The Local Sightings Film Festival kicked off on Friday night at the Northwest Film Forum. It’s now the twentieth one of those things. A cursory look at my Facebook feed indicates a good time was had by all. The festival dedicated to films (and more!) runs through Saturday, September 30. For me, it gets into mid-season form early in this upcoming week with lots of things I’m very excited for, or have enjoyed already and recommend you check out. With the offerings of local films from SIFF this year being uncharacteristically modest, this is one of the best opportunities to check out independent films from the Pacific Northwest.
Here is a handful of things I’m recommending checking out, but you can find more on the Local Sightings website.
Monday, September 25: Hype! (7:00pm at the Egyptian Theater)
- The ground-breaking 1996 documentary from director Doug Pray was the first overview of the Seattle music scene from the 1990s I had ever seen, and it remains one of my favorite rock docs twenty years later. The movie isn’t just a document to how Seattle introduced grunge to the rest of the world, but a piece that captures a music scene still mourning Kurt Cobain and still not sure of how it’s supposed to handle the sudden fame and exposure (and major label cash).
The screening, at the Egyptian Theater, will be preceded by an introduction by famous Seattle DJ Marco Collins and a performance by the Schmidtheads, described as “a spin-off of legendary late ‘80s proto-grunge band The Thrown Ups.” After the screening, a Q&A is scheduled, with the filmmakers, plus Mark Arm (of Mudhoney, still Seattle’s mightiest rock band), Steve Fisk, Charles Peterson, and a bunch more grunge luminaries. Tickets and more info can be found here.
Wednesday, September 27: Dyna Does Dressage (7:00pm at Northwest Film Forum)
I had no idea that a mule has never competed in the US Dressage Finals until Heart B. Dyna (ridden by Laura Hermanson) did it in 2014 (though what I actually do know about dressage could fit inside of a coffee cup and still have plenty of room for milk and sugar). Short for a feature length documentary (just under an hour), Dyna Does Dressage is a documentary from Seattle filmmakers Sarah R. Crowe and Amy Enser. It’s an entertaining (and informative!) documentary about how Hermanson and Dyna infiltrated the stuffy dressage world. Hermanson makes a perfect subject: resilient, witty, driven, plucky, and has overcome more than her share of adversity. Only an asshole would root against her.
Thursday, September 28: 6 Dynamic Laws for Success (in Life, Love, and Money) (7:00pm at Northwest Film Forum)
- 6 Dynamic Laws is a clever and arty modern noir (even filmed in glorious black and white) about an ex-car salesman name Ulysses T. Lovin who finds what he’s led to believe is a message embedded inside of a self-help book that will lead him to the jackpot of a long ago bank robbery that didn’t quite go according to plan. It all happens when he lets a mysterious figure into his home and convinces him the money is in Ulysses’ house. The pacing is excellent as the movie moves briskly in its 92 minutes (told as it moves through the book of middlebrow wisdom), and I love stories where ordinary shmucks (not unlike myself) find themselves in situations way out of their depths.
Thursday, September 28: Rocketmen: The Series (7:15pm at Northwest Film Forum)
- When Rocketmen: The Series made its world premiere at SIFF earlier this year, I wrote thus:
Likely the most anticipated local film to play at the Seattle International Film Festival this year is not actually a film at all. It’s a comedy web-series called Rocketmen, from director Webster Crowell and producer and co-star Alycia Delmore, and it’s about the Department of Municipal Rocketry, a fictitious Works Progress Administration jobs program that has inexplicably passed through the federal budget largely undetected since the end of the Cold War and its workers mostly just dawn rockets on their back and wear uniforms and reassure civilians that if there was a Communist attack, they would be ready.
…
It’s all great fun, and the series itself is very funny. The idea of a New Deal-era program sneaking its way through the federal budget, past its point of relevance, but continuing to put uniformed men with rockets on their backs to work was a hilarious idea to me. It was delightful to see that the execution was as funny as the premise. Thus far, Rocketmen: The Series is the SIFF entry that has given me the most pleasure. There are plenty of laughs throughout the series, and the cast is populated with familiar faces from the Seattle arts community. It also explores unemployment and the government’s role in keeping what is basically a Keynesian program in existence while it has outlived its purpose.
I very much endorse checking out this very funny webseries shown in feature-film form when it screens at the NWFF this week.
Thursday, September 28: Semi-Iconic: The Ballad of Dick Rossetti (9:00pm at Northwest Film Forum)
- For as long as the state of Washington has allowed me to operate a motor vehicle, 107.7 KNDD has been where the radio dial has most likely been found. Dick Rossetti was the first DJ that I remember becoming a fan of on my own. I didn’t know much about him then, just that he was a funny guy whose show was on when I had to go to work and that there were a few times where I narrowly averted accidents because of something he said or did on the air that I found funny. Semi-Iconic decent is a good look at his life and times, from his upbringing, talking his way into a job on the air, playing in some decent (but unheralded) bands. One quibble: the trailer shows a famous rock star that I am very much not a fan of upset with Rossetti and it doesn’t go into detail of what it was that made him so upset.
Also, in response to Semi-Iconic, this happened, and I think it’s very funny:
Friday, September 29: “The Benefits of Gusbandry” and “Northern Belles” (shorts as part of the “Gems of the Web” package) (7:15pm at Northwest Film Forum)
- Two webseries that I have enjoyed in the past are brought together in this shorts package airing Friday evening. “Northern Belles” is a Seattle series starring the very funny comedians Maddie Downes and Bela De Campos. It’s ostensibly about two friends – one perfectionist, one not – who navigate Seattle in their twenties. It’s often very funny and occasionally raunchy. I love it. NWFF is showing episode 2 on Friday night. You can get caught up with one, below.
“The Benefits of Gusbandry” is another hit webseries, this one from Portland genius Alicia J. Rose, and it focuses on the friendship of a man and woman, one gay, one straight, so sexual attraction is removed from the equation. The second season will be world premiered at Local Connections, and that’s a good place to restart the series with the New York Times raving about the end of season one: “The season finale is a delirious 16 minute masterpiece of pretension puncturing.”
Friday, September 29: Danger Diva (9:00pm at Northwest Film Forum)
- Molly Sides, frontwoman of the awesome local rock band Thunderpussy, stars in this “locally-made cyberpunk musical thriller.” I haven’t seen it yet, but it looks intriguing. I’ll be at Friday night’s screening, even if it will keep me up way past my bedtime. It’s screening with Thunderpussy Live at the Egyptian and will feature a Q&A with Sides and director Robert McGinley.