SIFF is dead. Long live SIFF!

All good things must come to an end, and so too must SIFF 2012. If you haven’t gotten to any films thus far, now is a good time to panic, as you have only two-and-a-half days left and the pickings are growing slimmer. Before you go, visit the SIFF updates page to see which films are already sold out or are selling fast. Our top pick is the Closing Night selection Grassroots.

This weekend is officially DocsFest, another mini-fest nestled within SIFF, so take in a documentary or two: sing along with the Northwest-lovin’ Welcome to Doe Bay; put on your blue facepaint for a look at Broadway understudies in The Standbys; feel empathetic hunger pangs of American working poor in Finding North; view the culture wars through the case study of Texas elementary school history textbooks in The Revisionaries–and if you have three-plus hours to spare, DO NOT MISS the latest from BBC miniseries-maker Adam Curtis, who tackles the symbiotic relationship between modern man’s dependence on technology (the rise of videogames and social networking) and the ever-increasing levels of self-centered self-interestedness at the societal level in All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.

Guess what, left-wing pacifist Europhile latte-sipping “film” lovers? The rest of the world loves sports! True, sports are meaningless, but if you think of them–like biologist and evolution shit-stirrer E.O. Wilson does–as a much-belated rerouting of our innate tribalism, think of how many lives are saved when people cheer for different soccer teams instead of spearing each other! Human obsession with sports has not escaped the notice of our planet’s budding Bunuels. Seven feature films at SIFF 2012 deal principally with athletic competition.