The Northwest Film Forum describes its 15th anniversary like second growth beginning to sprout beneath old growth forest. To celebrate putting a few rings in their trunk, the Forum will be bringing Arboring Film, a six day festival of local shorts and features, to 12th Ave. The festival begins this Saturday, September 25.
“There’s been a natural evolution of all the different elements of what we’re up to,” said programming director Adam Sekuler. “We’re not just an exhibitor, we’re a hub for film making, a place to learn how to make films […] The energy has really been about unifying those elements.”
NWFF is a partner of ours and we’ve collaborated on bringing attention to each others’ work. But the NWFF has also been a Capitol Hill asset for much, much longer than CHS has been around. The Forum started on 23rd Avenue in a basement and spent some time in the University district before moving to 12th. For awhile, NWFF maintained two theaters but the 12th Ave storefront combined the previously divided elements of education, film making and film viewing (and the viewing comes at a lower cost than many of the downtown megaplexes). It also put the organization in a neighborhood with a lot of foot traffic where people can come in off the street out of curiosity.
Sekuler describes the process as very natural, definitely growth and not change. The next 15 years are hard to predict but Sekuler noted a hope for continued expansion bringing more workshops, outside film makers and maybe even a real film school.
Last summer, NWFF overcame a $70,000 budget gap to stay in business and continue its mission.
Even though the Forum may not have the commercial backing of venues like the Landmark Egyptian Theater, Sekuler says its organizers are happy with the niche the theater has found in the art community. Forum employees mused on the theater’s humble beginnings on their website:
It was a bold mission, inspired by the double notion that the region held in its light, soil and climate all the nutrients that a filmmaker’s seeded idea needed to thrive, and that an ideal environment could be found in a habitat other than New York or Los Angeles. And so we began our quest to sow a new cinematic timberland.
Fifteen shorts and 15 features will be showing between September 25 through 30 and, according to Sekuler, many of them have been filmed on the Hill. Brand Upon the Brain, a semi-autobigraphical film about director Guy Maddin described as a “delirious fantasy of familial discontent,” was filmed in part at Volunteer Park.
Sekuler couldn’t pick any must see films as he appreciates all of them for different reasons. He encourages viewers to pick a few or just one, try something new and try to find a unique experience.
CHS says check out Police Beat on the big screen. Written by the Stranger’s Charles Mudede, it’s a vision of the life of a Seattle cop as a confused dream. It’s a good Seattle film for, if no other reason, trying to guess where in the city each confusing, dreamy vision was filmed.
