances and knowingly-clever dramas seemingly conceived for the Sundance and SXSW sects. One can speculate that this middle road approach to programming, clearly expressed by the programming of the 2015 festival and 2016 after it, has been conceived to entice some imagined Northwest demographic out of their suburban hobbles and inner-city condos. One can't help but consider these factors alongside the changing economic and cultural landscape of Seattle and what may be SIFF's conception of programming that corresponds to these changes. After the 2020 edition was cancelled outright due to the conditions of the pandemic, the 2021 edition shifted to online virtual exhibitions, in 2022 the Seattle International Film Festival returned to in-person programming for the first time since 2019. Until this most recent decade, Seattle International Film Festival existed as a focal point of visionary cinema curatorialship, with the resources, funds and the legacy of a hugely influential institution. Yet due to SIFF's ongoing detachment from the values and perspective of the larger international festival circuit, a majority of the films listed below in this year's lineup are simply of interest, rather than what could be considered essential viewing. Such is the festival that we have now.

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Thursday, May 11
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7:00 PM - Celine Song "Past Lives"
Paramount Theatre 

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Friday, May 12
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3:30 PM - C.J. Obasi "Mami Wata: A West Afrikan Folklore"
Ark Lodge Cinemas


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Friday, May 12
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9:00 PM - Dominik Moll "The Night of the 12th"
SIFF Cinema Uptown

https://www.siff.net/festival/the-night-of-the-12th

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Saturday, May 13
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11:00 AM - Felix Van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch "The Eight Mountains"
SIFF Cinema Egyptian

https://www.siff.net/festival/the-eight-mountains

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Saturday, May 13
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2:00 PM - KD Davison "Jonas Mekas: Fragments of Paradise"
SIFF Film Center

https://www.siff.net/festival/fragments-of-paradise

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Saturday, May 13
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7:00 PM - Charlotte Le Bon "Falcon Lake"
SIFF Film Center

https://www.siff.net/festival/falcon-lake
 
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Saturday, May 13
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9:00 PM - Sam Pollard & Ben Shapiro "Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes"
SIFF Cinema Uptown

https://www.siff.net/festival/max-roach-the-drum-also-waltzes

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Saturday, May 13
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11:59 PM - Matthias Hoene "The Last Exit"
SIFF Cinema Egyptian


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Sunday, May 14
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5:30 PM - Manuella Martelli “Chile 76”
Ark Lodge Cinemas

https://www.siff.net/festival/chile-76

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Sunday, May 14
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9:00 PM - Ira Sachs "Passages"
SIFF Cinema Egyptian

https://www.siff.net/festival/passages

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Monday, May 15
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8:45 PM - Martin Skovbjerg "Copenhagen Does Not Exist"
AMC Pacific Place


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Tuesday, May 16
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6:00 PM - Doug Ing "Alan Lau @ Work"
Ark Lodge Cinemas

https://www.siff.net/festival/alan-work

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Tuesday, May 16
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9:00 PM - Rodrigo Sorogoyen “Beasts”

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Wednesday, May 17
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6:15 PM - Clyde Petersen "Earth: Even Hell Has its Heroes”
SIFF Cinema Egyptian


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Friday, May 19
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1:00 PM -  Chie Hayakawa "Plan 75"
SIFF Cinema Uptown


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Friday, May 19
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3:30 PM - Keiichi Hara "Lonely Castle in the Mirror"
SIFF Cinema Egyptian


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Friday, May 19
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8:30 PM - Brillante Mendoza "Feast"
Ark Lodge Cinemas

https://www.siff.net/festival/feast

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Saturday, May 20
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11:59 PM - Marie Alice Wolfszahn "Mother Superior"
SIFF Cinema Egyptian


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Sunday, May 21
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2:00 PM - Margarethe von Trotta "Journey into the Desert"
SIFF Cinema Egyptian


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