As usual, I’m woefully behind on developing a Grand Unified SIFF Strategy this year, but my one of my favorite obsessions in terms of getting a sense of the festival is to take a deep data dive into the Programmer Picks. Every year, the people who stock the festival with films dish which ones they’d most strongly recommend (Managing Director Mary Bacarella continues her tradition of silence).
And this year, just under half (47%) of the 281 non-SECRET films made the cut as a “Programmer Pick”, garnering one mention from at least one of the programmers and fifteen pages of listings on the SIFF website. (Note, all of this counts Andy Spletzer’s “want to see” as recommendations, because who wants to deal with half-picks?)
As far as “Mood” goes, the programmers were exceptionally democratic in their picks, with the often-challenging “Open My Eyes” seeing only 35% selected while the hodgepodge “Sci-Fi and Fact” would up with 60% of its films on a programmer’s must-see list.
Overall, 135 films wound up as Programmer Picks. In narrowing down your selections, this is still probably far too many movies for the somewhat sane among us to actually watch during the festival, we can at least get a general sense of the programmer zeitgeist by processing the blurbs for all of the films that secured at least one mention into a handy word-cloud:
And although all the films are loved, and some are feted with galas, some films are ever-so-slightly more loved than others: 33 were picked by at least two programmers, and
All SIFF selections are special, but some are more special than others. Pie charts for entertainment purposes only.
Amidst the young world premieres, teenage masterpieces, terrifying intimate pioneers, mysterious shorts, and hilarious interviews, an entirely manageable eleven films found their way onto at least three programmers’ lists:
Tied for “first place” with four “votes” each are: Chuck Norris vs. Communism (clandestine dubbed VHS tapes take down the evil empire); The Nightmare (The director of Room 237 documents the terror of sleep paralysis); Phoenix (Holocaust survivor with a new face returns home to identity issues, intrigue, romance, and thrills); Romeo Is Bleeding (Bay Area Poet stages an ambitious local gang-themed Shakespeare adaptation to save an arts program); andThe Wolfpack (shut-in Manhattanite brothers experience the outside world almost entirely through film, Grand Jury Winner at Sundance). And with a still impressive three votes each, the runners up include:
Eisenstein in Guanajuato (perennial programmer favorite Peter Greenaway gives the biopic treatment to the Russian filmmaker’s sexual awakening in 1931 Mexico); Goodnight Mommy (another point for shut-ins and plastic surgery finds two horrified boys and a recuperating mother in a country home); The Great Alone (Documentary about multiple Iditarod winner Lance Mackey); My Skinny Sister (two pre-teen sisters, one anorexic, the other not); Slow West (In another Sundance Grand Jury winner, Michael Fassbender guides a lovelorn teen across a violent post Civil War landscape); and Tangerine (transgender prostitutes on a wild night in Los Angeles, not to be confused with 2014 foreign language film nominee, Tangerines).
Aside from being an eclectic collection of films to seed your festival viewing bracket, keeping these films on your list also give you some insight into the collective tastes of the SIFF programming hive mind, as well as something to chat about if you run into any bleary eyed SIFF staffers at parties.
