Events
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Mourning Sickness Vol. 3 - Series Pass [In-Person Only]
April 21, 2024 8:00 PM
Seattle drag superstar Monday Mourning is ready to take your divine fixation with cult cinema to new and exciting heights by joining forces with Northwest Film Forum to bring you MOURNING SICKNESS: a quarterly showcase of essential cult & camp classics dusted off and brought back to life once more across the silver screen, featuring pre-show drag entertainment that will leave you looking camp right in the eye.
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The People's Joker [In-Person Only]
April 25, 2024 7:00 PM - April 28, 2024 7:30 PM
A law-breaking comedian who is grappling with her gender identity forms a new anti-comedy troupe with a friend and finds herself battling a fascistic caped crusader.
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I Like Movies [In-Person Only]
April 25, 2024 7:30 PM - April 28, 2024 7:00 PM
Socially inept 17-year old cinephile, Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen) gets a job at a video store, where he forms a complicated friendship with his older female manager.
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Good Symptom - Cadence 2024: Between Serenity & Sirens [Live via Zoom]
April 27, 2024 12:00 PM
A free and rare opportunity to connect with Ukrainian artists live-via-Zoom, reflecting on and living with the war. Marking the onset of Ukraines third year under attack by Russian invaders, The 3rd Thing Press in collaboration with Cadence Video Poetry Festival offers this special Good Symptom event, Between Serenity and Sirens, an online screening of two short films followed by a live-via-Zoom conversation with Ukrainian filmmakers, Marusya Shuvalova, Yarema Malashchuk, Roman Khimei, and guest essayist Anastasia Babenko, who is also Ukrainian. Good Symptom, a serial anthology of time-based disturbances, is produced and distributed by , and is co-curated by M Freeman and Cadence Video Poetry Festival directors Rana San and Chelsea Werner-Jatzke.
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Creepshow [In-Person Only]
May 01, 2024 7:00 PM - May 05, 2024 7:00 PM
In 1982, two horror legends joined forces to make an endlessly entertaining tribute to the horror comics of their youth. Written by Stephen King (his first screenplay!) and directed by George A. Romero (fresh off of Dawn of the Dead and Knightriders), Creepshow assembles five shorts into a splashily colorful, hugely stylish package in which petulant cadavers DEMAND revenge on the living, ancient Arctic monsters terrorize the hallowed halls of academia, and meteors unleash mossy plagues. A cult classic that only grows more beloved by the year, Creepshow is truly the most fun youll ever have BEING SCARED!
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Mystics in Bali [In-Person Only]
May 01, 2024 7:30 PM - May 05, 2024 7:30 PM
Visiting Bali for research on a book that shes writing, Cathy takes an interest in the black magic cult of Leák. When she is deceived by an evil witch who promises to instruct her in the dark arts, Cathy is turned into a Penanggalan: a flying vampire with internal organs hanging from her neck. Its up to the local holy men to try to contain this force for evil before the Cathy-Penanggalan achieves immortality!
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1960s-80s Alternative Film Movement in Belgrade [In-Person Only]
May 04, 2024 7:30 PM
This compilation presents a selection of films that were made in the Academic Film Center in the first three decades of its existence; films that indicate the themes that preoccupied the cine club in its formative years.
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Terminal USA [In-Person Only]
May 08, 2024 7:00 PM - May 12, 2024 7:00 PM
Holly (Jenny Woo), Marvin (writer/director Jon Moritsugu), and Katzumi (Moritsugu again) are average Asian-American teenage siblings with not-so-average predilections for backstabbing, kinky sex, and drug-fueled freakouts. Neglected by their parents, the kids turn to outside help (including the scene-stealing Amy Davis, Moritsugus wife and longtime collaborator) in order to escape their bored existence. Naturally, this leads to gory killings, sex tapes, and the most hilarious phone conversations ever captured on 16mm film.
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Saving Face [In-Person Only]
May 08, 2024 7:30 PM - May 12, 2024 7:30 PM
When 48-year-old widow Hwei-Lan Gao (Joan Chen) informs her less-than understanding father shes pregnant, he banishes her from Flushing until she remarries or proves Immaculate Conception. With nowhere else to go, Hwei-Lan moves in with her grown daughter, Wil (Michelle Krusiec), a Manhattan doctor who doesnt want a roommate, especially since shes met Viv (Lynn Chen), her sexy young lover. So Wil does what any dutiful child with an expectant, unmarried mother on her hands would do: she proceeds to set Hwei-Lan up with every eligible bachelor in town.
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Staff Picks Barking Dogs Never Bite [In-Person Only]
May 15, 2024 7:00 PM - May 22, 2024 7:30 PM
The debut that marked the arrival of a modern master, Barking Dogs Never Bite is critically acclaimed director Bong Joon-hos snappy black comedy about a downtrodden young man whos being assailed by both man and beast.
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Flowers of Shanghai () [In-Person Only]
May 15, 2024 7:30 PM - May 19, 2024 4:30 PM
An intoxicating, time-bending experience bathed in the golden glow of oil lamps and wreathed in an opium haze, Hou Hsiao-hsiens gorgeous period reverie traces the romantic intrigue, jealousies, and tensions swirling around a late 19th century Shanghai brothel, where the courtesans live confined to a gilded cage, ensconced in opulent splendor yet forced to work to buy back their freedom. Among the regular clients is the taciturn Master Wang (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), whose relationship with his longtime mistress (Michiko Hada) is roiled by a perceived act of betrayal.
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From Here [In-Person Only]
May 16, 2024 6:00 PM
From Here is a hopeful story of artists and activists based in Berlin and New York whose lives hang in the balance of immigration and integration debates. Our protagonists move from their 20s into their 30s as they fight for citizenship, start families and find room for creative expression. This sensitive, nuanced documentary captures their journeys to define what it means to belong in societies that are increasingly hostile to their existence.
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Song Lang [In-Person Only]
May 22, 2024 7:00 PM - May 26, 2024 7:30 PM
Set in 1980s Saigon, Song Lang is a gritty underworld noir hiding a tender, romantic heart. At the films core is the unlikely bond that develops between hunky, brooding Dung (Lien Binh Phat), a tough debt collector for a ruthless loan shark, and Linh Phung (V-pop star Isaac), a charismatic young opera singer for a struggling company that performs cai luong, a modern form of traditional Vietnamese folk opera. The two meet when Dung comes to forcefully collect a dept from the opera troupe, but when their paths cross again, a friendship and then more develops, awakening surprising, tender feelings in both men. Their story soon scales operatic heights.
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Travessias 2024 - Heartless (screens w/ Mãtãnãg, the Enchanted One) [In-Person Only]
May 25, 2024 7:00 PM - May 26, 2024 7:00 PM
The northeast coast of Brazil, 1996. Over the summer, Tamara feels a growing attraction for a mysterious girl nicknamed Heartless for her chest scar.
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Open Script Reads (Spring '24)
May 26, 2024 1:00 PM
Open Script Read provides a nurturing, participatory environment for budding and seasoned filmmakers to support one another in the ongoing practice of screenwriting.
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Akira Kurosawa's Dreams [In-Person Only]
May 26, 2024 4:00 PM - June 02, 2024 7:00 PM
Unfolding in a series of eight mythic vignettes, this late work by Akira Kurosawa was inspired by the beloved directors own nighttime visions, along with stories from Japanese folklore. In a visually sumptuous journey through the masters imagination, tales of childlike wonder give way to apocalyptic apparitions: a young boy stumbles on a fox wedding in a forest; a soldier confronts the ghosts of the war dead; a power-plant meltdown smothers a seaside landscape in radioactive fumes. Interspersed with reflections on the redemptive power of creation, including a richly textured tribute to Vincent van Gogh (who is played by Martin Scorsese), Akira Kurosawas Dreams is both a showcase for its makers artistry at its most unbridled and a deeply personal lament for a world at the mercy of human ignorance.
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Moving History Archival Screening Night 2024 [In-Person Only]
May 26, 2024 4:30 PM
Curated from an open submission call to our regions archivists, this selection of archival film and video recordings follows the theme of the Northwest Archivists 2024 Annual Meeting (May 810 in Spokane) Seeking Balance: Sustainability and Adaptation. The program highlights issues related to the environment and sustainability, and includes a diverse mix of moving image materials: oral histories, news footage, musical performances, experimental films, documentaries, remarkable B-roll, and more!
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When the Apocalypse Is Over: Queer Philippine Shorts [In-Person Only]
May 29, 2024 7:00 PM - June 02, 2024 7:30 PM
These five digital, radical shorts from creative young queer directors offer new ways of seeing Philippine culture, from myths to their modern condition.
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Adjust Your Tracking: NWFF's 2024 Gala [In-Person Only]
May 31, 2024 5:00 PM
Step into the spotlight at the Northwest Film Forum's eagerly awaited 2024 gala! This year, we're turning up the nostalgia with our theme, Adjust Your Tracking, reminiscent of those VHS days. Just as we fine-tune playback for optimal viewing, we're honing our connection with the Pacific Northwest's diverse film community.
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Unstreamable The Linguini Incident [In-Person Only]
June 05, 2024 7:00 PM - June 09, 2024 4:00 PM
Lucy (Rosanna Arquette) is a under-paid, under-appreciated waitress at a terminally hip NYC restaurant called Dali. Shes also an aspiring escape artist desperately in need of cash to buy Harry Houdinis wedding ring. Monte (David Bowie) is the shady but charming new bartender who desperately needs to get married at any cost. Together they join forces along with Lucys best friend, the self-defense bra designing Viv (Eszter Balint) to rob the popular restaurant, and all the trend-sucking leeches who dine there. As one might expect, it doesnt go as planned, but thats not necessarily a bad thing.
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Pinkwashing Exposed [In-Person Only]
June 09, 2024 7:00 PM
Pinkwashing is a term activists have coined for when countries promote themselves as gay friendly to divert attention from terrible human rights violations in this case, from the brutal colonization of Palestine. Israel is the country most famous for pinkwashing, engaging it as a strategy in their rebranding campaign for the last decade.
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Photo Booth [In-Person Only]
June 12, 2024 7:30 PM - June 16, 2024 7:30 PM
In this split-screen opera-documentary about boycott activism, two Palestinian brothers plot with novelist Jean Genet in Jericho to sabotage the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest. Their method? Secure the collaboration of Buddy and Pedro, Torontos famous naked gay singing penguins. Photo Booth weaves together diverse doc, opera, and video art scenes, blending humour and song to explore the politics of boycott, staged in a surreal landscape of megaphones and photo booths, twelve-tone and split-screen, frisbees and teargas, Gaga and Gaza, solidarity and silence
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Naked Acts [In-Person Only]
June 20, 2024 7:00 PM - June 27, 2024 7:30 PM
Beautiful aspiring actor Cicely (Jake-ann Jones) has just landed her first major role, but theres a big problem: it requires a nude scene. Her mother was a Blaxploitation star known for her sex appeal, while Cicely is a survivor of sexual assault with lifelong body image issues, all of which has left her with a strong aversion to disrobing in public. Now, with the support of her boyfriend Joel (Ron Cephas Jones), she attempts to get past her fear.
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Mourning Sickness Vol. 3 Basic Instinct [In-Person Only]
July 14, 2024 7:00 PM
Beat the Seattle summer with a white-knuckle mystery so chilling, it cuts through the July heat like an ice pick through flesh. Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas lead us through a labyrinth of seduction, suspense, and peril in this defining erotic thriller of the 1990s. Stone delivers a career-defining performance, redefining the femme fatale as the alluring and unpredictable Catherine Trammel, in this masterclass in tension and intrigue thatll have you trusting only your most basic instincts.
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It's Such a Beautiful Day + ME by Don Hertzfeldt [In-Person Only]
August 14, 2024 7:00 PM - August 18, 2024 7:00 PM
Back in theaters for the first time since 2012, Don Hertzfeldt's celebrated mixed-media animation opus It's Such a Beautiful Day will play alongside his new short film ME, a 22-minute musical odyssey.
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Mourning Sickness Vol. 3 - The Craft [In-Person Only]
October 20, 2024 7:00 PM
Summon the coven as Mourning Sickness invokes the spirit of Halloween with a spellbound tale of witchcraft and 90s teen angst. This nostalgic cult classic casts a spell of four teen outcast witches who wield their newfound powers for love, revenge, and liberation, bringing them face to face with the exhilarating yet perilous potential of their craft. Just dont let the popcorn hex your black lipstick.
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Mourning Sickness Vol. 3 - Showgirls Annual Screening [In-Person Only]
January 12, 2025 7:00 PM
The cornerstone of cult cinema makes its GRAND RETURN to Mourning Sickness for its ANNUAL SCREENING!
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