Series & Events

SIFF cinema Summer 2008

  • Wizard of Oz
    Films4Families: Saturday Morning at the Movies

    July 12–September 20
    SIFF Cinema invites film lovers of all ages to discover and share the finest in family cinema. Films4Families, an important part of the Seattle International Film Festival, and is expanding into a dynamic summer series at SIFF Cinema, featuring Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, The Neverending Story, and more!   more

  • My Winipeg
    My Winnipeg

    June 27–July3
    O Winnipeg! Glorious Winnipeg! Home of the Manitoba Moose, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and the brilliant filmmaker Guy Maddin! My Winnipeg is Maddin’s delirious docu-fantasia, a tribute to his hometown in the form of a failed farewell letter. Premiere!     more

  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service
    Bond... and Beyond!

    July 5–10
    Heroes, villains, shaken martinis, and beautiful ladies… this spy series has it all! And all films are double bills, see two films for the price of one! Titles include From Russia with Love, Casino Royale, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Billion Dollar Brain, and many more!   more

  • Love and Honor
    Love and Honor

    July 11–17
    Director Yôji Yamada brings his samurai trilogy, which includes The Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade, to a stunningly graceful conclusion. Filled with the same pristine production design and sumptuous cinematography of the previous two installments, Love and Honor is an elegant depiction of loyalty, sacrifice, and redemption.     more

  • Last Year at Marienbad
    Last Year at Marienbad

    July 18–24
    This exquisite puzzle-box of a movie takes place in an elegant chateau—a grand hotel with endless corridors, ornate ceilings, elaborately decorated rooms, and impeccably sculptured shrubbery. Marienbad is an intriguing and virtuosic tour-de-force, if only for its velvety black-and-white photography by cinematographer Sacha Vierny. With its Oscar-nominated screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet, director Alain Resnais’ enigma is one of the most iconic and influential films in cinema history.     more

  • Roman Polanski
    Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

    July 25–31
    This intelligent documentary takes us through the complex case of the legendary director Roman Polanski with a wealth of archival footage, clips from Polanski’s films (including Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown), references to his escape from Nazi Poland, his mother’s death in a prison camp, and the horrible murder of his pregnant wife by the Manson family. Premiere!     more

  • A Man Named Pearl
    A Man Named Pearl

    August 1–7
    Pearl worked at a factory for 36 years, but it didn’t help him integrate into a South Carolina neighborhood. Prejudiced residents worried that he, as a black man in a white neighborhood, might not keep his yard up. This charming documentary follows the self-taught topiary artist and documents his work, which isn’t the kind of cutesy animals, but elaborate and beautifully designed abstract shapes often forged late at night. Premiere!     more

  • Godard's '60s
    Godard's '60s

    August 8–28
    Modern film was born in the 1960s and Jean-Luc Godard was its father. For one pivotal decade, this founding father of the nouvelle vague created work that rewrote the grammar of cinema, each film more innovative than the last. We’ve selected nine of our favorite films from this incredible period.     more

  • Bumbershoot
    1 Reel Film Festival

    August 29–September 1
    SIFF Cinema will once again take part in the Bumbershoot festivities—Seattle’s extraordinary citywide music and arts festival. The 1 Reel Festival will present 27 special programs of short films over the holiday weekend. The complete schedule of films will be announced in July at www.bumbershoot.org and www.siff.net.     more

  • Leave Her to Heaven
    Leave Her to Heaven

    Tuesday, September 2
    Don’t let the lush Technicolor gloss fool you. This big-budget melodrama is black at its core, and as perverse and malignant as it got in the 1940s. Novelist Cornell Wilde falls for gorgeous Gene Tierney but has no idea what horrors lurk behind those gleaming emerald eyes. Beautiful new restored 35mm print!     more

  • 2001
    2001: A Space Odyssey

    September 3–4
    A cult classic! In the 40 years since 2001 premiered, there have been few films that rival its intelligence and sheer widescreen spectacle. Director Stanley Kubrick’s glorious evocation of the cosmos still thrills and is deeply moving in its essential humanity.     more

  • The Human Condition
    The Human Condition

    September 5–25
    Now in beautiful new 35mm CinemaScope prints, Masaki Kobayashi’s epic masterwork will be shown in its entirety with the director’s vision intact. The Human Condition is a brilliant, clear-eyed view of humanity in all its terrible beauty.     more

  • Red Heroine
    Devil Music Ensemble presents Red Heroine

    Sunday, September 21
    Red Heroine
    , the only surviving episode of the Chinese 13-part serial Red Knight Errant, is also one of the few complete and earliest extant silent martial arts films. The Devil Music Ensemble has composed a score for Red Heroine that pulls from the traditions of Chinese classical and folk music, as well as soundtracks from classic kung fu cinema. Live Event    more