📆 Friday, November 3rd – Sunday, December 3rd
📍 SIFF Cinema Egyptian: 805 E Pine St, Seattle
The Seattle International Film Festival is entering its golden year anniversary with the city of Seattle. 50 festivals, thousands of films from all over the world, and untold amounts of adventurous filmgoers. To celebrate, the nonprofit is hosting a monthlong festival of film favorites, many of which won the Golden Space Needle Audience Award. There are 21 films from a wide variety of styles, genres and generations, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight a few personal picks. Full disclosure that I work seasonally for SIFF as a festival programmer, but all of my selections are from before my time.
🚓 The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
📆 Friday, November 3rd + Saturday, November 25th
Behold the opening film of the first Seattle International Film Festival and a heck of a warning shot with Volker Schlöndorff’s controversial, gutting 1973 drama about an unsuspecting woman caught up in West Germany’s political maelstrom.
🩸 Blood Simple
📆 Sunday, November 12th + Saturday, December 2nd
Arguably the best American filmmakers of their generation (I adore them, at least), Joel and Ethan Coen made their debut with this nasty, mordantly funny film noir that solidified their career-long obsession with the absurd folly of man.
🏃Run Lola Run
📆 Sunday, November 12th + Monday, November 13th + Saturday, November 18th
Tom Tykwer throws everything at the wall with his hard-pounding, anarchic 1998 thriller, with breakout star Franka Potente racing through three 20-minute trials desperately trying to save her boyfriend’s life.
🗡️ Multiple Maniacs
📆 Monday, November 20th + Saturday, December 2nd
Pope of Trash John Waters followed up his legally-cannot-be-distributed debut Mondo Trasho with this 1970 bit of glorious filth, an evisceration of American morals through the eyes of a roving band of murderous carnival freaks.
💒 The Wedding Banquet
📆 Thursday, November 23rd + Friday, December 1st
This 1993 gem of a romantic dramedy firmly established Ang Lee’s obsession with characters that lead secret lives, as a gay immigrant landlord in Manhattan enters into a fake marriage to appease his parents back in Taiwan.
FULL SERIES SCHEDULE
Friday, November 3rd – 3:30 pm Eighth Grade | 5:45 pm The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert | 8:15 pm The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
Monday, November 6th – 5 pm Captain Fantastic | 7:45 pm Comrades: Almost a Love Story
Friday, November 10th – 1:45 pm WarGames | 4:30 pm OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies | 7 pm The Empire Strikes Back
Sunday, November 12th – 12 pm Boyhood | 3:30 pm Blood Simple | 6 pm Run Lola Run | 8 pm Kiss of the Spider Woman
Monday, November 13th – 6 pm Run Lola Run | 8 pm Facing Windows
Friday, November 17th – 3:30 pm Facing Windows
Saturday, November 18th – 11:30 am The Kingdom I | 4:45 pm Run Lola Run
Sunday, November 19th – 11:30 am The Kingdom I | 5:15 pm The Kingdom II
Monday, November 20th – 5:15 pm Multiple Maniacs | 7:30 pm OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies
Thursday, November 23th – 4:30 pm The Wedding Banquet | 7:15 pm The Empire Strikes Back
Friday, November 24th – 12:45 pm Black Dynamite | 3 pm Eighth Grade | 5:15 pm Trainspotting | 7:30 pm Kiss of the Spider Woman
Saturday, November 25th – 12 pm Boyhood | 3:30 pm The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum | 6 pm Diva | 8:30 pm Black Dynamite
Sunday, November 26th – 12 pm The Kingdom II | 5:30 pm Trainspotting | 7:45 pm The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Monday, November 27th – 5 pm WarGames | 7:30 pm Picnic at Hanging Rock
Friday, December 1st – 5 pm The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert | 7:30 pm The Wedding Banquet
Saturday, December 2nd – 12 pm Comrades: Almost a Love Story | 2:45 pm Diva | 5:15 pm Blood Simple | 7:30 pm Multiple Maniacs
Sunday, December 3rd -11:30 am Captain Fantastic | 2:30 pm Black Dynamite | 4:30 pm Picnic at Hanging Rock | 7 pm Trainspotting
