Let the Festivities Begin

One of the things I love most about my job and about living in the city that I do is that I get a chance to cover and enjoy the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). Without a doubt, this is the highpoint of my entire year, these 25-days of cinematic goodness ones cinephiles of all ages are almost certain to giddily revel in.

This 35th edition of SIFF promises to be the best one I’ve covered yet. The opening night film In the Loop is without question one of the funniest motion pictures I’ve seen in years, while if the closing night feature OSS 117: Lost in Rio is half as good as the hilarious 2006 Golden Space Needle award-winner OSS 117: Nest of Spies than I’ll be sitting happily in comedic heaven.

But the big news of this festival has to be the arrival of two directorial icons, Spike Lee and Frances Ford Coppola. Both will be presenting new pictures (Spike the documentary Passing Strange, Frances the highly personal esoteric drama Tetro), the former also this year’s recipient of a 2009 Golden Space Needle Award for Achievement in Directing.

They’re not the only major guests expected to attend the festival. “Saturday Night Live” star Rachel Dratch will be at screenings of her new comedy Spring Breakdown, Oscar-nominee Paul Giamatti is expected to show up for the debut of his latest Cold Souls, director Kathryn Bigelow will present her gut-wrenching military thriller The Hurt Locker, Andy Warhol icon Joe Dallesandro will be on hand to take questions from the audience after screenings of the documentary Little Joe while TCM’s own Robert Osborne will be the presenter for many of this year’s archival presentations.

These are only a handful of the handful of international guests expected to come to Seattle. On top of that, with almost 400 narrative features and documentaries the list of attendees is in constant flux, and just yesterday one of the festival’s publicists told me that future announcements were guaranteed to knock my socks off.

Admittedly, SIFF is not for the faint of heart. With 14 different locations screening programs at some point along the way, 17 different festival programs (including perennial favorites Contemporary World Cinema, Face the Music, Midnight Adrenaline, Films4Families and the always exciting – just as long as you don’t talk about it – Secret Festival, five award categories and more premieres (31 World, 45 North American and 13 United States) than you can shake a stick at trying to do more than gloss the surface of what is offered is nearly an impossibility.

You know what I say? So what. For my money SIFF is just about perfect the way it is. Yes, it is exhausting, and of course you can’t experience it all but none of that matters as far as I’m concerned. This festival is about the pure, blissful joy of cinema, the sudden bursts of creativity that can make a person laugh, force them to think and bring them to tears. I love it, and as things officially begin this evening I’m as raring to go as I’ve ever been.

Moviefreak.com is proud to present our 4th annual coverage of this 35th edition of the Seattle International Film Festival. Starting to day and running all the way until June 14, please check our Blog for reviews, thoughts, interviews and highlights of this year’s events as seen through Sara’s increasingly-bleary eyes. For the best, most complete coverage of one of the most popular and the largest film festival in the entire world, your number one destination is right here at Moviefreak.com.