SIFF 2017: Picks for Week 3 (June 5 – June 8)

 

Here we go: SIFF’s twenty-five day marathon enters the homestretch this week. Along with a calendar full of films, the next few days also include a bunch of special events.

Tonight, a screening of Douglas Trumbull’s 1983 film Brainstorm (Christopher Walken invents a brain recorder, troubles ensue) is followed by a panel discussion with the director and others from the arts and sciences about the emerging role of AI and VR in storytelling.

On Wednesday, pay Tribute to Anjelica Huston who will be in town to receive the Seattle International Film Festival Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting. The event also features the world premiere of her latest, Trouble, which will  be followed by an onstage interview with film clips from her career.

Thursday night brings two distinctly different options. First, the silent classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde will be accompanied by a spooky original live soundtrack by Austin’s The Invincible Czars at Triple Door. Slightly more modern and raucous: this year’s Gay-la features NYC nightlife icon documentary Susanne Bartsch: On Top. The event starts at the Egyptian with a film and avant garde drag competition (judged by film directors Anthony&Alex and SIFF’s interim Artistic Director, Beth Barrett) and continues with an afterparty at the Baltic Room.

Aside from these events, here are a few films that we’re looking forward to over the next few days.

Josh

• Zoology. When an introverted administrator at the zoo inexplicably grows a tail, she comes out of her shell and romance blooms. Sounds delightfully weird. Or at least worth a look.
  • TUESDAY, JUNE 6 – Ark Lodge Cinemas – 8:45 PM
  • SATURDAY, JUNE 10 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 6:30 PM
• Paris Prestige. French rappers Hamé and Ekoué (The Rumor) take a stab at filmmaking with this family drama about brothers — one freshly out of jail and aiming to make a name for himself — with differing opinions about the future of their family’s Pigalle bar.
  • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7 – AMC Pacific Place – 9:30 PM
  • FRIDAY, JUNE 9 – SIFF Cinema Uptown  – 12:00 PM
    (Directors Ekoué Labitey and Hamé Bourokba scheduled to attend both screenings)

Also on my radar: Pow Wow (Robinson Devor’s documentary about a 1908 manhunt for a Native American in the Coachella valley), Have A Nice Day (Animated Chinese noir about a construction worker who steals a briefcase full of cash to pay for his fiancee’s plastic surgery), plus a final screening of SunBreak-beloved feature Rocketmen.

Odawni

• Pavlensky – Man and Might. Russian filmmaker Irene Langemann directs this documentary about Pyotr Andreyevich Pavlensky, an extreme activist artist whose demonstrations include sewing his lips shut and nailing his scrotum to Russia’s Red Square. Need I say more?
  • MONDAY, JUNE 5 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 6:00 PM
  • TUESDAY, JUNE 6 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 3:00 PM
• I Dream in Another Language. Ernesto Contreras brings us a film about a linguistics student who travels deep into the jungles of Veracruz to seek out and reunite the two last living speakers of a dying language; who haven’t spoken to one another in fifty years (Recipient of Sundance 2017 Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic and FICG 2017 Best Performances – Leads).
  • MONDAY, JUNE 5 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 9:30 PM

Also on my radar: Diamond Island (A Cambodian teenager leaves the countryside for a job in the city. Truthfully, the colorful and dreamy cinematography and electro-classical soundtrack of the trailer are what drew me to this film); The Door (A Chinese man finds a door to an alternate dimension – another version of his life that holds all he’s lost and given up).

 

Tony

• Kills on Wheels. A Hungarian coming-of-age drama about two physically-disabled adolescents who befriend a wheelchair-bound hitman? Judging from the trailers, I can only say: Take my money (or at least my SIFF pass), please.
  • ○ TUESDAY, JUNE 6 – Pacific Place – 9:30 PM
  • ○ FRIDAY, JUNE 9 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 12:30 PM
• Wallflower. Seattle-based director Jagger Gravning uses the Capitol Hill Massacre of 2006 as a springboard for his locally-shot drama. Gravning knew some of the survivors, so his personal connection will (I hope) make this more catharsis than exploitation. 
  • TUESDAY, JUNE 6 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 7:00 PM
  • THURSDAY, JUNE 8 – SIFF Cinema – 3:30 PM
    (Director Jagger Gravining, Producer John Comerford, and other cast and crew scheduled to attend both screenings)

Also on my radar: Chameleon (last screening for the buzzed-about Chilean thriller); Love and Duty (archival presentation of a 1931 Chinese drama).

Chris:

• Wallflower. Every good festival should have one movie that makes its audience a bit uncomfortable, and this is SIFF’s. Everyone I had talked to over the past few weeks has expressed some reservations about director Jagger Gravning’s docudrama based on the 2006 Capitol Hill massacre. It’s piqued my curiosity.
  • TUESDAY, JUNE 6 – SIFF Cinema Egyptian – 7:00 PM
  • THURSDAY, JUNE 8 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 3:30 PM
• On the Road. Director Michael Winterbottom’s second new movie to hit SIFF (after The Trip to Spain) makes him, probably, the most prolific filmmaker at SIFF this year. This is billed as a documentary/fictitious romance that follows the indie band Wolf Alice across Europe.
  • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 7:00 PM

Also on my radar: Kills on Wheels (Hungarian action-comedy about two disabled men getting caught up with the mob); Zoology (Russian woman grows a tail. That’s enough for me); and Backpack Full of Cash (Sarah Mondale’s Matt Damon-narrated documentary about public and private schools).

Keep track of the SunBreak’s SIFF coverage on our SIFF 2017 page, plus news updates and micro-reviews on Twitter @theSunBreak.