This is it! The last week of the Seattle International Film Festival. Has SIFF saved the best for last? Maybe! Special events are hitting hard and fast, so plan carefully to get your fill of screenings and social activities!
Of note, starting today, SIFF brings the festival to the Kirkland Performance Center for a week, celebrating with a gala presentation of Good Ol’ Boy (8 PM). The movie, about a 10-year-old boy in ’70s suburban America navigating mainstream pop-culture obsession and a father who insists on pushing his Indian heritage on him. The previews looked cute and director Frank Lotito, actor/producer Anjul Nigam, actors Roni Akurati and Samrat Chakrabarti, producer Steve Straka, and cinematographer Thomas Scott Stanton are all scheduled to attend. (Those not wanting to face traffic will miss the party, but can catch the film when it screens on June 5, 2015 at SIFF Cinema Uptown, 8:30 PM)
Wednesday June 3 brings the world premiere of Marco Collins documentary The Glamour & The Squalor to the Egyptian (7:00 PM). The inaugural music director at 107.7 The End, Collins was so hugely influential in breaking alternative acts that he’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Like any good look behind the music, the film’s blurb promises ” unflinching documentary about media fame and addiction, which tracks his rise, fall, and resurrection”. Director Marq Evans, local producers, and Collins himself will be at the screening (given that the screening is on standby, one assumes that the crowd will be stocked with all kinds of local music royalty, from the grunge era and beyond, too). After the Q&A, head over to a party hosted by Adra Boo at Neumos with performances by Sir Mix-A-Lot, Cataldo, Hobosexual, Ayron Jones, and Ruler ($15, tickets still available). Tickets for the second showing (June 5, the Harvard Exit, 4:15PM) are still available.
Finally, Thursday June 4 brings SIFF’s annual “Gay-La”. This year’s glam event includes a screening of Programmer-beloved Tangerine (7:00 PM, the Egyptian) — about “scrappy transgender prostitute besties Sin-Dee and Alexandra on a wild night in L.A”) — followed by a party at Baltic Room with music by Sugar Beat DJ. (Additional screening June 7, 2015 Harvard Exit 6:15 PM)
Aside from all of the parties, this week also includes a ton of great movies, a few of our selections to get you started:
Tony’s Picks:
Beach Town Seattle-based writer/director Erik Hammen mines young romance and humor from DIY indie-band dynamics in an unnamed beach town (played with credibility by Ballard and Georgetown).
- June 2, 2015 SIFF Cinema Uptown 6:30 PM
- June 4, 2015 SIFF Cinema Uptown 4:00 PM
Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll I’m a complete and utter sap for music docs that unearth previously unheard music, and this one–covering Cambodia’s music scene of the 1960s and ’70s, and its near-total destruction by the monstrous Khmer Rouge regime–sounds utterly unmissable.
- June 2, 2015 SIFF Cinema Uptown 9:15 PM
- June 3, 2015 SIFF Cinema Uptown 3:00 PM
Saved from the Flames: A Trip to the Moon and Other Trips Through Time and Space Documentarian Serge Bromberg presents a slew of vintage short films rescued from nitrate disintegration, including a restored print of Georges Melies’ 1902 trailblazer A Trip to the Moon and several other curios seeing the light of day for the first time in decades.
- June 2, 2015 SIFF Cinema Uptown 7:00 PM
Cave of the Spider Women/Cave of the Silken Web SIFF 2015 once again strikes with intriguing archival gems–first, a 1927 silent version of a classic Chinese folktale accompanied by composer Donald Sosin, followed by a wild and colorful 1967 reinterpretation of said folktale from Hong Kong’s prolific Shaw Brothers.
- June 3, 2015 SIFF Cinema Uptown 6:30 PM
Chris’ Picks:
3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets This documentary focuses on the 2012 Florida case where sociopathic monster Michael Dunn shot into a car of four African American teenagers because he thought they were playing their (rap/hip hop) music too loud. This looks like an important film that explores crime/justice and race in America in today’s age. The father of murdered teenager Jordan Davis is scheduled to attend both screenings.
- June 2, 2015 Egyptian 7:00 PM
- June 3, 2015 Kirkland Performance Center 6:00 PM
Next Time I’ll Aim for the Heart Ahh yes, a French film that is set in the late 1970s about a serial killer who murders female hitchhikers. It’s based on the case of Alain Lamare, a police officer assigned to investigate the murders he was committing.
- June 2, 2015 Egyptian 9:45 PM
- June 3, 2015 Kirkland Performance Center 8:30 PM
Josh’s Picks:
Güeros A mother sends her unruly teenager to live with his college-age brother in Mexico City right in the middle of a months-long student strike. Among other things, a search for an idolized rock star ensues, shot in a black and white style simultaneously evocative of 1968 protests and the French new wave.
- June 1, 2015 Harvard Exit 9:00 PM
Virgin Mountain (Fusi) After a dalliance with English language cinema (2008’s The Good Heart), Dagur Kári is back to his Danish/Icelandic film roots (Noi the Albino and Dark Horse — one of my own still enduring SIFF favorites). The title refers to the role created especially for Icelandic sketch comedian Gunnar Jónsson: an overweight recluse whose mother forces him out of the home that they still share so that at least she can get an evening alone for some special adult alone time with her new boyfriend. The occasion for getting him out of the house is dance lessons, so just maybe everyone wins?
- June 2, 2015 Harvard Exit 9:30 PM
- June 7, 2015 Pacific Place 11:00 AM
Keep track of the SunBreak’s SIFF coverage on our SIFF 2015 page, plus news updates and micro-reviews on Twitter @theSunBreak.
