Hope you don’t have too many barbecue of picnic obligations, because as we head into Memorial Day weekend, SIFF is overstuffed with special events.
On Thursday night ShortsFest kicked off and will be running as a series of short attention span film packages all weekend. On the other side of the running time spectrum, the 4K restoration of Marcel Pagnol’s Marseille Trilogy will be presented over the course of the weekend with Marius on Saturday, Fanny on Sunday, and César on Monday (all at 11 am, Pacific Place).
Friday night’s entry in the Face the Music series showcases the many contributions of Native Americans to modern american music with the documentary Rumble: the Indians Who Rocked the World. The screening is followed by a “4th World afterparty”, reception, and gallery viewing at the Paramount. (Tickets required for screening, but party and gallery are free w/RSVP). Friday night is made for party-hopping with an 80s Teen Movie High School Reunion dance party at the Neptune Theater.
Although Chris wasn’t keen on the Hero, there’s no denying the career or charm of its star. Spend An Afternoon with Sam Elliott on Saturday May 27 and stick around to see how you feel about his new film.
For years, popular culture has beeb combatting the unfair stereotype that nuns are “all shun no fun”. This weekend features The Little Hours, in which Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie, and Kate Micucci’s attempt to expose the humor inherent the confines of a Middle Ages convent stocked full of frisky sisters. The Saturday night screening at Pacific Place followed by at party at SAM. If you can’t make it to the party, there’s another screening, just in time for the after-Mass crowd on SUNDAY, MAY 28 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 12:30 PM. Director Jeff Baena, actor/co-producer Aubrey Plaza, producer Liz Destro are scheduled to attend both screenings.
Josh
- The Odyssey. Hop aboard the Calypso and dive under the sea in this Jacques-Yves Cousteau biopic, which covers his tumultuous family life, pioneering oceanography, and ecological activism. Looks a bit like a facts-based version of the Life Aquatic.
- FRIDAY, MAY 26 – Shoreline – 7:30 PM
- SATURDAY, MAY 27 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 6:30 PM
- MONDAY, MAY 29 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 4:00 PM
- Endless Poetry. The second in 87-year-old Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s proposed pentalogy of cinematic memoirs finds the young poet in Santiago, breaking away from his father’s influence, in search of a muse, and beginning “phantasmagorical journey of his self-discovery”.
- MONDAY, MAY 29 – SIFF Cinema Uptown 8:00 PM
- MONDAY, JUNE 5 – AMC Pacific Place – 9:30 PM
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Dean. Comedian Demetri Martin’s directorial debut finds a Brooklyn illustrator dealing with loss and cross-coastal culture-clashes in sunny Los Angeles.
- FRIDAY, MAY 26 – AMC Pacific Place – 7:00 PM
- SATURDAY, MAY 27- AMC Pacific Place – 1:45 PM
Also on my radar: Prom King 2010 (young New Yorker wants to trade Grindr hookups for Hollywood romance), Weirdos (on America’s 200th birthday, Canadian teens hitchhike from one small town to another, confront inconvenient truths), Life in Waves. (Doc about electronic-music pioneer Suzanne Ciani )
Odawni
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The Girl Without Hands. In his first feature-length film, French filmmaker and former illustrator Sébastien Laudenbach tells the story of a lesser known Brothers Grimm fairytale using wispy, colorful, and Impressionistic painterly animation. A girl is sold to the Devil to help her family; she is able to escape but at the cost of losing her hands. Awarded the Grand Prize at Tokyo Anime Festival 2017.
- SATURDAY, MAY 27 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 11:00 AM
- TUESDAY, May 30 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 6:30 PM
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Person to Person. A day in the life of New Yorkers whose lives intertwine in a series of awkward, wiggle-in-your-seat-uncomfortable yet relatable interactions. This deadpan comedy cast includes Michael Cera, Philip Baker Hall, Abbi Jacobson (“Broad City), and unknown (to me) actor Bene Coopersmith — he and his purple button-up shirt are my favorite. Won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, SXSW Film Festival, and Hot Docs.
- SUNDAY, MAY 28 – AMC Pacific Place – 9:30 PM
- TUESDAY, May 30 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 3:30 PM
Also on my radar: Robert Bolle – The Art of Dance (an internationally renowned ballerino selects a dance troupe to perform together at three ancient Italian amphitheatres) and Band Aid (Zoe Lister-Jones’ screenwriter/directorial debut about a squabbling therapist-abandoned couple who try rock therapy, AKA start a band).
Chris
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Going to Brazil. This French film bills itself as a female-response to The Hangover franchise, where hijinks ensues when four childhood friends reconnect at a wedding in Rio and one of them kicks a man attacking her off of a balcony. The four ladies find themselves running from someone called the “Meat King.” The trailer looks bonkers, aka the type of movie I seek out every SIFF.
- FRIDAY, MAY 26 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 8:30 PM
- SATURDAY, MAY 27 – Shoreline – 3:30 PM
- SUNDAY, JUNE 11 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 6:00 PM
- Mellow Mud. A film from Latvia that is about a young woman forced to take on the world after her father dies (and her mother had long abandoned the family). The movie has been cleaning up awards at other prestigious festivals and Elina Vaska has earned many plaudits for her star-making debut.
- SUNDAY, MAY 28 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 5:30 PM (Star Elina Vaska scheduled to attend)
- MONDAY, MAY 29 – Lincoln Square (Bellevue) – 3:15 PM (Star Elina Vaska scheduled to attend)
- FRIDAY, JUNE 2 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 1:00 PM
Also on my radar: A Date for Mad Mary (An Irish is asked to be Maid of Honor at a wedding, but denied a +1. I hope she makes liberal use of the open bar), Terror 5 (I haven’t seen any of the previous four, but the film notes promise “snuff films, illicit sex, cruel bullying, poetic justice, and a horde of the undead” and a guy in KISS makeup), Suffering of Ninko (“Sexually-irresistible Buddhist monk” is an archetype I’ve yet to see in a film, and it has piqued my curiosity around this Japanese film.)
Tony
- City of Ghosts. This doc’s subject matter alone–an exploration of the activist collective RBSS as they risk their lives exposing ISIS’s decimation of the Syrian city of Raqqa–renders it an important view. That it’s directed by Cartel Land Oscar nominee Matthew Heineman pretty much guarantees it’ll be an indisputably solid piece of work.
- FRIDAY, MAY 26 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 6:30 PM (screening on standby: Director Matthew Heineman scheduled to attend)
- SATURDAY, MAY 27 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 2:30 PM (Director Matthew Heineman scheduled to attend)
- Meatball Machine Kodoku. Midnight presentations of batshit-crazy Japanese cyberpunk genre bloodbaths are like heroin to the right kind of SIFF nightcrawler, so the latest orgy of arterial spray and over-over-the-top delirium from Tokyo Gore Police director Yoshihiro Nishimura is sure to be some high-grade China White to some of us who shall remain nameless. Needless to say, any clips attached to this blurb are resolutely NSFW…
- SATURDAY, MAY 27 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 11:55 PM
- SATURDAY, JUNE 3 – Ark Lodge Cinema (Columbia City) – 8:30 PM
- #FilminWA. I’ll likely be hitting the bully pulpit for Northwest filmmaking ‘til the day I die, largely because so much crucial cinema is crafted in our own damned backyard. Of all the sure-to-be-strong shorts programs at SIFF 2017, this is really the one you should see.
- SUNDAY, MAY 28 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 12:00 PM
Also on my radar: Endless Poetry (cited/linked by Josh above. As an ardent Jodorowsky fan and a massive admirer of the first entry of his autobiographical tetralogy, Dance of Reality, I will pretty much throw orphans off cliffs to see this on a big screen), The Osiris Child: Science Fiction Volume One (An exhilarating-looking sci-fi epic that’s NOT a remake or a sequel, from the same country that gave the universe Mad Max? Sold), Terror 5 (cited/linked by Chris above, and it sounds like a skull-rattling spoonful of genre-movie habanero sauce)
Keep track of the SunBreak’s SIFF coverage on our SIFF 2017 page, plus news updates and micro-reviews on Twitter @theSunBreak.
