Since 2022 the Seattle Film Critics Society (SFCS) has specifically honored Pacific Northwest filmmaking as part of our annual awards. This award, Best Pacific Northwest Film, is meant to celebrate the many talented filmmakers who produce work here.
Nominees for the 2024 PNW were announced in November. In partnership with SIFF, each of the nominated films will screen at SIFF Film Center during the weekend of December 6-8: Rainier: A Beer Odyssey (Friday, December 6); All We Carry and Strange Darling (Saturday, December 7); Fish War and Gasoline Rainbow (Sunday, December 8). Information about screenings and tickets are available at SIFF.net
Screening Series
NOMINATED FILMS:
All We Carry (Lo Que Llevamos)
Cady Voge’s intimate portrait of a Honduran family’s flight from narcotraffickers to the sanctuary of West Seattle. Blake Peterson (425 Magazine) praised the film as “Distinguished for its intimate access and unwavering compassion.”
Fish War
Jeff Ostenson, Charles Atkinson, and Skylar Wagner’s vital documentary about the wide-ranging implications resulting from a legal fight to preserve indigenous fishing rights in Washington. Following its world premiere at SIFF, Josh Bis (The SunBreak) called the film “an important telling of PNW history … an inspiring reminder that occasionally laws have consequences and words have meaning.”
Gasoline Rainbow
Bill and Turner Ross’s observational travelogue of a group of teenagers traversing the Pacific Northwest on one last road trip before the uncertain responsibilities of adulthood take hold. Interviewing the directors, Chase Hutchinson (Seattle Times) described the film as “a new quintessential American road movie that doubles as a beautifully-shot portrait of modern youth.”
Rainier: A Beer Odyssey
Isaac Olsen’s revelatory deep dive into the archives of a local beer company’s iconic advertising campaigns shows Seattle at a time of creative transformation amid economic devastation. Following its SIFF premiere, Joe Hammerschmidt (Warm 106.9) celebrated the documentary as “a big screen postcard to an equally big city, noisy and astonishing at every corner.”
Strange Darling
JT Mollner’s hypersaturated time-twisted telling of a serial killer spree’s coming to a violent end in the Pacific Northwest. Sara Michelle Fetters (MovieFreak) lauded the “beauteously ruthless toxicity to Mollner’s cruel world that’s honestly glorious … a great deal of malicious fun.”