Ladies and Gentlemen, the SIFF Game is officially and categorically afoot.
For the 42nd time in as many years, the juggernaut that is the Seattle International Film Festival returns to take over Seattle and a fair chunk of greater King County, beginning this Thursday. The full festival lineup’s now on the SIFF website and the Fest’s lovely free glossy guides now officially carpet Starbucks and SIFF venues all over town. It’s time to start assessing, and planning for, SIFF 2016.
SIFF sports a pretty impressive feather in its Opening Night cap Thursday night—namely, Café Society, Woody Allen’s latest. It’ll be fresh from screening at Cannes by the time Seattle audiences get a look, and while it’s not quite the critical home run that the surprisingly well-received Spy was last year, the positive advance reviews run in the majority. One aspect of Opening Night that remains reassuringly consistent, however, will be the Opening Night Red Carpet Walk preceding the film, and the Gala that follows at the Exhibition Hall next door. It’s the most fun you’ll ever have in a building resembling a high school cafeteria.
Rest assured there’ll be plenty of other opportunities to party, courtesy SIFF’s party-happy event organization team. Heck, it’s SIFF 2016’s overriding theme this year, as evinced by the organization’s trailer:
The Centerpiece film this year, Gleason (Clay Tweel’s documentary about New Orleans Saint star Steve Gleason’s battle with neurodegenerative disease), plays at the Egyptian June 4, with the post-screening party once more taking place at the D.A.R Rainier Chapter House, AKA the most fun you’ll ever have in a building resembling an old southern plantation mansion.
The Closing Night Gala starts with a Cinerama screening of the Australian period dramedy The Dressmaker, concluding at the nouveau attic-chic environs of MOHAI for yet more partying. If you’re looking to drink fully of the SIFF party schedule, you may want to consider the SIFF 2016 Gala and Party Pack ($300, $250 for SIFF members), which includes all of the above and then some, along with access to the hosted bar and hors d’oeuvres.
Somewhere between the galas, parties, and special events, there’ll be 421 films (181 features, 75 documentaries, 8 archival presentations, and 153 shorts) from a staggering 85 countries playing during SIFF 2016. An impressive 54 of them (29 features and 25 shorts) will be World Premieres. You’ll practically need a roadmap to get through them all, and that’s why we here at the SunBreak SIFF Collective will be here through the bitter end with advance recommendations and exhaustive roundtables detailing what we loved, hated, and ‘meh’ed over.
Actor Viggo Mortensen will be honored with a SIFF Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film Acting on Saturday, June 11 at 1:30 pm. A screening of Mortensen’s latest film Captain Fantastic follows a Q&A at the SIFF Cinema Egyptian. You can also catch An Afternoon with Molly Shannon (Sunday May 22, 4:3o pm). After the SNL alum/actress finishes her interview, a screening of Other People (one of two SIFF entries starring Shannon) plays at the Egyptian.
If you’d like to get fully prepped for our wide-eyed recommendations and rambling weekly debriefings, the SIFF website allows you to search based on mood. Choose from Creative Streak, Dare, Love, Make Me Laugh!, Open My Eyes, Show Me the World!, Thrill Me!, and Wild, Titillating, and Fantastic! (WTF!). The latter replaces the old Midnight Adrenaline category, and 2016 will see the reassuring tradition of SIFF Midnighters bolstered by some fun tweaks, including a live comedic riff on Ed Wood’s warped cross-dressing classic Glen or Glenda by MST3K vets Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu (May 21) and a B-Movie Bingo Event framed around a screening of Rambu: The Intruder (a mind-broiling Indonesian Rambo knock-off).
And like any ever-morphing thing worth its salt, SIFF 2016 brings other changes. This year, the Fest’s venue tendrils extend to Shoreline (the Shoreline Community College Theater), Ballard (The Majestic Bay Theatres), and Columbia City (Ark Lodge Cinemas), as well as the usual Seattle, Bellevue, Renton, and Kirkland haunts. And SIFF ’16 sees the introduction of a special four-day event, SIFFX, a festival within the Festival celebrating new technological advances in cinematic storytelling (Virtual Reality, 360-degree Cinema, and Augmented Reality). And to definitively get The SunBreak’s now-yearly tradition/contractually-obligated lament out of the way, as of this writing SIFF will still not be offering a dedicated SIFF app this year, either.
Price-wise, there’s something for most everyone. If you’re looking just to get your feet wet, SIFF offers ticket 6-packs ($66/$60 for members) and 20-packs ($200/180 for members). Either option will usually save you money from single-ticket purchases. Plenty of Full-Series pass options can be sought here.
Keep track of the SunBreak’s SIFF coverage on our SIFF 2016 page, plus news updates and micro-reviews on Twitter @theSunBreak.