The Seattle International Film Festival is a big-screen epic
Published: May 22, 2009
The Seattle International Film Festival — locals just call it SIFF — is the largest film festival in the United States, both in terms of attendance and in the number of films screened. The festival's scope is frankly daunting: SIFF 2009 features nearly 400 films, screened over three hectic weeks in a dozen different venues. Odds are that you won't be able to see everything SIFF has to offer, or even most of it. But it's fun to try.
SIFF runs through June 14. It's a festival for film lovers, pure and simple. Unlike Cannes or Sundance, it doesn't draw throngs of celebrities; the major studios don't use it as a tool to market their films; and many of the foreign films that screen at SIFF don't even have an American distribution deal yet.
This focus on the audience over the industry allows SIFF to screen unique films before they're "discovered" by the rest of the world — in years past, SIFF has championed such films as Run Lola Run; Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Crumb.
Many of the movies you see at SIFF won't appear in general release for months — if at all. One of SIFF's most popular events, the "Secret Festival," presents films held up by legal issues or the like. You have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to enter the theater.
Some of the films screening at SIFF 2009 include The Hurt Locker, director Kathryn Bigelow's action-packed story of an army bomb squad behind enemy lies; 500 Days of Summer, an offbeat romantic comedy starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel; Moon, a moody science-fiction film made by David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones; and Passing Strange, Spike Lee's faithful accounting of the Broadway show of the same name.
The best films, however, will be the ones you discover purely by accident. That's the way to see SIFF.
Concessions are available at all venues.
- by Geoff Carter, Seattle Reporter for HelloMetro
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