Seattle Intl Film Fest: "See Interesting Films First"

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Tuesday, 17 May 2011 05:00

Written by Lynne Shannon

The 37th annual Seattle International Film Festival 2011 (SIFF) is screening May 19 - June 12, 2011 at SIFF Cinema, SIFF Film Center, and several other venues around Seattle, as well as festival branches in Everett, Kirkland and Renton, in Washington State.

SIFF ("See Interesting Films First") is the largest and most highly attended film festival in the United States, showcasing more than 400 films from over 60 countries to an audience of 150,000 attendees annually.

"This year’s Festival will feature one of the largest and most diverse programs that we have ever put together in our 37 year history, highlighting the best in cinema from around the world," said SIFF Artistic Director Carl Spence.

"There’s something for everyone as audiences will have a wide range of films and events to choose from including evenings with our special guests Ewan McGregor, Warren Miller, and Al Pacino as well as our strong line-up of films in competition and a record number of countries represented which all combine to make this one of the leading international film festivals."

This year, SIFF presents legendary filmmaker Warren Miller with the Golden Space Needle Award for Lifetime Achievement in honor of his illustrious career, which spans six decades and includes more than 350 sports, commercial, and documentary films.

Pacino: One Night Only
SIFF also presents a rare, intimate evening with the iconic Al Pacino, one of cinema's most riveting stars. Pacino shares his passion for acting and directing, with backstage tales from a lifetime in the world of theater and film, showing never-seen-before film clips, and performing live monologues. The evening ends with an audience Q&A.

SIFF Presents: A Tribute to Ewan McGregor
Actor Ewan McGregor is being presented with the 2011 Golden Space Needle Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting. Several of his films will be screening at the Festival, including Beginners, The Pillow Book, Moulin Rouge, and one of his new films, David Mackenzie’s Perfect Sense.

This year's Opening Night Film is The First Grader, directed by Justin Chadwick.
This film "delivers the true story of Maruge, an 84-year-old former Mau-Mau fighter who uses a Kenyan government initiative to claim the primary education he has always craved. Joining his fight is a passionately progressive young teacher who risks her career for his cause. With uninhibited performances by the children and humor woven throughout, The First Grader passionately underscores how the power of education can deliver the greatest freedom of all." 

The Centerpiece Gala screening is Service Entrance, directed by Philippe Le Gauy, a comedy about a Parisian stockbroker whose life is turned upside down when an exuberant Spanish maid moves into the servants’ quarters.

The Closing Night Gala screening is the groundbreaking documentary Life in a Day, directed by Kevin Macdonald, which weaves footage submitted by thousands of contributors from around the world to catalog the events of a single day into a cinematic mosaic.

The Festival is shaped by 10 topic "pathways". The 2011 Festival Pathways are:

• Love Me, Do! – Romance and love in all its forms, pleasures, and idiosyncrasies.
• Make Me Laugh – Films that make you chuckle and tickle your funny bone.
• Thrill Me – Suspense, thrills, and action, films with a faster pace -- and surprises
• Creative Streak – The exploration of artistic endeavors from all disciplines: literature, film, art, dance, and performance.
• Open My Eyes – Revealing films and documentaries revolving around history, politics, and contemporary events from around the world.
• Sci-Fi and Beyond – Science, technology, environment, the future -- and beyond.
• Take Me Away – Be prepared to be taken to another place, from exotic far-off lands to vibrant experiences outside of everyday life.
• Spellbinding Stories – Mesmerizing dramas and documentaries that explore thought-provoking questions, realities, and topics.
• To the Extreme – Explore the outer limits with films that go beyond the edge.
• Face the Music – Films that intersect the world of music on all fronts: from biopics and concert films, to musicals and live events.

This year’s Festival features three diversity tracks as well:

• New American Cinema – a screening of Miranda July‛s The Future
• Asian Crossroads – fittingly, during Asian American Heritage Month, a screening of the film Saigon Electric, directed by Stephane Gauger (Vietnam), among others.
• Gay-la – a screening of August directed by Eldar Rapaport

This year‛s Festival is especially strong on wonderful new films, the proof of which is the difficulty in writing this preview. To choose one to write about is to neglect so many others of equal caliber, and the selections have been difficult. So with apologies to the unmentioned (unless they were previewed in other festivals), here goes.

Some of the films being screened are:

Documentaries:

Revenge of the Electric Car
dir. Chris Paine
narrated by Tim Robbins
A follow-up to Who Killed the Electric Car?, one of the most successful documentaries of the last five years, Paine delves inside Detroit, Tokyo and Silicon Valley to explore why the electric car is making a phoenix-like comeback.

12 Angry Lebanese: The Documentary
dir. Zeina Daccache (Lebanon)
Daccache, a theater director, specialized in working with disadvantaged and traumatized people, established Lebanon’s first prison-based drama project in the notorious Roumieh prison. Her initial production, an adaptation of Reginald Rose's famous stage play 12 Angry Men, transformed the lives of many men and resulted in the beginnings of prison reform. Daccache added monologues, songs, and dance routines created by the prisoners to the original text.

Lesson Plan
dir. David H. Jeffrey, Philip Neel
This film relates the account of the Third Wave Project. Originally designed in 1967 by high school teacher Ron Jones "to teach his well-heeled Palo Alto pupils (including a teenaged Neel) about the roots of fascism, the experiment proved to be more than successful," it took on a life of its own. Using an oral history approach, the film’s narrative explores the five days of the movement in which the students started out as a cooperative until informers were recruited and trials were held, and even non-informants quickly turned on other members in their quest to ace the assignment.

Narratives:

Letters From the Big Man
dir. Christopher Munch
Starring Lily Rabe, Jason Butler Harner, Isaac C. Singleton Jr.
After swearing off relationships, a fiercely individualistic artist takes to the woods with the dual goals of surveying a stream and finding herself. But she also finds her mysterious neighbor is Sasquatch himself, whose gruff exterior hides a mighty intellect and the soul of a poet. "One of the strangest and gentlest Bigfoot movies ever made." The director is scheduled to attend all screenings.

Apart Together / Tuan Yuan
dir. Quan'an Wang (China)
starring Lisa Lu, Ling Feng, Xu Caigen, Monica Mo, Ma Xiaoqing
In his follow-up to the Berlin Golden Bear winner Tuya's Marriage, the director‛s bittersweet late life romance reunites former lovers separated half a century earlier by the end of China’s civil war in 1947. Liu, a soldier of the nationalist Kuomintang army, was forced to flee to Taiwan leaving his pregnant girlfriend Yu’e behind. When a political thaw permits surviving veterans in Taiwan to return to the Mainland to visit their families, Liu tracks down the love of his life and makes her an exceedingly generous offer of a future with him in Taiwan. But Yu’e has successfully made another life for herself.

Love
dir. William Eubank
Presented by Angels & Airwaves
Starring Gunnar Wright, Bradley Horn, Corey Richardson, Wesley Sellick
After losing contact with Earth, astronaut Lee Miller becomes stranded in orbit alone. As time passes and his life support systems dwindle, Lee struggles to maintain his sanity in a claustrophobic and lonely environment, until he makes an unexpected, strange discovery. "...A visually dazzling piece of cerebral science fiction that explores the fundamental human need for connection and the limitless power of hope."
The director, producers Tom DeLonge and Mark Eaton, and actor Gunnar Wright are scheduled to attend the opening weekend screenings

Bruce Lee, My Brother
dir. Raymond Wai Man Yip and Manfred Wong (Hong Kong)
starring Aarif Rahman, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Christy Chung
While his time in Seattle proved to be a formative chapter in Bruce Lee’s life, his childhood and rebellious adolescence in Hong Kong provide the material for this thrilling biopic, based on the memoir of his younger brother Robert. Lee first gained fame as a 9-year-old, earning the nickname "Little Dragon," which he would use throughout the rest of his career. But as with all child actors, adolescence ended his early career and Lee became increasingly involved in street fights and other trouble. But ironically, it was unrequited love that put him on the path that made him a legend.

Lope
dir. Andrucha Waddington (Spain)
starring Alberto Ammann, Sonia Braga, Leonor Watling, Pilar López de Ayala, Ramón Pujo
A contemporary of Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega was a bright star in the literary field of 16th century Spain. This spectacular romantic epic tells the story of the life and loves of the immortal dramatist and incorrigible adventurer. When he falls for the daughter of the theater owner who gave him his chance to be a playwright, circumstances force him to escape the law.

Norwegian Wood / Norowei No Mori
dir. Tran Anh Hung (Japan)
based on the novel by Haruki Murakami
starring Kenichi Matsuyama, Rinko Kikuchi, Kiko Mizuhara, Kengo Kora, Reika Kirishima
A young Japanese couple find their tentative relationship blighted by the tragedy of their best friend’s death. An absorbing story of nostalgia, loss, and awakening sensuality.

Lys
dir. Krystof Zlatnik (Germany)
starring Hanna Schwamborn, Horst-Günter Marx, Marc Hosemann, Catherine Bode Ecki Hoffmann
Following a massive blackout, 15-year-old Lys is found inside the core of the new reactor able to provide clean, emission-free electricity by drawing upon the Earth’s Anima energy. Unable to remember how she got there, Lys returns home with her parents, but further strange occurrences plague the reactor, as the Anima energy grows unstable. In his debut feature, Zlatnik crafts a cautionary parable in which even the greenest technologies may have disastrous unintended consequences. The director is scheduled to attend.

Rene Goes To Hollywood
dir. Aleko Tsabadze (Georgia)
starring Nika Tavadze
Rene Dadiani is developing a new method to alter consciousness and increase creativity called "absurd theory," which involves ignoring reality and channeling his thoughts to match his desires. When he is not lecturing students on film theory, he is delivering propane to a slum on the outskirts of town. One day, an unexpected encounter forces Rene to realize he is no longer certain what part of his life takes place in the real world, and what is part is his own misleading fantasy.

Sandcastle
dir. Boo Jun Feng (Singapore)
Starring Joshua Tan, Elena Chia, Bobbi Chen, Ng Jing Jing, Samuel Chong
Bummer. En, 18, is forced to live with his grandparents. While coping with this inconvenience, he realizes that his dementia-ridden relatives might be the key to unlocking the truth about his late father’s muddled and unspoken past. But can the story be unearthed before it slips away?

Nuummioq
dir. Torben Bech, Otto Rosing (Greenland)
The first feature film to emerge from Greenland, and the first Greenland/Inuit-produced feature. The film tells of a robust young man living a commonplace life in Nuuk, Greenland’s tiny capital city. After being diagnosed with cancer, he embarks on one last boat trip with a childhood friend. "Portraying daily life in a country rarely seen on screen, Nuummioq tenderly relays a universal story about falling in love, appreciating life, and the acceptance of death."

The Yellow Sea / Hwanghae
dir. Na Hong-jin (South Korea)
starring Ha Jung-woo, Kim Yoon-suk
"This transformative South Korean blockbuster smash-hit unflinchingly depicts an elegiac world of violence and despair with incredible action and the most elaborate car chase shot on film to date, with a tale of a hit job gone wrong and a man who wants to turn his life around. Direct from Cannes 2011."

Another feature of SIFF is Secret Festival.
Every year, each Sunday during the Festival, SIFF presents the Secret Festival. For this super-mysterious screening, film titles are not disclosed until viewers are firmly in their seats. Passes are avalable to all, but attendees have to sign an Oath of Secrecy to prevent any leaks to outsiders.

This Festival can boast a great quantity of world-class films, among the finest showing at festivals today.

For more information, go to www.siff.net.

Seattle International Film Festival 2011 (SIFF)
May 19 - June 12, 2011

SIFF Cinema
321 Mercer Street, Seattle Center
Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at McCaw Hall
Seattle, WA

SIFF Film Center
Corner of Republican and Warren Ave N
at Seattle Center
Seattle, WA 98109

AMC Pacific Place Center 11
600 Pine Street, 4th floor
Seattle, WA

Plus other venues in Seattle, Everett, Kirkland and Renton, Washington.

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