February 10, 2008
Post Alley Film Festival
The 5th annual Post Alley Film Festival will be held this year on February 23rd, from 1-7pm at the Market Theatre in Pike Place. The festival has a strong focus on female filmmaking talents, as well as spotlighting generally eccentric cinematic shorts.
In 6 hours, you get to see 26 movies (with 15min intermissions between four themed sets), and spend some time in a cool little hidden theatre at the market.
See the Post Alley Film Festival website for more info.
On a more personal note, the festival founder happens to be my former film teacher.
And even more personally, the festival day happens to fall on my birthday, so there's a chance I may not make it. But if you do, tell 'em I sent you!
August 17, 2007
Still here!
This blog hasn't officially died just yet, it's just been in hibernation as my new found employment sucks up my days. I always felt a certain rush of inspiration just after a SIFF ended that made me want to go out and make movies, but this year that was timed towards the beginning of starting a new job so the dream of filmmaking has fallen slightly to the wayside while the sweet siren of inflated paychecks chains me to the technology field.
I'm not giving up that easily though. It's true I haven't watched squat since SIFF ended (Simpsons, Sicko..), nor worked on any filmmaking related projects, but there is still time to ramp it back up again and I've still got 7 Ozu movies in the queue waiting to be ripped through. Last weekend I attended a videogame and pinball convention down in San Jose called California Extreme (CAX), and this year they had a first ever film festival run where all the movies were videogame and pinball related. The entire convention was a lot of fun and unfortunately I only got to see one of the dozen movies they played (Chasing Ghosts, an excellent documentary on competitive classic arcade game players and their reflections on gaming), but they also had King of Kong (out today in theaters here, go see it!) as well as one or two others I'd previously already seen. Quite an impressive line-up!
On the filmmaking front, I think I'm going to register for that upcoming NWFF workshop with Jon Moritsugu, just to keep things fresh about the process. I really wanted to take their 16mm class but unfortunately it conflicts with my lengthy workday and commute schedule. Perhaps some time later.
Lastly, I have a Flickr feed of various photos and one in particular (see photo above) was receiving an insane number of hits recently just after going live on the site. The photo is of a portion of storage space for Netflix and their giant pallets of DVDs waiting to be unwrapped and shipped to eager customers. I only just now discovered the photo has been posted to a Netflix blog which is cool. Hurray for 15min of fame! (And in case you're wondering, the main pallet in the photo is labeled as 14,000 copies of the Memoirs of a Geisha Bonus Disc).
May 17, 2007
Seattle's True Independent Film Festival
If you find yourself standing around staring at your shoes in between the haze of lines and hubbub over at SIFF, you might want to consider hopping on over to STIFF - Seattle's True Independent Film Festival.
Now in its 3rd year, it has a hefty amount of showings planned this year at Central Cinema, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Rendezvous.
With a very strong emphasis on local filmmaking, STIFF also promises a focus on the inventive and different. Maybe this quote from the STIFF Filmmaker FAQ might sum it up a little better:
Do you have a Beautiful French film with a lot of subtext or a coming of age after school special? You might want to try SIFF.
I've never attended STIFF, but it looks like great fun and at the very least something different from the masses. And frankly I always consider that a good thing anyway.
STIFF runs this year between May 23 and June 4th.