SIFFCinema

3 Minute Masterpieces 2009

How hard could it be to make a three-minute film? We challenged you to find out. …
33 Scenes from Life

Julia is a successful photographer whose marriage to a famous composer begins to fall apart at the very same time her parents pass away. Trouble comes in 33 scenes in this poetic film from Malgoska Szumowska, a rising star of Polish cinema, with impeccable editing, an award-winning soundtrack, and a strong ensemble cast. …
(500) Days of Summer

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t. Unusual in its outcome, (500) Days of Summer is a charming postmodern reflection on crushing unrequited love. The comedic tone, vigorous shots, nuanced performances, and effervescent music keep (500) Days light in the most satisfying way. …
$9.99

The answers to the meaning of life are within your reach, and it’ll only cost you $9.99! Unemployed 28-year-old Dave Peck chips in his money and finds all he wants to know and more. Using stop-motion animation, this urban fairy tale provokes, inspires, comforts, and leaves us to ponder what truly makes us happy. …
SIFF 2009 Opening Night Gala

All tickets include the Opening Night Gala film, In the Loop, with cast members scheduled to attend. Your ticket also includes the fabulous Gala party following the film. Join us as we take over 9th Avenue and celebrate the kick-off of the 25-day Festival with hors d'oeuvres, desserts, and two complimentary cocktails. …
SIFF 2009 Centerpiece Gala

Tickets for the Centerpiece Gala featuring Seattle writer/director Lynn Shelton's acclaimed new film, Humpday, are $25 ($23 SIFF Supporters). Your ticket also includes the popular Centerpiece Gala party at the DAR Hall on Capitol Hill, with director Lynn Shelton scheduled to attend. Celebrate local filmmaking and northwest connections with live music and entertainment, catering by Boom Nood …
SIFF 2009 Closing Night Gala

All tickets include the Closing Night Gala film, OSS 117: Lost in Rio. Your ticket also includes the Festival's fabulous Closing party at the Pan Pacific Hotel. Enjoy one last night of mingling with Festival guests and friends while enjoying live music, food, and two complimentary cocktails. This is a night to celebrate! …
About Elly

In his fourth feature, talented writer-director Asghar Farhadi casts a revealing light on the elaborate culture of deceit that’s part and parcel of modern Iranian society with a gripping drama about upper-middle-class Tehranis on a catastrophic seaside holiday. …
Adam

Adam is the love story of two strangers … one a little stranger than the other. This delicately crafted drama, which won the Sloan Prize at Sundance, tests the viability of a relationship between a young man with Asperger syndrome and his patient but uncertain girlfriend. Emotionally potent performances and offbeat humor guide this tender story to a quietly hopeful conclusion. …
The Admiral

Director Andrei Kravchuk’s new film tells the story of Alexander Kolchak, one of the most controversial commanders to fight in the Russian Revolution. Part war story, part love story, The Admiral is a sweeping historical epic in the tradition of Doctor Zhivago. …
The Adventures of Robin Hood

In his most iconic screen performance, Errol Flynn, as Robin Hood, leads his band of Merry Men against the vile usurper to England’s throne Prince John, while simultaneously wooing the lovely Maid Marian and engaging in some impressive feats of archery and swordplay. Introduced by TCM’s Robert Osborne. …
Afghan Star

After 30 years of war and Taliban rule, the pop-idol TV series “Afghan Star” takes Afghanistan by storm. More than 2,000 people audition, including three brave women. The documentary follows four young contestants looking for a new life, but things take a terrifying turn when one young woman chooses to defy tradition and dance on stage. …
Against the Current

Propelled by the loss of his wife and unborn child, Paul (Joseph Fiennes) is determined to swim the entire length of the Hudson River. Part road picture, and part exploration of life after loss, Against the Current is bouyed by strong comic performances and striking photography of the Hudson River Valley. …
Alisa's Birthday

School is out for summer and Alisa is leaving futuristic Moscow for the planet Koleida where she’ll embark on an adventure in time travel to save the people of the planet’s previous society. With surprising creative characters and incredible energy, Alisa's Birthday is a new family film worth celebrating. English subtitles will be read aloud at the June 7 and June 14 screenings. Recommended …
All Tomorrow's Parties

Now a full decade old, England’s All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival is an ingenious testament to alternative music, communal living, and iconoclastic creativity. Featuring interviews and footage of more than 30 bands, this documentary captures the festival experience from the perspective of fan, artist, and curator alike. …
American Primitive

It’s hard enough moving to a new town and school, but these wrenching changes are compounded when two teenage sisters discover that their widowed father is gay. Set on Cape Cod in 1973, Gwen Wynne’s feature debut explores the clash between traditional family values and shifting sexual identity in the Nixon era. …
Amreeka

Upon winning a green card lottery, Muna and her son choose to leave Palestine and start anew in the United States where they find a political environment brewing with cultural tensions. Offering an authentic glimpse into the Palestinian situation, Amreeka effortlessly portrays the struggle of displacement and cultural identity. …
The Anarchist's Wife

Separated by the Spanish Civil War and years of unrest, Justo and Manuela fight to keep themselves and their marriage alive. Co-directors Marie Noëlle and Peter Sehr splice archival footage with their harrowing depiction of war-torn Madrid. This story of undying love and political commitment is at once wholly romantic and bittersweet. …
Animated Enemies with James Forsher

Propaganda with a chuckle
The U.S. government learned how powerful motion pictures can be as a tool for persuasion as far back as the Spanish American War. Over the past century, films were enlisted to help sway audiences, especially during wartime. This is all chronicled in Animated Enemy, which focuses on a select group of cartoons that were created to de-humanize …
The Answer Man

Twenty years ago Arlen Faber wrote a best-selling spirituality guide, Me and God. Now a cantankerous recluse, his perfect, lonely life changes when he meets his new chiropractor Elizabeth and a recovering alcoholic named Kris—both of whom seek the answers that neither he nor God knows. …
Apron Strings

Samoan-born, New Zealand-raised director Sima Urale stirs the cultural melting pot and dishes up a visually appealing, character-driven drama about food, love, traditions, and things that cause heartburn in the lives of two separate but parallel Kiwi families from racially diverse cultures. …
Art & Copy

The 1960s witnessed a creative revolution in advertising, in which idea, image, music, and theater were combined in ways never before seen, changing how consumers thought and bought. Art & Copy looks at the impact this revolution had on modern culture, making images and taglines part of our common language. …
At West of Pluto

Reminiscent of Gus Van Sant's high school movies, this film follows a handful of teenagers over the course of 24 hours, culminating in a house party hosted by the shy kid who wants to make an impression. More than just a film about high-school stereotypes, this film is for anyone who's ever gone to high school. …
Aussie vs. Kiwi 2008

The two short filmmaking powerhouses of the Southern stars go head to head, proving you don’t need population, just creativity. …
The Baby Formula

A lesbian couple uses an experimental process to impregnate themselves with “female sperm” created from each others’ stem cells, but not everybody in their families is keen on the idea. Shot in a mockumentary style, this mildly funny, improvisational film celebrates love, acceptance and life in all its forms. …
Baby Love

Manu, a 40-something gay pediatrician, is determined to have a child, against the desires of both his long-time partner Phillippe and French law. While same-sex unions are legal in France, gay adoption is not. This timely, bittersweet dramedy highlights the struggle of one man’s desperate attempts to become a father. …
Back to the Garden, Flower Power Comes Full Circle

Twenty years ago, local filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson interviewed hippies at a “healing gathering” in Eastern Washington. Now he tracks the same folks to see what became of their environmental utopias. Today, in the midst of global warming, the voices of these flower children is prophetic. …
Ball Don't Lie

Sticky is a high school kid with enormous basketball talent, but also daunting challenges, including an obsessive-compulsive disorder and a childhood spent in foster care. Full of terrific “streetball” sequences, this adaptation of Matt de la Peña’s novel mixes drama and humor to tell the story of a young man learning the right moves. …
Be Calm and Count to Seven

Motu and his gang of reckless youths are involved in smuggling contraband. When his father disappears, Motu has to care for his sister and pregnant mother in this ultra-realistic portrait of an isolated Persian Gulf village on the brink of modernization. …
The Beaches of Agnès

One of the leading lights of the Nouvelle Vague, filmmaker Agnès Varda has created an this inventive, eloquent memoir in her 80th year, assuring audiences that her creative powers are far from dimming. Using photographs, vintage footage, and present-day sequences, Varda weaves a fascinating portrait of a creative life lived to the fullest. …
No Age performs “The Bear”

Psychedelic mushroom trips and budding companionship are woodland fun at its finest for orphaned bear cub Douce and the ornery Bart, but the invasive fear of being hunted drives our four-legged protagonists forward in this Jean-Jacques Annaud film. Los Angeles art-punk duo No Age will add their musical interpretation by performing original music during the screening. …
The Beast Stalker

Dante Lam has made the Hong Kong hit of 2009 by fusing this solid cops and robbers action film with emotional depth. A guilt-ridden cop takes a gamble and hunts for a girl who was kidnapped by a one-eyed killer-for-hire. Lam gets the adrenaline pumping with his energetic directing, action scenes and humanist performances. …
Beauties at War

The provincial town of Charmoussey is about to be annexed by its larger, snootier neighbor, Upper Charmoussey. In this farcical underdog fable, the town pins its hope of survival on winning the local beauty pageant, and it’s up to the town’s prodigal son, a failed TV actor, to redeem himself and coach the amateur contestants to success. …
Beket

Loosely based on Samuel Beckett's “Waiting for Godot,” Beket takes place in a no-man's land outside of time, when mankind no longer inhabits the planet. Protagonists Freak and Jaja meet at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere and embark on an absurd, existentialist journey filled with apocalyptic imagery. …
Birdwatchers

The plight of the indigenous Guarani-Kaiowá who live on reservations in the Brazilian Amazon has rarely been portrayed with such warmth and realism as in Birdwatchers. As the tribe stages a protest, a deep bond develops between the tribal shaman’s young apprentice and the local farmer's bikini-clad daughter. …
Black

A funky riff on the theme music from 2001: A Space Odyssey opens Black, a new crime thriller from France. The catchy redux leads to a bank robbery that goes quickly awry, a maniacal, island-dwelling millionaire who’s slowly turning into a snake, a volatile and crazy Russian general, witches, witch doctors, bare Nubian breasts, gunfire, machete-wielding wrestlers, and two ... …
Black Dogs Barking

This dynamic directorial debut does for Istanbul what Scorsese did for Little Italy. With an inventive shooting style and an authentic ear for the city’s slang, Black Dogs Barking tells the intimate story of two friends who get into deep trouble in Istanbul’s chaotic criminal underground. …
Black Dynamite

Winner Best Film - SIFF 2009 Golden Space Needle Audience Awards
When “The Man” murders his brother, pumps heroin into local orphanages, and floods the ghetto with adulterated malt liquor, Black Dynamite is the only hero willing to fight from the blood-soaked city streets to the hallowed halls of the Honky House, in this pitch perfect ode to Blaxploitation. …
Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly

A blind dentist, a retired badminton player, a girl who eats firecrackers, a gay couple with powerful connections, and a dental assistant who wants to be the next “Indonesian Idol” are linked by the song I Just Called To Say I Love You. Edwin's story of alienation and odd connections won the Critics' Prize at the 2009 Rotterdam International Film Festival. …
Bluebeard

In this highly stylized and literary adaptation of the French fairy tale is about a nobleman with a penchant for marrying women who mysteriously disappear. Catherine Breillat captures the pleasure to be had both in being frightened, and in facing one’s fears head-on. …
Boy

A budding young poet sells his prized collection of comic books and action figures for a night with Aries, a dreamy local dancing boy. Director Aureaus Solito (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, SIFF 2006) tells this funny, touching story with visual panache and sensitivity. …
Breathless

Song-hoon is a violent, foul-mouthed enforcer for local gangster Man-shik. But things change when an unlikely bond develops between him and wayward schoolgirl, Han Yeon-heui. Shot with handheld cameras, this semi-autobiographical, often brutal look at cyclical violence and the redemptive possibilities of live won the Tiger award at the 2009 Rotterdam International Film Festival. …
Bronson

Britain’s most violent and most famous prisoner sees himself as the star of a one-man show, where he jokes about all of the horrible things he’s done. Like a funnier version of A Clockwork Orange, Bronson shows us a world warped by the imagination of the prisoner. …
Bruce Springsteen: Live in Barcelona

Here is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band as you’ve never seen them before—an entire two-hour-plus concert, up close and personal in high definition with Dolby Digital Sound. Based on the band’s marathon 2002 “The Rising” tour, the film captures The Boss in peak form with a dream set-list of new songs, classic hits and audience faves. Presented as a benefit for SIFF. …
Buddenbrooks

Based on the eponymous 1901 Thomas Mann novel, this lush period film with award-winning production and costume design follows the gradual decline of a mercantile family. As two family members enter into marriages of convenience to preserve their diminishing wealth, they end up creating new problems as the new century dawns …
Buick Riviera

After fleeing war-torn Bosnia 17 years ago, Hasan seeks a new beginning in the American Midwest. He meets a fellow Balkan in the States, but rather than finding common ground, old resentments flare up, proving that ancient feuds transcend political boundaries. Based on a novel by Miljenko Jergovic, Buick Riviera explores an émigré’s ability to survive in and out of cultural and historical b …
Burma VJ - Reporting from a Closed Country

A small group of independent video journalists equipped with mobile phones and digital cameras risked torture and imprisonment to capture news, pictures, and video of Burma’s 2007 political uprising. Director Anders Østergaard pieces these harrowing moments together for the first time, outlining a larger narrative of oppression and censorship. …
The Burning Plain

Complex, cryptic, and immensely rewarding, famed screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga’s directorial debut knits together three distinct narratives into an examination of love, family, and the persistence of guilt. The Burning Plain features powerful performances from the cast, who each command the emotional center of their respective worlds. …
California Company Town

This engagingly deadpan documentary is about California’s industrial “company” towns that were abandoned after the industry dried up. Over the footage of these ghostly towns, filmmaker and narrator Lee Anne Schmitt discusses their impact on the economy and the environment. …
Can Go Through Skin

Marieke was a cheerful, social woman until a brutal assault mired her in a crippling depression. Hoping for a new start, she moves to a Zeeland farmhouse but discovers that it takes more than a change of scenery to heal a damaged soul. With a complex sound design and intricate cinematography, Can Go Through Skin is a promising debut from an a rising filmmaker. …
Captive

When a convoy of Russian troops gets lost in the Chechen mountains, two soldiers capture a handsome young local to lead them to safety. But as the three men trek across the rugged landscape, complex relationships develop that transcend the dynamics of captor and captive. …
Carmo, Hit the Road

Carmo is a firecracker of a woman struggling to fit in. Barely dodging the sleazy thugs who are after her, she is rescued by an unlikely and unwilling knight in shining armor. Full of gangsters, chases, adventure, and a little love, Murilo Pasta's dazzling filmmaking refuels the classic road-trip genre. …
Chef's Special

Maxi will stop at nothing to become Madrid’s finest chef—until his past intrudes with the arrival of his estranged children. Things get more complicated when a hunky former soccer star moves in next door. Full of anarchic energy, this romantic gay cooking comedy was a huge audience favorite in Spain. …
City of Borders

Shushan, a gay bar in Jerusalem, is the unlikely meeting place for the diverse cast of characters in Yun Suh’s City of Borders. Set during the construction of the separation wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories, the characters contend with internal and external conflicts as they search for a sense of community despite their differences. …
The Clone Returns Home

When astronaut Kohei Takehara dies in an accident in space, a clone is generated from his DNA as part of a government program. But technical problems raise ethical questions. Part science fiction, part philosophical inquiry, and part story of the eminently human search for a sense of home. …
Cloud 9

Cloud 9 stares unblinkingly at lust found later in life. A 60-something and happily married seamstress, Inge, finds herself randy and in bed with Karl. With a light touch, Cloud 9, which won Cannes’ Heart Throb Jury Prize, exposes the knot of feelings that arise for Inge, Karl, and Inge’s husband. …
The Cock Collage

From coming out to your Grandma to a one-night stand between two straight men, with an aging dancer’s wallpapering of handmade cock collages for good measure, these films are for the boys. …
Cold Souls

This entertaining slice of existential whimsy posits a world in which humans can have their souls extracted and implanted into each others’ bodies. Debuting writer-director Sophie Barthes playfully blends science fiction, deadpan absurdism, and sharp social satire to depict an actor who goes to physical and philosophical extremes for the sake of a role. …
The Conversation

In this masterful conspiracy thriller from 1974, a paranoid and secretive surveillance operative has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that a couple he is spying on will be murdered. Eventually he discovers that he has become the victim of his own expertise. …
The Country Teacher

Director Bodhan Sláma’s subtle tale contemplates nature, sexuality, and love, as closeted gay schoolteacher Petr moves to a bucolic Czech village to teach natural science. The finely balanced relationship between Petr and his new landlady Marie and her comely son is fraught with repressed desire. …
The Cove

Winner Best Documentary - SIFF 2009 Golden Space Needle Audience Awards
The Cove is a fast-paced exposé of Japan's dolphin trade. Richard Barry, the man who trained Flipper, is now an activist who seeks to free captive dolphins. Louie Psihoyos (a National Geographic veteran) and a team of activists and divers show exactly what film can do as they proceed with anarchic vigor …
Daddy Cool

Philippe Tallec returns to France after 15 years to look after his teenage daughter. But he’s out of his depth and she’s got other things on her mind—namely boys. A family-friendly comedy about a father and daughter learning to love and live with each other. …
Dancing Across Borders

Pacific Northwest Ballet dancer Sokvannara “Sy” Sar was a dancer on the streets of Cambodia until he caught the eye of filmmaker Anne Bass, who helped him become a professional ballet dancer. In her debut feature film, Bass sympathetically chronicles Sy’s ascent as ballet’s newest rising star. …
The Dark Harbor

A lonely fisherman who longs for a wife returns home to discover that a mother and her son have moved into one of his cupboards. Like a fairy tale with a bittersweet edge, this charming feature is reminiscent of a silent film comedy. …
Daytime Drinking

An untamed debut feature from ambitious writer-director-producer-editor-composer Noh Young-seok. After being dumped by his girlfriend, young college graduate Hyuk-jin is talked into a trip to the countryside to console his broken heart, but he’s the only one who shows up. A series of strangely hilarious encounters follows as he nurses an ongoing hangover on his way home. …
Dead Snow

with the short film Mr. Mustache
When preparing for a ski trip one should check to make sure the mountain is free from Nazi zombies. Eight Norwegian medical students fail to do so and now must contend with the gory consequences—heads will roll, blood will flow, and intestines uncoil. …
Deadgirl

While cutting class one day, Rickie and JT make a bizarre find in the basement of an abandoned hospital–a girl strapped to an operating table, neither living nor dead. But as word of their discovery slowly leaks out, it leads to a series of gory confrontations that test the friends’ loyalties. …
Defamation

What is anti-Semitism today? In his continuing exploration of modern Israeli life, director Yoav Shamir (Checkpoint, Flipping Out) travels the world in search of the most modern manifestations of the “oldest hatred, and comes up with some startling answers. …
Departures

After a concert cellist loses his job, he moves back to his rural hometown. There he discovers his true calling as a mortician's assistant, but feels he must hide it from his wife. This tonally eccentric, moving, and funny Oscar-winning drama captures the feeling of uncertain identity in a world shaken by global recession. …
The Desert Within

A devout Catholic peasant makes a fateful decision that unleashes brutal retribution on his hometown. Racked with guilt, he forces his family into isolation and constant penitence in the desert. Religious fanaticism and protective love collide in this odyssey of a family seeking God’s forgiveness. Winner of Best Film at the Guadalajara Mexican Film Festival. …
Disclosures

Mischief, discoveries, and divulgences mark this collection of short films. …
Dodsworth

William Wyler’s under-seen dramatic gem: the titular Dodsworth sells his automobile company at his wife Fran’s request so they can move to Europe. But once there, Fran grows intoxicated, and ever more flirtatious, as they enjoy their new aristocratic lifestyle. Introduced by TCM’s Robert Osborne. …
Don't Let Me Drown

New York’s vibrant Mexican and Dominican communities take center stage in this lyrical and romantic look at the love between a young “Mexi-Yorker” boy and a Dominican girl. Set in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the star-crossed lovers try to reconcile their differences with an irresistible attraction. …
Downloading Nancy

A self-destructive housewife takes what may be her final step into the abyss in this independently made drama about psychological and emotional extremes. Nancy, who finds her only solace in self-inflicted pain, strikes up an online relationship with a man with a passion for violent sex, leaving her husband Albert to pick up the pieces. …
Egon & Dönci

This charming animated film features Egon, an amateur scientist, and his meddling cat Dönci, as they plan to leave their home planet for a trip to explore Earth. Director Ádám Magyar uses sounds and gestures, rather than dialogue, to communicate his characters’ thoughts and ideas in this delightful interplanetary adventure. Recommended for all ages. …
El General

A recent winner at Sundance, El General tackles the contradictions of history and memory in competing stories of revolution-era Mexico. Director Natalia Almada investigates the brutal presidency of Plutarco Elías Calles—her great-grandfather—and his enduring legacy in the country today. …
Eldorado

Landing halfway between the American road-film and Belgian absurdism, the French-language Eldorado concerns Yvan, who catches former junkie Elie burglarizing his house and decides to let the young man go free. As Yvan gives Elie a ride to the French border, the motive behind Yvan’s kindness unfolds with elements of black comedy and surrealism. …
The End of the Line

At once visually captivating and chilling, The End of the Line serves as a dire warning of the impact commercial overfishing has had on the planet's already strained ecosystem. This startling and engaging documentary examines the world's dwindling fish population with the potential human cost firmly in mind. …
The Escape

Mixing politics, love, and some thrills, The Escape compares the plight of a kidnapped female journalist with that of her captor, an Afghan militant. Their individual escapes present new sacrifices and deceptions that could easily destroy them both. …
Every Little Step

“Dancing with the Stars” may be all the rage, but what of those who dance their little hearts out in obscurity? This documentary shines a light on that world as 3000 dancers audition for a Broadway revival of “A Chorus Line.” …
Everyone Else

Winner of two Silver Bears at the Berlin International Film Festival, Everyone Else is a subtly humorous, meticulous study of the contradictory desires of a couple searching for an identity. This intimate love story plunges into the depths people go to save a relationship, and what it might take to be as happy as everyone else. …
Everything Strange and New

With a job, a wife, two kids, and a house, Wayne is living the American dream, but to him, it’s more of a nightmare as he sleepwalks through the day wondering what could have been. Thoughtful visual composition and an edgy soundscape create a meditative film that raises questions about the American dream. …
The Exploding Girl

Like many 20-somethings, Ivy’s life is a mixture of inner turmoil and romantic confusion. Writer-director Bradley Rust Gray uses both integrity and grace to portray a young girl on the edge as she struggles to keep her life together, negotiating maturity, romance, and her own battle with epilepsy. …
Facing Ali

Muhammad Ali predicted his championship standing long before the world accepted him as arguably the most talented boxer of all time. Pete McCormack dares audiences to witness Ali from the perspectives of ten boxers he fought and effortlessly demonstrates the magnitude of Ali’s presence in the ring. …
The Family Picture Show 2009

The exuberance of youth is given full display with this energetic set of shorts highlighting Shakespearean construction vehicles, knit animation, and Wallace and Gromit in their new short adventure. …
Favela on Blast

Emerging from the slums of Rio de Janeiro, the fast, hypersexual style of music called Baile Funk reflects the poor, violent area from which it sprang. This absorbing film explores the music’s roots, creating both a portrait of the city’s dismissed youth subculture and a snapshot of a vibrant art form. …
Fear Me Not

Reminiscent of Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life, this psychological thriller chronicles the transformation of Michael, a middle-aged family man who signs up for the clinical trials of a new antidepressant. When the pills turn out to have serious side effects, the trials are abandoned, but Michael continues the experiment on his own. …
Fifty Dead Men Walking

A political thriller that captures the character of the 1980s Northern Ireland “troubles” with great sensitivity. Recruited by the British police to infiltrate the IRA, Martin McGartland lives under constant threat of exposure, torture, and death. He enjoys his job until he is discovered and has to escape against all odds. …
Fig Trees

Director John Greyson’s operatic tour-de-force tells the story of two of the patron saints of AIDS activism, Tim McCaskell and Zackie Achmat, in a postmodern pastiche of palindromes, queer history, music history, and Catholic theology (with an albino squirrel thrown in for good measure). …
FILM IST. a girl & a gun

Gustav Deutsch combines archival pornography with World War I footage and really old nature films. The result is an essay on sex and violence and the children born of that union, written entirely with editing choices and music. Your interpretation may vary. …
Final Arrangements

Struggling musician Gabriel reluctantly accepts a position in the funeral business, but is unable to admit to what he does for a living. Michel Delgado’s darkly funny feature debut wrings wry laughs out of potentially macabre material as Gabriel clashes with a bitter co-worker and finds himself attracted to a beautiful client. …
Finding Bliss

Jody needs a place to shoot her movies but all she can find is a porn studio. She starts to secretly film there but is discovered and forced to collaborate with an adult film director. Filmed in Spokane, this fun romantic comedy borrows plot lines from director Julie Davis’ own start in the industry. …
The Firm Land

Combining impish humor with visual poetry, French-Iranian director Chapour Haghighat imbues his absurdist story-within-a-story of bureaucratic indifference with empathy, enchantment, and grace. The Firm Land lambastes bureaucratic indifference and exalts the ability of simple peasants to outsmart—or at least outlast—the worldly incompetents who stand in their way. …
Flame & Citron

with the short film When Elvis Came to Visit
In Copenhagen of 1944, Denmark is occupied by Nazi Germany. Resistance fighters Flame and Citron are charged with liquidating Danish informers. In the struggle for freedom, all zones appear grey, and it becomes increasingly unclear who is friend and who is foe. Based on true events. …
Fly Filmmaking Challenge 2009

This year's Fly Filmmaking Challenge takes SIFF audiences back to the basics. Three narrative filmmakers will make Serling, Chandler, and Cocteau proud as they expand and hone their expertise, working with classic B&W 16mm film. Adding an extra dimension to the Fly Film experience, this year's documentarian will capture a stylish, behind-the-scenes perspective about the productions... …
Food, Inc.

Filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on the nation’s food industry, exposing practices that wreak havoc on our environment and heath. Featuring interviews with authors Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan, as well as harrowing testimony from people from all walks of life, Food, Inc. is a call to dining-table activism. …
Forasters

Master Catalan filmmaker Ventura Pons expertly weaves together past and present in this wrenching look at two families linked from the late 1960s to the present. Highlighted by the bravura two-character performance of stage veteran Anna Lizaran, Pons upsets the “sensible” mentality of traditional roles and lays bare our reluctance to trust the unknown. …
Forever Enthralled

Chen Kaige returns to the genre that brought him the biggest acclaim of his career in Farewell My Concubine. This opulent period drama is the story of Mei Lanfang, the famous Peking opera singer of such virtuosity that he bewitched audiences worldwide making him one of China’s true national treasures. …
The Fortress

A penetrating and visually rich look at a Swiss registration and processing center for asylum seekers that takes us through the housing, care, and interviews of potential candidates. With emotion, humor, and compassion The Fortress peers into the daily procedures of sorting human beings. …
Four Boxes

In this snarky social thriller, three cynical, 20-something friends who run an eBay auction business move into a dead guy’s house to sell his possessions online. When they discover a bookmarked surveillance-cam website on his computer, they become intertwined with a psychopath’s apparent plot to kill. …
Four Chapters

Set in colonial Bengal at the turn of the 20th century, Four Chapters is the story of Sachish, an upper-caste young man torn between earthly and spiritual love. Based on Rabindranath Tagore’s novella, the story weaves a rich and timeless tapestry of crisscrossing desires, moralities, and classical Sufi music into an epic about eternal human struggles. …
A French Gigolo

Judith is a chic, successful, single woman in her 50s, who prefers the no-strings-attached services of male escorts. But when she meets the charming, good-natured Marco, she becomes drawn into a complicated romantic triangle with the troubled young man and his wife in this candid exploration of the relationship between love, desire, and economic reality. …
Fruit Fly

Bethesda, a Filipina-American performance artist, moves to San Francisco’s Castro district in search of her birth mother. Along the way, she meets a cast of sexy characters who regularly break into lavishly choreographed song and dance numbers in this exuberant, life-affirming comedy. …
FutureWave Shorts 2009

SIFF is proud to present FutureWave Shorts, a program of new films created by filmmakers younger than 19 years old whose talents celebrate the creative possibilities of the art form. …
Garbage Dreams

Welcome to the world’s largest garbage village located on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. The Zaballeen (Arabic for garbage people) recycle 80 percent of the trash they collect—far more than other recycling initiatives. But now a multi-national corporation threatens their livelihood. …
The Garden

Rising out of the ashes of the devastating riots of 1992, a community garden in South Central Los Angeles becomes a testament to the neighborhood’s resilience. This award-winning documentary shows how residents had to rally once more in an attempt to save this symbol of self-sufficiency from developers’ bulldozers. …
The Girl from Monaco

With the glittering hills of Monaco as a backdrop, the film starts out as a light, love-triangle romantic comedy about a lovelorn Parisian lawyer, a sexy TV weathergirl, and the lawyer’s overprotective bodyguard. However, things take a darker, satirical turn as the level of obsession ratchets up. …
Give Me Your Hand

A pair of identical twin brothers decide to walk to their mother’s funeral and run into a series of increasingly strange and erotic encounters with people along the way. While technically a road movie, this atmospheric film is more of an analysis about sexuality, symbiotic love, rivalry, and jealousy between siblings. …
God's Offices

Women of all ages, ethnicities, religions, and backgrounds meet in the waiting room of a busy family planning clinic in Paris. They’ve come in search of advice, birth control, abortion, or just a listening ear. Featuring a stellar cast of veteran French actresses, God's Offices is about the very business of life itself. …
Gotta Dance

Director and Broadway producer Dori Berinstein's exuberant and warm-hearted documentary chronicles the birth of the NETSationals Senior Dance Team. From debut to final performance, she captures their crowd-pleasing hip-hop routines, diverse backgrounds, and the media stardom that follows in the wake of their first season. …
Grace

Madeline will do anything to have a baby, even if it means carrying her stillborn child to full term. But after making a miraculous delivery, Madeline’s maternal joy is short lived as she struggles to fulfill baby Grace’s unique appetite in this squirm-inducing chiller. …
The Great Race

Professional daredevil and showman The Great Leslie persuades turn-of-the-century automakers that an around-the-word race would help promote automobile sales. Taking on his nemesis Professor Fate, the rivals' madcap escapades take them from New York to Paris in Blake Edwards’ wildly comic homage to the silent movie era. …
Hachi: A Dog's Story

The cherished, true story of a legendary Japanese akita comes to America in this modern reinvention by Lasse Hallström. Hachi demonstrates the profound bond between man and canine with his unrelenting loyalty in this story of love, unwavering devotion, and the resounding impact one dog’s affection can make. …
Hansel and Gretel

Prepare for an outré, Tim Burton-esque fever dream. Lost on a country road, Lee Eun-soo meets a mysterious girl who leads him to her bizarre house in the middle of the forest. But when he tries to leave the next morning, every path in the forest leads back to the girl’s “too-perfect” nightmare house. …
The Headless Woman

An affluent dentist hits something in the road but neither she nor her friends report the incident. When evidence emerges that she may have killed someone, the men in her life protect her secret. Lucretia Martel’s character study uses sparse dialogue and disjointed aural cues to tell an elliptical psychological drama about guilt, responsibility, and self-deception. …
The Higher Force

In an ice-cool riff on the mob genre, wannabe poet and occasional loan shark collector David is rapidly losing the respect of his gang. He hits upon a scheme to get it back, claiming to know the whereabouts of a dangerous hood thought to be in Mexico. …
The Hills Run Red

Film student Tyler is obsessed with uncovering the infamous, lost slasher film The Hills Run Red. But when he and his friends follow the director’s daughter into the backwoods where the flick was originally shot, they discover that principal photography never stopped. …
Home

Marthe and Michel live with their kids on the edge of a near-completed freeway. When the road is suddenly opened up to traffic, the noise and pollution threatens to destroy the family unit. Ursula Meier's absurd comedy—a “road movie in reverse”—redefines what “home” means. …
Hooked

Hooked is a close-up look at a cracked love relationship being wedged apart by Ana, a prostitute who the lovers accidentally hit with their car. After waking, Ana infiltrates their relationship and exploits their weaknesses, wreaking havoc either for revenge or pleasure. Winner of the New Director Prize at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. …
Humpday

Lynn Shelton will be in attendance. In this smart satire from Seattle’s Lynn Shelton, two college buddies test the limits of heterosexual male bonding by agreeing to take part in an amateur porn contest, based on the real-life competition held by The Stranger. …
The Hurt Locker

Winner Best Director, Kathryn Bigelow - SIFF 2009 Golden Space Needle Audience Awards
The experienced Bravo bomb squad has 38 days left on its tour of duty in a war-torn city. Enter swaggering cowboy James, whose reckless methods cause them to fear they will not make it to day 39. A gripping thriller that ratchets up the tension from the very first scene. …
I Know You Know

Based on writer-director Justin Kerrigan’s childhood, I Know You Know manages to be both a semi-autobiographical homage and an espionage thriller. The poignant tale set in the 1980s Welsh countryside stresses a child's enduring love for his father no matter what the circumstances. …
I Sell the Dead

Never trust a corpse. After his partner Grimes’ execution, grave robber Arthur Blake awaits his turn at Madame Guillotine. Father Duffy joins him for a night’s reflection (and, more importantly, a good bottle of whiskey) as Blake recounts his partnership’s deliriously macabre adventures with zombies, a vampire, and other hazards of the resurrection trade. …
I'm Gonna Explode

Bristling with the energy of youth, Gerardo Naranjo’s incandescent thriller follows two rebels without a cause as they defy parental authority. Like an adolescent Breathless, Naranjo’s film explores the tenderness of a first love that belies the bravado and posturing of the young lovers. Recommended for ages 17+ …
I’m No Dummy

Informative, engaging, and funny, this insightful documentary explores the world of ventriloquism. Dissecting the history of “venting” through archival footage, photos, and interviews with legendary performers, the film allows a rare glimpse into the complex creative process that sustains this seemingly magical art. …
Icons Among Us

Combining rare archival stills, interviews with 75 jazz artists and live recordings culled from 25 hours of concerts, this engaging doc captures the spirit and energy of the jazz art form. Anyone from diehard fans to curious novices will find something to enjoy this dynamic portrait of the greatest jazz musicians of today. …
Il Divo

Seven-term Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti dominated Italian politics across three decades, until he was undone by scandal and the predations of the Mafia. Director Paolo Sorrentino’s stylized biopic of the man known as “Divo Giulio” is packed with wicked wit, brilliant cinematography, and drama galore. …
The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle

A group of janitorial slackers unwittingly becomes the subject of a very bizarre biochemical engineering experiment involving self-warming cookies that may help illuminate the meaning of existence. Full of imaginative animation sequences, this visually inventive comedy from Seattle’s David Russo is really a spiritual quest in sheep’s clothing. …
In Your Absence

Pablo is a young boy struggling to grow into maturity while dealing with the sudden loss of his father. Utilizing a luminous Spanish setting, sparkling young cast, and twisting plot, director Iván Noel weaves a story about seeking truth that will rock audiences to the core. …
Independent America: Rising from Ruins

Independent America: Rising from Ruins explores the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and how the mom-and-pop businesses provided hope where corporate America disappointed. Avoiding over-dramatization, Hanson Hosein educates audiences about the empowered and hopeful in the New Orleans community. …
The Inexperienced Generation

No matter your age, sometimes you just don't know what to do. …
Inju, the Beast in the Shadow

This elegant suspense thriller, based on a novel by the great Japanese crime writer Edogawa Rampo, is a tale of intellectual and erotic obsession that pits callow French novelist Alex Fayard against a diabolical Japanese mastermind. …
Inland

Malek is a reclusive topographer working in a remote part of western Algeria that has been decimated by religious fundamentalists. He meets a young refugee trying to reach a boat for Spain and decides to drive her to the border. A portrait of present-day Algeria, Inland won the FIPRESCI prize at the 2008 Venice Film Festival. …
Involuntary

A quirky comedy about the nature of group dynamics: Two teenage girls take risqué pictures and get drunk; a group of young men experiment with sex; a righteous teacher tries set things “right”; and a bus driver holds a group of passengers prisoner. …
An Island Calling

After a prominent gay couple is murdered on Fiji, the brother of one of the victims searches for answers to how such a tragedy could happen. This unusual and intricate murder mystery seeks to find not the killer, but the killer’s motives through a society’s politics, culture, and colonial history. …
It Came From Kuchar

Twin brothers, Mike and George Kuchar, began making low-budget, experimental, and hilariously melodramatic films in the 1960s. Their pioneering work inspired filmmakers and made the twins into film legends. Director Jennifer Kroot entwines humor and sentiment as she explores the brothers’ lives, their fans, and their influence on the American underground film scene. …
It Takes a Cult

The Israel Family (aka, The Love Family) was a communal religious movement born in Seattle that grew to a tribe of nearly 300 men, women, and children. Raised in the Israel Family, Johannsen brings an intimate portrait of communal life and what drew them all together. …
Kabei—Our Mother

A father’s imprisonment for his progressive political views throws a family into hardship in veteran director Yoji Yamada’s intricate 1940s domestic drama. Unashamedly emotional without lapsing into sentimentality, Kabei—Our Mother’s meditative approach and impeccable formal construction make it a rewarding exploration of a family’s resilience in the face of distress. …
Kaifeck Murder

After Marc and his son chance upon the Bavarian countryside town of Kaifeck, they discover it was the site of a gruesome, unsolved mass murder. When his body starts to spontaneously manifest wounds that mimic those of the legendary slain victims, Marc’s curiosity turns to obsession. Director Esther Gronenborn steeps each scene in a dark fairytale atmosphere—the very stuff from which nightmares are …
Kanchivaram

This lush Tamil film is set in the temple town famous for its silk saris, at a time when a humble weaver could never afford the shimmering saris he produces. Vengadam is determined to wrap his daughter in silk on her wedding day, and so resorts to stealing single strands of silk that he weaves in secret every night. …
The Karamazovs

Petr Zelenka expertly layers Dostoyevsky’s questions of morality, atheism, and their consequences through the interplay of novel, play, film, and real life. A Czech theater troupe puts on an alternative production of “The Brothers Karamazov” at a Polish steel mill, but as the play unfolds, offstage subplots interlace and reflect the themes portrayed onstage. …
Katia's Sister

In this gritty drama about a family of female Russian immigrants in Amsterdam, 13-year-old Lucia struggles to retain her optimism as her mother and sister hit the downward slope of drugs and prostitution. The film is a disturbing meditation on how desperation can force some into isolation and others to do unthinkable acts. …
Khamsa

Franco-Tunisian writer-director Karim Dridi’s latest is a poignant tale reminiscent of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. Thirteen-year-old Khamsa flees his foster family for the Marseilles Gypsy camp where he was born. Embraced by his old friends, Khamsa's innocence begins to vanish when they involve him in a series of increasingly serious crimes. …
Kimjongilia

N.C. Heikin’s documentary gives long overdue voice to those who’ve suffered under Kim Jong-il’s reign. Though the film maintains a furious tone, it is far from homogenous as it playfully mixes interviews, dance performances, propaganda films, and animation. The result is a devastating indictment of one of the world’s worst dictators and a call for justice …
Kisses

Two feisty Irish preteens flee their bleak, abusive homes to arrive at night in a magically lit Dublin. The runaways’ night of freedom and magic soon takes a darker turn as they wander Dublin’s inner-city streets in search of a lost sibling. …
Know Your Mushrooms

Celebrated documentarian Ron Mann gives fungus its due with this multi-faceted perspective about the power of the mushroom. Several mycologists (mushroom experts) celebrate the various culinary, medicinal, hallucinatory, and environmental ways mushrooms are a vital part of everyday life. Who knew mushrooms might one day save the world? …
Krabat

Harry Potter should steer clear of the challenges facing the 14-year-old orphan, Krabat, in this expertly crafted dark fantasy. Marco Kreuzpainter waves a sure-handed director’s wand over the alluring characters of Otfried Preußler’s classic novel, guaranteed to electrify fans of the genre and draw new members to “the dark side.” …
La Ciénaga

Lucrecia Martel’s 2001 debut film is a powerful document of a family being swallowed up by alcoholism, neglect, and all-around dysfunction. When the matriarch of a decaying bourgeois estate suffers an injury, she invites relatives to her crumbling country mansion, where tensions rise and old family wounds are reopened. …
Laila's Birthday

Laila's Birthday presents the confusion, frustration, absurdity, and coping mechanisms of life in contemporary Ramallah through the eyes of a former judge who is forced to work as a taxi driver. This wry, politically comic drama is leavened with finely tooled irony, as the judge tries to make everyone behave. …
Le Amiche

Offering a fascinating, multilayered story, rich characterizations, and superb performances, this engrossing 1950s drama explores women's evolving role in Italian society and the conflict between love and career. Juggling ten characters with great aplomb, Antonioni creates an interlocking narrative that rises above mere melodrama through attention to the flow of interpersonal relationships. …
Light Year

In a dazzling sequence of shots, Mikael Kristersson explores the greatness of the small objects in his own garden in Sweden. Viewing the real world from the perspective of the wasp and the cabbage butterfly, we see how human beings are merely one species among many. …
Like Dandelion Dust

In this moving adaptation of Karen Kingsbury's novel, well-off Floridians Jack and Molly Campbell battle with the disadvantaged birth parents of their adopted son, Joey, in an examination of the socioeconomic factors that shape families. The film simply and effectively taps into parents' most primal feelings of love and fear for their young. …
Little Joe

Joe Dallesandro became famous in the 1960s as Andy Warhol's naked muse in several Paul Morrissey movies and was immortalized in a song by Lou Reed. In Little Joe, he speaks directly to the camera about films, marriages, drugs, and drinking. His reminiscences as a misunderstood icon are backed up with abundant archival footage. …
Little Soldier

Traumatized war veterans and human trafficking combine with a troubled father-daughter relationship drama as a female veteran returns to her provincial Danish hometown and grudgingly becomes involved with her sleazy father’s brothel business. Winner of the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, this complex screenplay intertwines with commanding performances for an intrig …
Live and Remember

In the final months of World War II, deserting soldier Andrei returns from the battlefront and hides out near his tradition-bound Siberian village, forcing his wife to lead a double life. The striking frozen landscapes bring to life Alexander Proshkin’s small but profound portrait of hardscrabble peasant life. …
Lovely Loneliness

Soledad, a neurotic Buenos Aires 20-something, is jilted by her fiancé and swears to remain single for three years. This vow proves hard to keep, however, as her ex tries to restart their romance and things unexpectedly take off with a man she has just met. Lead Inés Efron brings a glow to this charming, offbeat film. …
Machan

Based on real-life events, Machan follows a group of Sri Lankan slum dwellers on the margins of society who form a national handball team in order to get European visas. Never mind that none of them have ever seen, let alone played, a game of handball. They’ll cross that bridge when they get to it. …
The Maid

Raquel is devoted to the Valdes family, but after working for them for 23 years, she starts to feel her position is under threat and mounts a spirited defense in this engrossing character study. Winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. …
Mamma Moo and Crow

Mamma Moo is an adventurous cow who enjoys doing many un-cow-like things. When she meets Crow, she sees an instant friend but Crow doesn’t realize how valuable having friends can be. This delightful Swedish animation is full of laughs and life lessons for all ages. Subtitles will be read aloud at both screenings, recommended for all ages. …
Manhole Children

Special Jury Prize - SIFF 2009 Documentary Competition
The collapse of Communism in Mongolia has created an entire underclass of homeless children who live in the underground steam pipes of Ulan Bator. Shot over ten years, this absorbing documentary follows the lives of three of these “manhole children” as they struggle to survive in a lawless society. …
Maradona by Kusturica

Maradona reveals the many facets of the controversial soccer legend, and arguably the greatest player of all time. As big a character off the field as on, director Emir Kusturica reveals Diego Maradona’s life as a footballer, activist, addict, and father, revealing every side of the man’s life in all its drama and complexity. …
Marcello Marcello

In 1950s Italy, young Marcello must find the perfect gift to win over the perfect girl—and more importantly, her father. A charming evocation of postwar Italy, Marcello Marcello carries us along on its hero’s madcap quest as his best intentions throw the sleepy seaside town into chaos and disarray. …
The Market - A Tale of Trade

Small-time entrepreneur Mihram gets the chance of a lifetime to invest in an exciting new business deal. The catch? He has to gamble his reputation using other people’s money. This smart, seriocomic story of black-market machinations is both an entertaining road movie and a cautionary tale about global capitalism. …
Melodrama Habibi

Bruno, a French one-hit-wonder crooner, is slouching into a grudging retirement from music when he gets an offer to sing for a fan in Lebanon. Though he’s never played in Lebanon before, Bruno jumps at the chance. This crowd pleaser celebrates how music shapes our memories, both real and imagined. …
The Merry Gentleman

In Michael Keaton’s directorial debut, Kate Frazier flees her troubled past and sets up a new life in Chicago. There she meets Frank Logan and the two discover a laconic, unexpected satisfaction in their friendship, but neither lonely soul can escape the past forever. …
Mesrine: A Film in Two Parts (Part 1)

This two-fisted, two-part epic charts the remarkable 20-year crime spree of Jacques Mesrine, France’s public enemy number one. Mesrine, winner the César Award for Best Film and Sound, charts the notorious criminal’s dodgy past brutal honesty and gripping, unsentimental realism. The kinetic production works its retro settings, sharp performances, and superb international locations for a huge …
Mesrine: A Film in Two Parts (Part 2)

This two-fisted, two-part epic charts the remarkable 20-year crime spree of Jacques Mesrine, France’s public enemy number one. Mesrine, winner the César Award for Best Film and Sound, charts the notorious criminal’s dodgy past brutal honesty and gripping, unsentimental realism. The kinetic production works its retro settings, sharp performances, and superb international locations for a huge …
Miao Miao

Teenaged Miao-Miao arrives in Taipei and quickly befriends Xiao-Ai. Miao-Miao finds first love in a moody CD clerk while Xiao-Ai finds herself strangely attracted to her new best friend. This glossy youth romance features great performances and production design from regular Wong Kar-wai contributors. Recommended for ages 13+. …
Mid-August Lunch

This low-key charmer follows a 60-ish Roman who lives with his tyrannical 93-year-old mother and finds himself forced to look after three other elderly ladies during the summer holidays. The aging women prove a handful, while grudging host Gianni attempts to monitor their pill intake and pacify them with food. …
The Missing Person

Academy Award nominees Michael Shannon and Amy Ryan shine in writer-director Noah Buschel's third feature, a stylish reinvention of the film noir private-eye genre. The shaggy-dog mystery follows gin-soaked PI John Rosow, who uncovers surprising secrets, some of which are his. …
La Mission

Peter Bratt’s powerful and moving film is an ardent love letter to the vibrancy and daily struggles that take place in the streets of San Francisco’s Mission District. Full of affection for its characters, La Mission is a redemptive story of one man’s struggle to unlearn a lifetime of destructive habits. …
Modern Life

As small family farming disappears from the French countryside, the people who have worked the land for generations refuse to give up and let their livelihoods crumble around them. Director Raymond Depardon shares his affection and respect for these troubled families through striking images that divulge the naked truth of the situation. …
Mommy is at the Hairdresser's

Teenager Élise is forced to occupy her mother’s role and to care for her overwhelmed father and distressed younger brothers in this intelligent family drama. Equally sad, nostalgic, and surprisingly funny, Mommy is at the Hairdresser's showcases strong performances from its child actors and vibrantly evokes its 1960s Quebec setting. …
Moon

Winner Best Actor, Sam Rockwell - SIFF 2009 Golden Space Needle Audience Awards
After spending nearly three years alone on the moon, Sam Bell counts down the days until he’s reunited with his wife and daughter. But two weeks shy of his departure, he begins having hallucinations and a strong sense that he is no longer alone. Buoyed by Sam Rockwell’s emphatic performance, Moon harke …
Moonbeam Bear and His Friends

When Mr. Moon is knocked from the night sky, Moonbeam Bear and his woodland friends must work together on a grand adventure to return Mr. Moon to his place above the forest. Embodying the warmth of the storybooks the film is based on, Moonbeam Bear is a treasure the whole family will embrace. In English, recommended for ages 3+. …
Morris: A Life With Bells On

For those who think the English folk dance Morris is just an innocent pub pastime involving hanky-waving and bearded men with staffs, you have never seen its politics-laden, ultra-competitive side. Follow Millsham Morris, and its leader Derecq Twist, in their pursuit of Morris perfection. …
Mothers & Daughters

Six respected Canadian actresses improvise relations between mothers and daughters in this comedic narrative feature and winner of the Vancouver International Film Festival’s 2008 Audience award for Most Popular Canadian Film. Happy endings may be irrelevant, but nothing takes the place of that maternal touch regardless of how timid or acrimonious. …
My Dear Enemy

Unemployed and desperate for money, Kim Hee-soo tracks down her ex-boyfriend Cho Byoung-woon and demands the $3,500 he still owes her. Broke himself, he takes Hee-soo on an unexpected day trip around Seoul while trying to scrounge up the cash and pay off his debt in this subtle, leisurely comedy. …
My Suicide

Winner SIFF 2009 Youth Jury Award for Best FutureWave Feature
When Archie announces for his final school video project he'll kill himself on-camera, his world turns upside-down, and he captures the whole circus on tape. The director collaborated with youth to blend manipulated footage and animation into an authentic commentary on today's teen condition. Winner of the Berlin Film Festival …
Nak

An evil movie-ghost kidnaps a young boy, a colorful cast of real Thai ghost legends band together to help get him back. Drawing inspiration from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Nak is a ghoulishly fun, animated musical romp for families. Recommended for ages 7+. …
Nasty Cinema with James Forsher

The not-so-classy side of Classic Hollywood
Films have both entertained and upset audiences for decades. When enough people were insulted, censorship reared its head. The Nasty Cinema features a number of nasty films that span five decades of racist and prejudicial portrayals of minority groups, religious groups, and the women’s rights movement. …
The Necessities of Life

In the 1950s, Tivii, an Inuit hunter from Baffin Island, is forcibly removed from his family and taken to a Quebec City sanitarium during a tuberculosis outbreak. Unable to communicate with the staff, he is helped by an afflicted native orphan. In turn, Tivii reintroduces the child to his nearly forgotten heritage. …
The Nightmare Factory 2008

Unsettling dreams prepackaged for your dire convenience. …
No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti

This Taiwanese film with a Spanish title is about a father with limited economic means who will do anything he can to keep the government from taking his daughter away. Shot in beautiful black and white and based on a true story, this is an inspiring quest for love that knows no bounds. …
North

Aptly billed as “an antidepressive off-road movie,” the wry comic drama North follows anxious, dejected, 30-year-old Jomar as he reluctantly journeys through frosty arctic landscapes, and reconnects with life. With deadpan acting and a quirky economy of style, NORTH has the makings of a cult hit. …
North Face

Based on a 1936 attempt by two Germans and two Austrians to be the first to scale the near-vertical Eiger North Face, the most dangerous unconquered rock face in the Alps, this grippingly staged mountain movie boasts plenty of white-knuckle thrills. …
Nurse.Fighter.Boy

At the center of this beautiful and inventive urban love story is the notion that faith and magic are everywhere. A young boy lives in multicultural Toronto with his single mother, a nurse with a health problem of her own. When a boxer who has seen better days comes into their lives, "wondrously the boy's incantations conjure a potent love for his mother, and a protector for himself." …
Once Upon a Time in the West

Sergio Leone’s great Western masterpiece–fully restored and presented in all its panoramic glory. Gunfighter Frank and his gang have orders to kill a beautiful widow in order to take her land for the encroaching railroad, only they find her under the protection of a mysterious man with a harmonica. …
The One-Armed Trick

Santiago Zannou makes an impressive feature film debut in this winner of three Goya awards (Spanish Film Academy) including Best Debut Film, Best Acting, and Best Music. Paralyzed on half of his body from childhood, Cuajo has a single dream: to succeed in music. …
Opium War

After their helicopter crashes in enemy territory, two American soldiers encounter a poor and wacky Afghan family that grows opium to survive. Opium War, winner of the Rome International Film Festival’s Critics’ Award for Best Film, combines realism and absurdism to broach the presence of the United States in Afghanistan and the need of Afghan families to produce opium to earn a living. …
OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies

See how it all began for Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, aka agent OSS 117, France’s answer to James Bond, Maxwell Smart and Austin Powers. In this special outdoor screening, see the first in this hilarious series of spy-spoof films as OSS 117 goes undercover in Cairo to investigate the murder of a fellow agent. Winner of the SIFF 2006 Audience Award. Ages 13+. …
The Other Bank

Winner Grand Jury Prize - SIFF 2009 New Directors Showcase Competition
A 12-year-old Georgian refugee travels back to war-torn Abkhazia to find his father and a second chance at life. His odyssey takes him across physical and emotional borders, where nationalism and revenge are the way of life. A riveting story about a boy with grownup cares who finds a path to living bravely. …
Our Beloved Month of August

In the Portuguese hills, August is the time of feasts, singing, and debauchery. Seen through the eyes of one of cinema’s true free spirits, this charming mix of fact and fiction depicts urban life and love, and also provides a humorous look at the film profession. …
The Overbrook Brothers

A comedy of errors about two arch-rival brothers at a ridiculously awkward family Christmas reunion where the siblings get a life-altering surprise that sends the 30-something ultra-competitive pair on a sometimes bizarre road trip. Writer-director John Bryant spins a hilarious tale of sibling rivalry, family secrets, and a quest for the truth as the brothers kick and scream their way to adulthood …
A Pain in the Ass

The latest comedy from Francis Veber pairs a cold-as-ice assassin and a would-be suicide case to create an unlikely friendship as the men’s disparate lives cross paths at a hotel. Complete with slamming doors, slapstick humor, and mistaken identities, this is classic farce that only the French can truly pull off. …
Paper Heart

Despite professing a belief that she's incapable of love, comedian and actress Charlyne Yi finds herself falling for Michael Cera in this utterly charming and intoxicating mix of documentary, improvisation, and romance. Ages 13+. …
The Paranoids

Aimless, narcoleptic loner Luciano lives in fear of just about everything. In this wry comedy of errors, he contends with his own antics, his successful friend and his desire for his best friend’s girlfriend. With an understated yet stylized approach, the director maintains a constant sense of unease, with flashes of black humor. …
Passing Strange

Part rock concert, part memoir, part Broadway musical, Spike Lee’s new documentary breaks conventions to tell its story of a young L.A. songwriter’s international journey to self-discovery. A translation to the big screen of the hit Broadway play by Stew, the film is also a profound treatise on black identity. …
Patrik Age 1.5

What a difference punctuation can make. Because of a stray decimal, the child that a gay couple thinks will be their newly adopted 18-month-old son is actually a troubled, homophobic 15-year-old. Director Ella Lemhagen treats the dramatic subjects of adoption and bigotry with humor, intelligence, and a dash of romance. …
Pirate for the Sea

Hero to conservationists and villain to hunters, marine environmentalist Paul Watson commits himself 100 percent to his cause. In this stirring profile, director and narrator Ron Colby explores Watson's beliefs, blunders, and triumphs. He makes a convincing case that the world's endangered oceans are better off due to Watson’s dedicated and frequently controversial efforts. …
Pop Star On Ice

This not-just-for-fans documentary serves as the perfect introduction to figure skating's immensely talented and unpredictable Enfant Terrible, Johnny Weir. Funny, fast paced, and intimate, the film quickly draws even the ice skating uninitiated into Weir's unique world as he lives and skates from the gut, for better or for worse. …
Poppy Shakespeare

“N” is a 13-year psychiatric hospital veteran who is quite content to stay put. But her insular, institutional world is shattered by glamorous Poppy, who enlists N in a daring plan of escape. At once lyrical and absurd, the film takes an inside look at a claustrophobic, upside-down world in which reality intermingles with fantasy and reason with insanity. …
Princess of Africa

Marem is a 14-year-old girl from Senegal and Sonia is a dancer from Spain. Pivoting off their connection to musician Pap Ndiaye, Princess of Africa displays an intoxicating portrait of the dreams and realities associated with Africa from both inside and out. Recommended for ages 13+. …
Prodigal Sons

When Kimberly Reed returned to Montana for her high school reunion, she expected a stir—she used to be the school’s quarterback before her sex change. But as she reconnects with her estranged brother in this personal documentary, she uncovers far more stunning secrets, including a family tie to Hollywood royalty. …
Quiet Chaos

What does a Roman husband do when his wife dies suddenly, leaving him to care for their ten-year-old daughter on his own? TV executive Pietro tries to come to grips with his loss while sitting on a park bench in front of his daughter’s school, observing the bedlam that unfolds around him. Winner of multiple David de Donatello Awards. …
Raging Sun, Raging Sky

Avante-garde filmmaker Julian Hernandez’s new film is a paean to love, desire, and sexuality. Kieri and Ryo have selfless passion for one other. When a jealous admirer abducts Ryo, Kieri embarks on a heroic quest to find him. Winner of the Teddy award for Best Feature at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival. …
Rain

Maria Govan’s debut feature exposes a darker side of Bahamian life rarely seen from the country’s luxury resorts. When a teenager named Rain embarks on a quest to meet her mother for the first time, she is devastated by the poverty of her mother’s AIDS-blighted slum, and finds the strength within to survive. Winner of Best First Director and First Film at the Pan African Film Festival. …
The Red Race

This observational documentary introduces us to the world of a group of young Chinese children enrolled in an intensive gymnastics training program. Every adult in their lives conditions them to seek one ultimate goal: winning a gold medal at the Olympics. This detailed insight captures the contradictions of modern China and the cost paid for the country’s dreams. …
Rembrandt's J'Accuse

Part art history essay, forensic mystery, and criminal investigation, writer-director Peter Greenaway’s Rembrandt’s J’Accuse invents a new and unusual kind of cinema through an exploration of Rembrandt’s “Night Watch.” This atypical film is complex and unexpectedly amusing as it traces the murderous backstory behind the Dutch masterpiece. …
Response Abilities

This package examines the myriad responsibilities that we face, and how we do and do not accept them. …
Rumba

Dominique and Fiona are mild-mannered provincial teachers by day, fun-loving dance freaks by night until a nasty car crash forces them apart. This audacious comedy from the team behind SIFF 2005 hit Iceberg melds black humor and slapstick in a triumphant hybrid of Jacques Tati and Aki Kaurismäki. …
School Days With a Pig

A teacher who wants his students to learn “the real connection between life and food” suggests they adopt a piglet to care for and then eat at the end of the year. But the more attached the students grow to the animal, the harder the question of its fate becomes. …
Scratch

Joanna and Jan, an older couple in Krakow, have enjoyed a long and satisfying marriage. But when Joanna receives a videotape alleging that Jan was once an informer for the Polish secret service, seeds of doubt begin to erode the trust between them. An intimate drama that explores the effects of state intervention in private life from the days of Communist rule. …
A Sea Change

Can you imagine a world without fish? A Sea Change follows Sven Huseby in his quest to discover what is happening to the world’s oceans. After reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s “A Darkening Sea,” Sven becomes obsessed with the rising acidity of the oceans and what this “sea change” bodes for mankind. …
Secret Festival

“Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.” —Thomas Carlyle
Psst! Hey buddy. Yeah, you. Can you keep a secret? I mean, can you really keep a secret? Even from your wife, husband, mother, significant other, or innocent, doe-eyed children? Then maybe you’re ready for the next level of “insider information” at SIFF. …
Sensory Overload

In the dark, on the screen, through the ear and in a name, these shorts explore the five senses and more. …
Séraphine

Winner Best Actress, Yolande Moreau - SIFF 2009 Golden Space Needle Audience Awards
This transcendent biopic charts the life of self-taught primitivist artist Séraphine de Senlis, who worked as a maid in early 20th-century France, and painted with everything she could find in her spare time. The film recounts the artist’s rise and fall, from wide acclaim during World War II to her drift …
Serenity Prayers

This package contains nine films about change. The serenity to accept the things you can’t… …
Sexykiller

Ever imagine Travis Bickle as a Cosmo cover girl? Med student Bárbara wants the perfect life promised by her Cindy Superstar fashion doll, complete with chic wardrobe and hunky boyfriend—and she’ll literally tear anyone to shreds to get it. This over-the-top, campy confection bleeds charm and wit as the psychotic Bárbara shops—and slashes—her way to her dream. …
The Shaft

Set amid the imposing mountains of western China, the dreams, disappointments and resolve of a tightly knit family of coalminers poignantly reflect the plight of a vast number of ordinary laborers unable to climb the ladder of the country's post-Communist economy. …
Short in the Dark

With poetic visions of worlds that cease to exist or worlds that spontaneously come about, all imbued with breathtaking beauty, we invite viewers to sharpen their gaze, often in silence. …
ShortsFest Opening Night 2009

SIFF’s annual celebration of the short subject kicks off with a dynamically varied program examining the breezy joy and tremendous complexity of the best short films. …
Shrink

Henry Carter is a Hollywood psychiatrist with a paranoid, alcoholic, germ-phobic, befuddled A-list clientele, but Henry’s not in such great shape himself. Writer Thomas Moffett plays on classic archetypes in this satirical study of control and our endless need for it. With an all-star cast, Shrink was the smash hit of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. …
Skin

A genetic abnormality causes Sandra, born to white parents in apartheid-era South Africa, to have black skin. Based on the incredible but true story, Skin follows three decades of Sandra’s life as she struggles—along with her country—to overcome racial bias. …
Small Crime

Stuck on a small Greek island, bored police officer Leonidas dreams of solving big-city crimes. When a dead body turns up, he gets his wish. In this sweet romantic comedy, Leonidas investigates increasingly implausible leads with the help of a beautiful TV star, the island’s most famous former resident—and possible suspect. …
The Sniper

When former colleague Lincoln vows vengeance on the SDU Sniper Team for his imprisonment, the unit’s leader must team up with his hot-headed protégé to save his daughter from Lincoln’s plot to re-enact his deadly downfall. Featuring a series of frenetic set pieces choreographed with nail-biting intensity, director Dante Lam continues his mastery over the action flick in The Sniper. …
Snow

The women of a remote Bosnian village attempt to move on with their lives after most of the men were killed in the 1992-95 civil war. But a visit from developers during the first snowstorm of the season reopens painful wounds and creates a dilemma that threatens the town’s future. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival Critics Week Grand Prize. …
So Long at the Fair

Before Terence Fisher became Hammer Films’ top maestro of horror, he crafted this taut, suspense thriller. Siblings Vicky and Johnny Barton travel to the 1889 Paris Exhibition and book separate rooms at their hotel. But the next morning, both Johnny and his room have mysteriously disappeared. …
Sounds Like Teen Spirit: A Popumentary

Special Jury Award - SIFF 2009 Youth Jury
Bright-eyed European kids ages ten to 15 compete for the top prize at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in this warmly comic “popumentary.” With their sparkly costumes and animated dance moves, the young contestants profiled in this film show us the power of perseverance and hope. Recommended for ages 13+. …
Spring 1941

A world famous cellist returns to Poland 30 years after World War II to visit the places that still haunt her. A tragic love story unfolds as a Jewish family hides in the shelter of a remote Polish farm where individuals are shocked out of the everyday and into a world where every moment could be your last. …
Spring Breakdown

Male geeks have dominated comedies from Revenge of the Nerds to Napoleon Dynamite, but director Ryan Shiraki gives it up for the geeky girls when the incomparable Parker Posey, Amy Poehler, and Rachel Dratch get to experience all the spring break merrymaking they missed their first time around. …
The Spy and the Sparrow

Garrett Bennett will be in attendance. Director Garrett Bennett merges spy thriller with domestic drama to intriguing effect in this sly and surprising film that was shot and produced in Seattle. …
The Square

Wishing to flee his monotonous marriage, construction supervisor Raymond Yale becomes entangled in a love affair. But after a series of fatal missteps, a nightmare of unforeseen events unfolds in this thrilling neo-noir, set in a bleak Australian town. …
Stella

Wryly-philosophical Stella, whose parents run a boisterous working-class bar, lands, by a fluke, in an exclusive Paris high school. Though well versed in soccer, mixology, and pop music, Stella soon realizes she lacks the requisite knowledge to survive on this alien planet. From director Verheyde’s childhood memories, Stella is a moving yet unsentimental glance into a young woman's journey. …
Still Walking

In this gentle comedy-drama from Japanese master Kore-eda (Nobody Knows, a Yokohama family reunion to commemorate the death of a son sparks an intergenerational conflict that threatens to erupt. Long-held resentments and regrets bubble under the seemingly smooth veneer of the family’s daily lives. …
Story of Jen

After Jen’s father commits suicide, his taciturn half brother comes to stay and sets events in motion that will change all of their lives forever. Director François Rotger designs an uncanny telling of affection, carnal desire and sexual violation interlaced with detailed cinematography, great chemistry between female leads, and a riveting chase scene. …
The Strength of Water

Childhood, sudden death, Maori culture, and rugged New Zealand scenery make a potent mix in The Strength of Water. This naturalistic melodrama taps an undertow of magic realism to tell the story of ten-year-old Maori twins who live on a chicken farm with several siblings and their hardworking parents. …
Sügisball

Set among a complex of Soviet-era tower blocks in Estonia, Sügisball is a character study of loneliness and yearning. The lives of six residents—a writer, an architect, their estranged wives, a single mother, and a barber—intersect through a series of miscommunications in this sophisticated black comedy. …
Summer

Robert Carlyle gives one of his finest performances to date as Shaun, a small-town man tortured by regret, in Kenny Glenaan's slow-burn examination of friendship, guilt, and commitment. Shaun takes care of everyone, but is haunted by his own past, until he decides to reconnect with a long-lost friend and put the past behind him. Winner of Best Film, Director at BAFTA Awards Scotland. …
Summer Hours

This gorgeous return to form from Assayas, depicting a family’s efforts to come to terms with the death of its popular matriarch, is a beautiful, naturalistic, insightful, and very moving exploration of the passing of time and the transience of art, familial relationships, and traditions. …
Sunset Boulevard

One of the great films of all time, and Billy Wilder’s masterpiece, Sunset Boulevard follows struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis as he moves into the crumbling mansion of silent-film star Norma Desmond to ghostwrite her big comeback film. Introduced by TCM’s host Robert Osborne. …
Survival Kit

From being bullied to breaking down to braving strange lands, these shorts show our will to survive against all odds. …
Sweet Crude

Winner Lena Sharpe Award for Persistence of Vision, Presented by Women in Film/Seattle
Ten percent of our oil supply comes from Nigeria, but few of us know the social and environmental devastation that the oil business wreaks there. Seattle filmmaker Sandy Cioffi brings her camera overseas to expose the corruption and the growing militant reaction to the politically irresponsible oil com …
Swimsuit Issue

In the wake of a wild bachelor party, Fredrik discovers his passion for synchronized swimming. Convincing his floorball teammates to join him as Sweden’s only all-male team, they set their sights on the world championships in this oddball, comedic tale of courage, triumph and gender role reversal. …
Tahaan - A Boy With a Grenade

Director Santosh Sivan (The Terrorist) explores the beauty of innocence with his tale of Tahaan, a boy who stops at nothing to save his best friend, a donkey named Birbal. On his journey, Tahaan’s courage is tested as he navigates treacherous mountains and unknowingly gets drawn into a terrorist plot. …
talhotblond

Winner Grand Jury Prize - SIFF 2009 Documentary Competition
An incredible-but-true crime story of a love triangle where the lovers never meet face to face, but one person ends up dead, another goes to prison, and the families of all three are changed forever. …
Tears of April

At the end of Finland’s civil war in 1918, Private Aaro Harjula escorts a young female enemy platoon leader to a military tribunal, but develops feelings along the way that cause him to question his loyalties. Tears of April is a stirring testament to the possibility of human connection under the most inhuman circumstances. …
Telstar

It’s 1950s London, and gay, tone-deaf songwriter-producer Joe Meek has set up a recording studio in his apartment: vocals in the bathroom and instruments in the bedroom. He can’t play an instrument or write musical notation, but his innovations in the studio will change pop music forever. Based on writer Nick Moran’s “West End.” …
Tengri: Blue Heavens

Temur returns to his traditional Kyrgyz village looking for his father, but instead finds love with married Amira. When her husband, a fighter with the Mujihedeen in Afghanistan, hears of the betrayal, he stops waging jihad to track down the lovers across the rugged country. Tengri offers a classic lovers-on-the-run melodrama set amid spectacular widescreen backdrops. …
Terribly Happy

A Danish village hides as many secrets as the nearby bog in this entertaining thriller about the universal nature of compromise and corruption. Full of surprising twists, Terribly Happy, which swept the Bodil Awards, the vivid tale of a Copenhagen policeman working punishment duty in the provinces plays with genres as expertly as do the Coen brothers or David Lynch. …
Tetro

An Evening with Francis Ford Coppola
Argentina proves an inviting canvas for Francis Ford Coppola’s first original screenplay since 1974's The Conversation. Striking thematic parallels and Coppola’s intimate direction seamlessly frame this semi-autobiographical drama in which two brothers attempt to make peace with their troubled pasts. …
That Evening Sun

Eighty-year-old Abner Meecham returns to his Tennessee farm after escaping a nursing home to find that his lawyer son has leased it to a long-time enemy and his white trash family. The film features Oscar-nominee Hal Holbrook and won the Audience Award and Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast at the 2009 South by Southwest Film Festival. …
The Third Man

Carol Reed’s classic portrays an American innocent in postwar Vienna whose search for his college friend. Restoring 11 minutes cut by its American producer, Rialto’s restoration brings this classic of American naiveté meeting modern cynicism in post-war Vienna closer to Graham Greene’s dark vision. Introduced by TCM’s Robert Osborne. …
This Charming Girl

Reeling from the end of her engagement and her mother’s recent death, young postal worker Jeong-hae attempts to reconnect with society while struggling to overcome a fear of the outside world. This 2004 debut from Lee Yoon-ki effectively draws the audience into the emotional life of a solitary character. …
Three Blind Mice

Three young sailors have a 24-hour shore leave in Sydney before shipping out to Iraq. Harry is up for poker and prostitutes, Dean has to see his fiancée, and Sam just wants to avoid trouble. In the course of the booze-fueled night, tensions erupt and hidden emotions surface. …
Treeless Mountain

A delicate, measured, and visually rich story of six-year-old Jin and four-year-old Bin, who are forced to navigate life on their own. This Korean-American co-production examines abandonment from the eyes of a young girl, Treeless Mountain is a testimony to the fragile dignity of children. …
Trimpin: The Sound of Invention

Trimpin is a wild ride through the kinetic universe of a creative genius. We watch Seattle-based artist/inventor/engineer/composer Trimpin design, scavenge, build, and investigate an outrageous range of materials. This will delight anyone interested in the mysteries, pitfalls, and sheer joy of creative experiment. …
Troubled Water

There is no crueler enemy than fate in this award-winning psychological drama by acclaimed Norwegian director Erik Poppe. After serving his sentence for a kidnapping gone horribly wrong, talented organist Jan Thomas simply wants to live an ordinary life. A chance encounter proves that neither he nor his victims can ever truly escape the tragedies of their past. …
True Adolescents

Washington native Craig Johnson fills his directorial debut with the sights and sounds of the Pacific Northwest in this humorous and insightful tale of a down-on-his-luck indie rocker (Mark Duplass from The Puffy Chair, Humpday) who confronts his biggest doubts and fears when a camping trip goes awry. …
Tulpan

In the vein of festival hit Story of the Weeping Camel, this gentle, charming comedy stars Asa, a young nomad who returns from military service to settle down as a herder and find a wife. Neither endeavor looks promising: his brother-in-law distrusts his ability with the flock and his intended objects to his big ears. …
Unmistaken Child

Ever wonder how reincarnations of deceased Buddhist masters are found and recognized? Observing rather than explaining ancient traditions, this chronicle of Nepalese monk Tenzin Zopa’s lengthy search for the new embodiment of Geshe Lama Konchog, a revered Rinpoche who died in 2001, inspires as many questions as it answers. …
Warlords

Set during the Taiping Rebellion, three warlords, bonded by blood, lead their bandit army against rebel forces in hopes of achieving the honor, glory, and power necessary to free the peasantry from the Machiavellian mandarins in Beijing. Featuring three of Asian cinema’s biggest stars, Warlords is a vast, panoramic epic filled with spectacular battle sequences and courtly intrigue. …
We Live in Public

Fascinating, fast-paced and feisty, this film explores the effects of our increasingly web-based lifestyle through the story of internet mogul Josh Harris. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, making Timoner the only two-time top prizewinner in the festival’s history. …
The Wedding Song

Unfolding against the dramatic backdrop of the Third Reich’s occupation of Tunis in 1942, this sensual and sexually frank film centers on teen friends and neighbors whose cultures and religions collide. As political and social tensions mount, Jewish Myriam and Muslim Nour find historical circumstances and family obligations altering each of their wedding plans. …
Welcome

A smoothly crafted, emotionally affecting drama driven by powerful performances, Welcome focuses on illegal immigrants trying to reach England from Calais, and the risk taken by the French people who help them despite threats from the police. Winner of Berlin International Film Festival’s Ecumenical Jury and Label Europa Cinemas awards. …
What's on Your Plate?

Two 11-year-old girls take you on an entertaining and enlightening journey into what it takes to get food from the fields to the family table. Exploring everything from school lunches and health to sustainable farming, these engaging young women will instill hope and active engagement within all members of your household. Recommended for all ages. …
White Night Wedding

In this irreverent, uprooting, and updated interpretation of Anton Chekhov’s play “Ivanov,” a middle-aged professor tries to figure out his life and himself. He’s about to marry a woman half his age despite the opposition of his future parents-in-law, but before they can call off the nuptials, he starts to get cold feet. …
The Whole Truth

Angela Masters is an acting coach who teaches criminals how to appear sympathetic to juries, until she finds out a client she helped set free is now targeting her for his next crime. Filmed in Seattle, Colleen Patrick’s debut feature is a fast-paced screwball comedy—with a twist. …
The Wild Bees

Emerging Master Bohdan Sláma’s charmingly bittersweet second feature film follows the fortunes of two brothers trapped in an eccentric, rural Czech village in their quest for love and happiness. Deliberately evoking the creative heritage of the Czech New Wave, Sláma crafts a touching, personal film illustrates how community fuels the wildest hopes and dreams of the individual. …
Wild Field

The Kazakh steppe provides a mesmerizing backdrop to Mikhail Kalatozishvili’s story of an introspective doctor and the hardscrabble community that comes to him for medical and emotional aid. Brilliant cinematography captures the harsh beauty of the landscape, while a host of outstanding performances build a complex picture of the post-Soviet psyche. …
Wild Rose

With Live Piano Accompaniment by Donald Sosin
Sun Yu’s silent film takes us on an exuberant journey through the entrenched class divisions of 1930s China. Xiao Feng, a headstrong village girl, and Jiang Bo, a painter from a wealthy family, find common ground in progressive politics and in service to their country. …
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe

William Kunstler: hero or opportunist? This incisive documentary lauds the civil rights attorney who worked with Martin Luther King Jr and who defended the Chicago Seven, the inmates of Attica and the Wounded Knee activists. It is an affectionate, sometimes ambivalent tribute (by his daughters) to a man who both defined his times and helped to create them. …
Wind Blows in the Meadow

A colorful and lively story about Shooka, a spirited, hardworking Iranian girl, and her arranged marriage. Determined to be with Shooka despite her impending wedding to her infatuated neighbor, Jalil follows the bride-to-be and invents ingenious ways to delay the wedding. The mountain melodrama is all heart, showing that real love can amend a harsh life. …
With a Little Help from Myself

Sonia (Félicité Wouassi in a tour-de-force performance), an African immigrant living in the projects outside Paris, just wants to watch her daughter get married, but the cops arrest her son and her husband gambles away their savings in this darkly comic, deeply sympathetic portrait of a harried working mother. …
A Woman in Berlin

An incendiary, anonymous diary describing Russian soldiers raping and pillaging in Berlin during the final days of World War II provided the source for this handsome historical drama. In desperation, German journalist “Anonyma” seeks a Russian officer to protect her from the “liberators.” …
A Woman Under the Influence

A housewife on the verge of a nervous breakdown is committed for psychiatric treatment by her loving yet confused husband, with unpredictable results. John Cassavetes’ 1974 masterpiece is one of the most devastating portraits of a relationship ever filmed. Newly restored by The Film Foundation in association with Gucci. …
A Woman's Way

When an ex-con meets a young transvestite hooker, they soon discover they share more than a talent for rewiring lamps. Riffing on Greek mythology, the film improbably defies the taboos of the ancients, creating a happy alternative family, replete with dingy realism, the divine Maria Callas, nudity, gay sex, and campy dialogue. …
Wonderful World

Joshua Goldin’s directorial debut stars Matthew Broderick as Ben Singer, a pot-smoking proofreader, failed children’s singer, lackluster weekend dad, and card-carrying pessimist. But when Ben’s roommate’s sister comes to visit, his usual misanthropy starts to give way as he realizes that inspiration can be found in the most unlikely places. …
The World of Possibilities

The challenges of life around the globe are illuminated with fascinating portraits of people and places in pursuit of personal goals. …
World's Greatest Dad

Shot on location in Seattle, this wickedly funny dark comedy stars Robin Williams as a sad-sack poetry teacher who inadvertently finds his greatest opportunity from a freak accident. Bobcat Goldthwait has concocted a lusciously perverse, and refreshingly original tale that tackles love, loss, and our curious quest for infamy. …
Yes, I Can See Dead People

While Nam, as the title implies, can see dead people, he’d much rather play on his computer or flirt with a gorgeous stewardess. But after a rash of suicides and his brother’s increasingly strange behavior, Nam must confront the ghostly denizens who haunt his building’s corridors. …
The Yes Men Fix the World

Gonzo political activists The Yes Men showcase their most recent slew of corporate hoaxes and political stunts at the expense of our cynical political and financial overlords. Similar to the antics of Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat,” The Yes Men Fix the World reveals the absurdity that lurks at the heart of global free trade. Winner of the Audience Award at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival. …
Youssou N'dour: I Bring What I Love

At the height of his career, Senegalese pop sensation Youssou N'dour became frustrated by the negative perception of his Muslim faith and composed “Egypt,” a deeply spiritual album dedicated to a more tolerant view of Islam. This career-defining move brought worldwide controversy that Youssou confronted head-on. …
Zift

Moth has been locked up in the Sofia Penitentiary for a murder he didn’t commit and is about to be released on parole. He plans to set out for the tropics, but everything changes when his partner in crime shows up with some unfinished business. A witty noir thriller set in totalitarian Bulgaria, Zift won Best Director at the Moscow International Film Festival. …
ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction

Things are rotten in the idyllic island town of Port Gamble, Washington, quite possibly because there’s been a zombie virus outbreak. Now a small band of intrepid heroes must fight back and eradicate the undead invaders—it’s the American way. …

Events / 2009 Seattle International Film Festival

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