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.
In partnership with SIFF and NWFF, we will be screening nominees for Seattle audiences, most with filmmakers in attendance! Details on individual events in the series are provided below.
Screening Series
October 29 at SIFF Downtown
Train Dreams
Dir. Clint Bentley
“The state of Washington has always been one of the most beautiful, if tragically underutilized, places in the world to shoot a film, but rarely has it looked quite as movingly magnificent as it does in Train Dreams. A Western epic of breathtaking visual splendor and formidable lyrical cinematic poetry, it’s a work containing all the wondrous, devastating layers of an entire life, which it explores with a gentle grace without hiding from the agony that comes with it.” – Chase Hutchinson, TheWrap
November 19 at Northwest Film Forum
Nominated PNW Short Films
- Style: A Seattle Basketball Story (dir. Bryan Tucker)
- A Fateful Weekend (dir. Tony Doupe)
- Shelly’s Leg (dir. Wes Hurley)
- Charlotte, 1994 (dir. Brian Pittala)
- Songs Of Black Folk (dir. Justin Emeka & Haley Watson)
All films screen in one showing, followed by a Q&A session with talent from all nominated films.
Wednesday November 19th at Northwest Film Forum
Q&A with Filmmakers:
November 21 at SIFF Film Center
Dir. James Sweeney
“Poignant yet prickly, the wry gay-straight bromance never settles for quirk or easy sentimentality. Instead, Sweeney’s very clever structure repeatedly recontextualizes, complicates, and darkens the storytelling with each successive act. … With each reinvention, the movie becomes even more electrifying and deeply emotional, introducing a sense of uncomfortable complicity among the audience along the way.” – Josh Bis, The SunBreak
November 22 at SIFF Film Center
Wolf Land
Dir. Sarah Hoffman
“With empathetic characters and a narrative that is both informative and highly engaging, the documentary does a good job of laying out Curry’s life and his work. One of the strongest aspects of the film is its inviting and gorgeous cinematography, whether it shows the breathtaking Eastern Washington landscape as Curry rides his horse over the hills, or the rare glimpses of a gray wolf crossing a rural road.” – Bailey Josie, Seattle Weekly
Saturday November 22 at SIFF Film Center
Q&A with Sarah Hoffman, Bryce Yokio Adolphson, David Wulzen
To Kill a Wolf
Dir. Kelsey Taylor
“What Taylor illustrates in this version of Little Red Riding Hood is a sensitive portrait of guilt, of the difference between people who simply want to bury it and those that are consumed by it. Her sympathy for those caught in its warm, familiar pain is what fills To Kill a Wolf with life.” – Richard Whittaker, Austin Chronicle
Saturday November 22 at SIFF Film Center
November 23 at SIFF Film Center
WTO/99
Dir. Ian Bell
“Some documentaries just feel like a sock in the jaw. Ian Bell’s fiery and explosive archival picture WTO/99 is that kind of film. … in totality, WTO/99 is nothing short of a galvanizing historical document that tells us exactly how we arrived on the crumbling ground we’re presently standing on.” – Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com
Sunday November 23 at SIFF Film Center
Q&A with Ian Bell and Gavin Sullivan
Not One Drop of Blood
Dir. Jackson Devereux, Lachlan Hinton
“Following the investigation of these bizarre events, what takes shape is a portrait not of the evasive killers, but of the fear, superstition and resilience within the American psyche.” – Northwest Film Forum
Sunday November 23 at SIFF Film Center
Q&A with Lachlan Hinton and Tony Castle