Tag Archives: seattle international film festival

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

SIFF 2013 Pro-Tips, or Let’s Get Ready to Festival

Here we are again, on the verge of the annual marathon known as the Seattle International Film Festival. (Keep track of The SunBreak’s ongoing festival coverage on our SIFF 2013 page.) SIFF 2013 officially kicks off this Thursday night with near-instantly sold-out Much Ado About Nathan Nothing, and by the time all all is said and done with The Bling Ring on closing night, the 39th annual SIFF will have run a full 25 days, and that’s not even counting the three weeks of media/uber-passholder screenings in advance of the fest. So get ready and don’t show up to the festival looking like a n00b. SIFF like a pro, courtesy of our time- and fest-tested tips:

PLANNING

  • Plan ahead. Get to know the new SIFF website well (pay close attention, as options have changed with the facelift). Check ahead to see if guests will be at the screening for a Q&A, for timing and scheduling purposes, if not for celeb-watching, and monitor the various SIFF feeds regularly for updates, so you’ll have the heads up before a screening sells out.
  • In case you haven’t heard from the internets, tickets to this Thursday’s opening night film, the beloved Buffy creator’s take on Much Ado About Nothing are long gone, as are those for the “mystery” Whedon-related screening the day after, which overwhelmed the redesigned SIFF site upon last Saturday morning’s on-sale. Twitter was full of tales of an hourlong wait before verification of purchase and charges going through…and that was the happy news from those lucky enough to garner tickets. (If a film org cannot handle the onslaught of the Whedonverse AFTER FIRST ACTIVELY COURTING the Whedonverse, do they deserve them in the first place? I digress.)
  • The festival is stuffed with panels, parties, and events; given the speed at which Opening Night sold out, you might want to book early for these special engagements.
  • In terms of choosing what to see among the 447 non-secret films (197 features, 67 documentary features), the festival’s official programs and have once again grouped movies into “moods” by the programmers. There are various imperatives: “thrill me,” “provoke me,” “show me the world,” “make me laugh,” “open my eyes,” “face the music”; elliptical “Love…”; inclusive “Sci-fi and fact” (though heavily fact over fiction this year); and “Creative Streak” (which could be any of the above).
  • Technology is your friend! SIFF is never as tech-integrated as one would like — R.I.P. iSIFF app — but you can still make use of the SIFFter, My SIFF, and the ability to email your personal festival schedule to friends. Getting it onto social media or your own Google calendar, however, remains a pipe dream.
  • While your schedule and your online presence might not be b.f.f.s, SIFF itself is riding indiscriminately on various social media bandwagons. Keep up with festival news on Facebook & Twitter; views on YouTube and Instagram. Turn your schedule into a manic pixie dreambook with Pinterest. If you’re stumped for what to watch, visit the festival’s “SIFFcurious” tumblr for film recommendations from semi-famous locals.
  • Free printed guides should be turning up at your neighborhood Starbucks; if you can’t find it in paper, there’s an online version available. Buried in the flashy new website is an old-fashioned online calendar.
  • Once the festival starts, you can get a commemorative catalog. The glossy pictures and longer descriptions make almost every film look more compelling, and the giant book makes a nice souvenir/scorecard.

BUYING

  • Consider buying in bulk. Ticket packages cut down on service fees and are cheaper than individual tickets.
  • Flying by the seat of your pants and getting into a film via the standby line is a complete crapshoot — don’t count on it for a popular film. But if a miracle does occur, those tickets are full price and “cash preferred.”
  • However, it doesn’t hurt to try your luck with whatever happens to be playing on whatever night you happen to be free. Not every screening has an interminable line, sometimes those scary-looking line is just hard-core SIFFers with time on their hands and/or an ingrained sense of promptness, and many times you may walk right in to a half-empty theater. It’s the chance to experience seeing something you enjoy on some level, if only just a window to a different world/experience than what you’re used to. GIVE IN to the festival.
  • Head to a SIFF box office to get your tickets in advance and avoid an extra line at the venue for will call. If you must pick up tickets at will call, try to drop in between screenings and have them print all of your pre-ordered tickets at once.

ATTENDING

  • If you’re particular about where you sit, there’s no such thing as arriving too early. Expect every screening to have a long line and a full house. Still, as long as you have a ticket, you’ll have a seat. If you’re a passholder, you can usually show up about 20-30 minutes in advance of the screening and still get a good seat. Ticketholders, try 30 min. All bets are off in the case of movies with big buzz. In that case, take whatever seat you can get, but just sit down already. There’s not going to be some magical super-seat in the theater if you scour the entire venue.
  • Be prepared with umbrella and light jacket. Bringing some snacks is acceptable, but don’t be That Guy who sneaks in a four-course meal.
  • Find your path of least resistance. For example, at the Egyptian, nearly everyone enters the theater and goes to the left. So break away from the herd and go to the right.
  • Bathrooms! (Ladies, I’m mostly speaking to you, unless you’re a dude at a dude-heavy midnight screening.) It’s a good rule of thumb that the further away the bathroom is, the shorter the line. So the third floor bathrooms at the Harvard Exit are much more likely to be free compared to those on the second floor. Another way to avoid the line is to either head straight to the restroom as soon as you get into the theater, or wait until the lights go down and the SIFF ads start. You’ve still got about 7 minutes of ads, trailers, and announcements before the film begins.
  • Consider subtitles. If your film has them and you’re not fluent, find a seat with a clear view of the bottom of the screen. Aisle left or right is generally a good bet. The seats on the center aisle (exit row) at the Egyptian have tons of room to stretch your legs, but the raking of the theater flattens out for the aisle, so you’re likely to have an obstructed view of the subtitles if anyone of average height or above average skull circumference sits in front of you.
  • If you’re a passholder, the queue cards are back to give you a place in the passholder line. SIFF staff start handing them out about 30 minutes before showtime to figure out (and limit) how many passholders they’re letting in to the venues. Passholders who show up after the supply of queue cards have been exhausted will join the huddled masses in the standby line.

EXTRACURRICULAR

  • If you’re on foot, trying to see multiple films in a row, and want a little brisk exercise between screenings, the sweet spot is the Egyptian. It’s a walkable distance from the Harvard Exit, as well as Pacific Place. The Egyptian is also right next to a Walgreen’s, if you need water, snacks, or eye drops after 12 hours of movie viewing.
  • Alternately, with SIFF’s resurrection of the Uptown theater and opening of their Film Center on the Seattle Center grounds, Lower Queen Anne is basically a film buffet. Festgoers who usually stick around the Downtown/Capitol Hill area theaters (Pacific Place, the Egyptian, the Harvard Exit) will want to plan some extra travel time accordingly: the roster of SIFF entries playing the Uptown is just too diverse and strong to ignore. However, heading to Queen Anne leaves you reliant on Seattle’s not always timely bus service. Might we suggest the monorail? OR GONDOLAS?
  • Get your latte before you head to the Egyptian. The espresso stand is gone, though they do serve drip coffee!
  • Speaking of theater eats and drinks, Bloombergites will be happy to know that most of the theaters have semi-secret human scale snack options on the menu (though the only way to get an actually small soda is often when paired with an actually small popcorn). At Pacific Place, it’s the “light snacker,” it exists at the Landmark chain under a name unknown, and at SIFF, it’s blissfully and accurately called a small.
  • In contrast to last year’s hyperkinetic intro video, the World Famous and WDCW crew have lovingly crafted a more meditative tribute to film magic to ease you into the 2013 festival. Expect to have this stop-motion montage seared into your brain after a few screenings. If you can’t identify every referenced film (surprisingly, all played at SIFF at some point) the first time through, you’d better be able to name them all by the end of the festival: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFLQ8oCNu0s
  • Because you don’t have tickets to opening night:

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

SIFF 2012 Full Lineup Announced, Tickets On Sale NOW

Depending on the resiliency of your browser’s cache, the all-new, but still-familiar SIFF 2012 Festival website started appearing on various local internets sometime before Thursday’s lunch hour, complete with a festival calendar, film descriptions, trailers, and all sorts of other bells and whistles including MvB’s beloved “screw the site, all I want is SIFFTER!”

Yes, the flashy film sorter seems to be updated with this year’s lineup to help you narrow the choices to your favorite Martial Arts Erotic Coming of Age Detective stories. But, alas, the pocketable, insanely useful iPhone version iSIFF still seems to be stuck in 2011 (why it doesn’t exist as a year-round resource for SIFF’s year-round programming remains among Seattle’s enduring mysteries). And one last question, if we may: Why is the SIFF Lounge conveniently located near no other festival venues (closest one Cinerama) at Henry & Oscar’s, aka Belltown middle of nowhere?

But all that being said, let’s get ready to festival! Like some rough beast, its hour come round at last, the 2012 Seattle International Film Festival is snuffling at our door. Are you ready for 460 films from 75 countries (273 features, 64 documentaries, 187 short films)? Are you prepared to take in 61 world premieres, 36 North American premieres, and 24 U.S. premieres? Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous.

That’s why in the coming weeks we’ll be hivemindmelding to help you figure out what…tenth, let’s say, of this festival is best worth your time. And really, if you see half of those, you’ll feel it in your flattened tuchus by the end. [Full disclosure: The SunBreak is a media sponsor of the festival, which means we get listed in tiny, tiny type somewhere on their site, and get to give you free tickets–ed.]. If you can’t wait for our crystal ball readings, but know that you like, for instance, to laugh, be scared witless, see the future, or find yourself horribly depressed by the bleak state of the environment/familial betrayals/human rights/the economy, SIFF re-upped last year’s experiment of organizing the festival into user-friendly Pathways.

Let’s hash through the details (and DEFINITELY reacquaint yourself with last year’s pro-tips): Get yer series passes here. The Opening Night film is local gal Lynn Shelton’s Your Sister’s Sister, this Thursday, May 17 @ McCaw Hall. Here’s the gala tix, and here’s the even-fancier SIFF 2012 Red Carpet Experience.

In terms of in-city programming, this year’s map is a little more compact with most regular screenings taking place downtown at Pacific Place, in Capitol Hill at the Egyptian and both Harvard Exit screens, and on SIFF’s home turf in lower Queen Anne with three screens at the Uptown and one at the Film Center. Once again, the festival will take the show on the road to Renton, Everett, and Kirkland, but we have enough trouble catching everything in Seattle and don’t expect to venture beyond city limits.

ALL OF THE GALAS:

In addition to the opening and closing night soirees, the festival is packed with parties. As a Saturday Gala (a gala because of the day of the week?), there’s Robot and Frank, May 19 @ Pacific Place Cinemas, even though EW totally reviewed it last June. There’s a second (another?) Saturday Gala: As Luck Would Have It, May 26 @ SIFF Cinema Uptown and the locally-shot Friday Gala (forget it) the Details, June 8 @ Egyptian Theatre. The film at the Centerpiece Gala (now THAT’s a real gala) for the tres French the Chef, June 2 @ Egyptian Theatre and at the Gay-La, it’s the appropriately titled Gayby, June 6 @ Egyptian Theatre. Locally-filmed Grassroots, an adaptation of the true Seattle story of monorail evangelizing Grant Cogswell’s ill-fated campaign for city council, closes the festival with a gala screening at SIFF Cinema Uptown followed by a boozy party at the Grand Hyatt. For extra credit, use the existing monorail to get from the Queen Anne screening to the downtown party. PRO TIP.

But wait, there’s more. Some presentations are more special than others:

  • Brave, see Pixar’s latest on June 10 @ Pacific Place, a few days before it goes into wide release.
  • Diaz – Don’t Clean Up This Blood fictionally recreates the clashes at the 2001 G8 summit (timely!) June 1 & 2 @ SIFF Cinema Uptown; June 5 @ Harvard Exit
  • The Last Reef 3D, takes you on a 40 minute underwater voyage, no SCUBA certification required on June 3 & 4 @ Pacific Science Center IMAX
  • People Like Us finds young Captain Kirk and Effie Trinket dealing with earthbound family drama on June 4 @ SIFF Cinema Uptown; June 5@ Egyptian Theatre
  • Trishna brings Tess of the D’Ubervilles into contemporary Rajasthan, India by way of Michael Winterbottom. May 18 & 20 @ SIFF Cinema Uptown

And this year, SIFF also pays tribute to a couple of film legends, bringing them into the company of film lovers for the right price. But don’t hold your breath, as these are cancellation-prone:

  • An Evening with Sissy Spacek feat. Badlands, June 7 @ SIFF Cinema Uptown
  • An Evening with William Friedkin feat. Killer Joe, June 9 @ Egyptian Theatre

LIVE PERFORMANCES
Live music is scaled back this year compared to the past few. Personally I’m a little scared of Emerald City Visions: A Hip-Hop Reinterpretation of The Wiz, curated by Larry Mizell, Jr and staring rising stars of Northwest hip-hop June 1 @ The Triple Door, but these things usually turn out to be memorable.

Can’t wait? “Enjoy” and start decoding the SIFF 2012 official “trailer” (which, as clever as it is in squeezing so many film references into two and a half frenetic minutes, you will quickly grow to hate once you see it in front of six or so films):

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

SIFF 2011: Open for Business

the SunBreak at SIFF 2011

Early this week, SIFF members got a chance to preview the 2011 lineup with some guidance from the festival’s programmers and get their last shot at early ticketing. Members of the general public who are interested in a programmer tour of the unmissable foreign films can stop by the Triple Door on May 12 for a $6 preview of the festival. Today, though, the festival officially opens for business to the rest of the city, with the main box office set up on the second floor of Pacific Place and online ticketing ready to receive orders.

The full schedule is now also online for the perusing (or “SIFFting“) and in magazine format for browsing, with free copies available at some (but not all) of the city’s finest Starbucks locations. The glossy everything-looks-better-in-silky-print festival catalog won’t be available until opening night. Still, carriers of Apple-branded pocket computers will also be happy to learn that iSIFF has been refreshed for the new season. The exceptionally well-designed mobile guide to the schedule and pocket ticket counter is now ready for download from the App Store for prominent home screen placement.

From the looks of the program, film fans should plan to be scattered throughout the city with fewer easier opportunities to dash between venues on foot. The main daily festival venues will be SIFF Cinema (Seattle Center), Pacific Place (Downtown), the freshly revived Neptune (U-District), the Egyptian & Harvard Exit (Capitol Hill), and the Admiral (West Seattle). The festival will also spend one week each in Renton, Everett, and Kirkland, with the latter two performing arts center hosting its own regional “opening night” gala for Young Goethe In Love and Bon Appetit, respectively.

In other, less sunny festival news, the Tony Awards have stolen Al Pacino away from the festival, turning his scheduled appearance from “one night only” to “zero nights, with refunds”. However, tickets to dine with Ewan McGregor (cocktail attire, no photos or autographs) are still available to the first 75 people to get to the ticket window with $250 in hand.

Individual tickets for most films cost $11 for the public and $9 for SIFF members; although the matinees are a bit cheaper ($8/$7), and “stimulus matinees” (first two shows of the day before 2:30 p.m. on Fridays) are cheaper still ($6). For the more committed, there are all sorts of passes still for sale as well as slightly discounted packs of tickets in bundles of 6 or 20.

We’re still digging our way through the lineup and previews, but do let us know what you’re most excited about seeing.

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

SIFF Offers a Peek at 2011 Film Festival

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This morning, SIFF invited some of its media friends over to Pacific Place for light snacks, coffee, and mimosas to reveal some details of this year’s multi-week city-wide film festival. Based on this year’s trailer, the theme of this year’s festival seems to be “Acrostics!” Before we get to the nuances and highlights, some relevant logistical details. The festival runs from May 19 until June 12 at nineteen venues–ranging from the core Seattle cinemas for daily screenings, the freshly opened SIFF Film Center in the Alki Room, the bar at Boom Noodle, and as far away as the performing arts centers of Everett, Kirkland, and IKEA. Passes have been available for a while, tickets for some special events are already on sale, but you’ll have to wait until May 5 to see the full schedule and start buying tickets to individual films.

The festival opens at McCaw Hall with a screening of The First Grader, the true story of an octogenerian Mau Mau fighter turned farmer who cashes in on a Kenyan government initiative to claim the primary education that he missed while, I don’t know, rebelling against British occupation. Stick around after the misunderstandings, controversy, hijinks, tears, cute kids, inspirational teacher, general power of the human spirit, and other heartwarming hijinks ensue for a gala at a glamorized Exhibition Hall where Don Q rums and Barefoot Bubbly will be stocking the bar. Over the three-week festival, there will be hundreds of films from all over the world (this year, hotbeds of political turmoil will also be hotbeds of cinema) and galas celebrating the festival’s midpoint (Service Entrance, in which a bougie French couple hires a boisterous Spanish maid), the gays (August), new American cinema (Miranda July’s allegedly amazing The Future), and a tribute to ski and snowboarding film maven Warren Miller at Benaroya Hall. This all leads up to a closing night presentation of the Ridley (and Tony) Scott-produced Life in a Day, a hyperkinetic look at the whole camera-toting world, as enabled by YouTube.

Oh, and of course the festival wouldn’t be complete without some out-of-town guests paying a visit to Seattle. The biggest news is that Al Pacino will be making a rare appearance to talk about his life, craft, put on a show, chew the scenery, and possibly even answer your questions at the Paramount Theater on June 11 (tickets go on sale Saturday, but presale is in effect now with passcode “pacino”). Ewan McGregor will be stopping by to claim his Golden Space Needle and show new films Beginners (Mike Mills’ dramedy about a city-dwelling guy in search of love, his cute dog, and a newly-gay dad) and Perfect Sense (a science fiction take on a pandemic that robs people of their feelings), as well as old favorites The Pillow Book and Moulin Rouge.

Since the festival is so massive in scope and duration (and it might eventually compete with decent weather, maybe), the programmers have tried to help viewers navigate the program by creating “pathways” that group hundreds of films into ten categories: Love Me Do (matters of the heart); Make Me Laugh (films comedic); Thrill Me (suspenseful features); Creative Streak (A&E); Open My Eyes (revealing stories along the lines of triumphant West Indian cricketeers); Sci-Fi & Beyond (science, fictional and factual); Take Me Away (world cinema); Spellbinding Stories (long-running times); To the Extreme (taste-pushing matters like troll hunters); and Face the Music (live events and music movies). Expect to peruse all of these pathways when the festival’s free 45-page magazine-style guide (and, we hope, the latest version of their fantastic SIFFter app) hits the streets next week.

We still haven’t had a chance to digest the full program, but we did get to soak up a half hour’s worth of trailers. A poll of SunBreakers who’ve perused the offerings suggest some automatic must-sees:

Audrey: Based on description alone, I’m down for Angel of Evil, a slick and well-shot Italian crime film. A bevy of SIFF docs already got great reviews at Sundance: Being Elmo, about the Sesame Street muppet’s puppeteer; Project Nim, on the famous language-learning ape Nim Chimpsky; Tabloid, the latest clinical examination from Errol Morris; and Page One: Inside the New York Times (pretty self-explanatory). There’s also celeb rehab comedy Treatment, written and co-directed by Sean Nelson, which just had its world premiere at Tribeca. Other SIFF films with Northwest Connections include Catechism Cataclysm, The Off Hours, Without, and Late Autumn, a Korean film which shot here last year.

Josh: In addition to some of the movies already mentioned, I’m excited to hear the score that Jonny Greenwood composed for Norwegian Wood, the new adaptation of the old Murakami Novel, as well as the newish Alex “Arctic Monkey” Turner’s songs featured on the soundtrack for Richard “IT Crowd” Ayoade’s Submarine. An IMAX presentation of Tornado Alley (narrated by Bill Pullman, naturally) looks both timely and terrifying. I’m also generally interested in getting a peek at SIFF’s new home in Seattle Center as well as the freshly-renovated Neptune Theater (now part of Seattle Theater Group), which returns to the mix of regular screening venues with new seats and a new bar.

Tony: Alex de la Iglesia’s The Last Circus stirred a hornet’s nest of controversy with its bloodily, brutally allegorical tale of two circus clowns jousting violently for the affections of a beautiful trapeze artist amidst the Spanish Civil War. Quentin Tarantino’s jury at the Venice Film Festival threw the movie’s direction and screenwriting major prizes, and it’ll be interesting to see if it lives up to those hosannas. Another Earth received raves at Sundance, and looks to be the kind of mind-expanding but emotionally resonant sci-fi film that used to thrive in the early seventies. I’m an avowed fan of France’s favorite balladeer in dirty-old-man’s clothing, Serge Gainsbourg, so I’m likewise stoked that SIFF’s presenting a new documentary on this accidental music innovator. And you gotta love the notion of the silent version of The Thief of Baghdad, accompanied by select cuts (by Shadoe Stevens!) from the Electric Light Orchestra.  From those, and the highlights mentioned by the programmers, it looks like we’re in for another year of obsessive moviegoing.