June ‘25 Newsletter

Hard to believe it’s already June, right? Feels like just yesterday I was making my Top 10 list for 2024 and settling in for the January Box Office doldrums. Not anymore!

Not only are we a solid month into Summer blockbuster season, we’ve also got the first inklings of an Oscar race thanks to some great Cannes premieres:

• Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning morality play It Was Just an Accident

• Lynne Ramsey’s J-Law/R-Patz two hander Die My Love (and it’s 23 million dollar Mubi acquisition)

• Spike Lee’s Denzel-starring Kurosawa adaption Highest 2 Lowest,

• Kelly Reichardt’s jazzy 70’s heist pic The Mastermind starring Josh O’Connell

There’s also a trio of notable actor-to-director pivots:

• Kristen Stewart’s The Chronology of Water

• ScarJo’s Eleanor the Great (which continues the June Squibb-issance!)

• Harris Dickinson’s Mike Lee cosplay piece, Urchin.

It’s safe to say that the Art House is back in full swing just as Tom Cruise and Lilo & Stitch were setting Memorial Day Box Office Records. Nature truly is healing.

This month’s newsletter brings a host of goodies including advice from Film Distribution soothsayer Jon Reiss on how to build a successful film festival strategy, exciting updates from SFS Alumni, and of course our classic mix of screenings, talks, and events that we’d love to see all of your bright and shining faces at.

Anyways, that’s enough out of me. Let’s dig in.

Marcus Baker

SFS Artistic Director

SCREENINGS

Thursday, June 26th @ NW Film Forum | Doors at 6:30pm

Our June Locals Only will feature four otherworldly shorts that are sure to leave you confused, laughing, and in awe- possibly all at the same time:

• Ghost Town by Molly Muse

• The Cabin by Ryan Ortgiesen

• Acid Test by Andrew Akada

• The Fates and the Holly King by Will Ammann

It’s gonna be a trippy fun time, so grab your pals and come check out some weird and wild local films!

Doors at 6:30PM, screening from 7:00PM to 8:30PM. Afters to follow!

Tuesday, June 17th @ Seattle Open Arts Place (SOAP) | Doors at 7pm

Our “open mic night” for filmmakers continues! Show up with your film on a USB stick, anything under 10 minutes goes up! It’s first come first screen so be sure to get your tix and get there early.

Thursday, July 10th @ NW Film Forum | Doors at 6:30pm

Our monthly doc screening with SeaDoc and the Northwest Film Forum races on with a deep look into the lives of a group of homeless men who have combined bottle picking with the extreme sport of shopping cart racing. CARTS OF DARKNESS showcases a little-seen subculture far beyond mainstream media stereotypes. Shot in high-definition and featuring tracks from Black Mountain, Ladyhawk, Vetiver, Bison, and Alan Boyd of Little Sparta.

This screening is free to attend with an RSVP. Doors at 6:30PM, screening starts at 7:00PM!

EDUCATION

Wednesdays | SFS Discord @ 7pm

This June, our Film Discussion Group will cover four films by the legendary filmmaker William Friedkin. Our series kicked off on June 4th with a Field Trip to the SIFF Uptown for the SIFF Movie Club screening of Sorcerer, and will continue throughout the month with three of his most respected works:

• Wed. June 4th | Sorcerer (1977) - Field trip for SIFF Movie Club

• Wed. June 11 | The French Connection (1971)

• Wed. June 18th | The Exorcist (1973)

• Wed. June 20th | Cruising (1980)

Wednesday nights, 7pm-8:30. All meetings will take place on the Seattle Film Society Discord server.

1st + 3rd Tuesdays | SFS Discord @ 7:30pm

Our Screenwriting Group continues! Meetings are bi-weekly on our Discord channel and we are always looking for new submissions! Scripts can be submitted through our website. Our next meeting is:

• Tuesday June 3rd:  The Other Me by Nura Ahmed

• Tuesday June 17th: Bloodline by Mike Clarke

SELECTED LOCAL EVENTS

• June 10th | Garfield Chorale Vocal Jazz (Central Cinema)

• June 13th & 14th | Craft and Collaboration by Seattle Documentary Association (Northwest Film Forum)

• June 21st | RtG Production Intensive: Intro to Camera Operation (Northwest Film Forum)

• June 27th | Inland Empire (The Beacon)

ALUMNI NEWS

Brandon Foy | Sept ‘24 Locals Only (LO #10)

Brandon Foy’s newest short film Hubble Tension premiered this past weekend at MoPop’s the Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Film Festival. He also recently completed work on the music video “Can I Get Paid?” by local musician Calico, which was released earlier last month.

Molly Muse | Nov ‘23 Locals Only (LO #1)

Molly Muse’s short Ghost Town (which will screen this month as part of Locals Only) was a recent selection of HollyShorts Comedy Film Festival in LA and Kanab Film Festival in Utah. She has also recently teamed up with fellow LO Alumni Geena Pietromonaco to develop the feature script for Christmas Pop-Up, which aims to go before cameras later this year.

Thomas Scott Adams | June ‘24 Locals Only (LO #7)

Thomas’s upcoming short film Beneath the Same Sky was recently selected for a 4Culture grant. The short tells the story of a dockworker and an undocumented immigrant navigating trust and survival on the Washington waterfront. Filming begins this July, with a public screening set to take place this November.

THE BUSINESS OF FILM

Just as important as the making of the film is the way in which it is marketed and distributed. Unfortunately, there’s a wide range of confusing options and strategies for how to do that these days. While some people may pine for that golden A24/Neon/Mubi-branded ticket, others find success with the road show method. What do all of these methods have in common? They likely run through the Film Festival circuit. Which means having a viable strategy for your festival run is more important than ever.

Film distribution maestro Jon Reiss recently sat down with Georgetown University professor, co-founder and festival director of the DC/DOX Festival Sky Sitney to discuss the what goes into building a film festival strategy. Their 30-minute talk is well worth your time and full of useful gems:

The full talk is full of great insight into the murkiness of today’s film distribution market. We highly recommend checking it out below.

RESOURCES + TOOLS

Local Resource | The Seattle Documentary Association

The Seattle Documentary Association (SeaDoc) is a nonprofit organization. Their mission is to cultivate and support an equitable and professional community of nonfiction storytellers. They are volunteer run and offer year-round programming and events to support the craft of non-fiction storytelling.

Online Resource | RocketJump Film School

Rocketjump Film School is a YouTube channel of online filmmaking tutorials. While they have ceased publishing new work, their channel remains a useful archive of tutorials, tips, tricks, interviews, podcasts, and more. Whether you’re just starting out or trying to level up your filmmaking, chances are RJFC can help.

Free Tool | FilmGrab

FilmGrab is a free, searchable collection of movie images. While there are paid counterparts such as ShotDeck, FilmGrab serves as an easy, free alternative that allows you to find the images you’re looking for, for whatever you need it for.

SFS STAFF RECS

This month, we’ve got a recommendation from SFS Programmer Shelby Smout

Video Game - Stardew Valley

I’m not much of a video gamer, but every once in a while, a game will come along and hypnotize me, body and soul. And after a million years of being recommended “Stardew Valley,” I finally took the plunge and now it’s my newest obsession…and perhaps I became even more obsessed after SIFF’s screening of “The Straight Story” presented by ConcernedApe, the creator of “Stardew Valley.” In his intro before the film, ConcernedApe said he doesn’t consider “Stardew Valley” a cozy game—a moniker given to games with calming/peaceful aesthetics—but a game heavily inspired by the oddities of David Lynch. Similar to Dale Cooper in “Twin Peaks,” your character enters the world of “Stardew Valley” to discover peculiar inhabitants and supernatural phenomena. However, instead of being a FBI agent in town to investigate a murder, you’re a young whippersnapper who recently quit their corporate job to cultivate a new life on a farm you’ve inherited from your grandfather. From there, the pixelated story is yours to play out.

Thanks for reading! See you next month :) 

Got questions, suggestions, or news? We’d love to hear from you! Drop us a line at [email protected]

Don’t forget, we’re a volunteer-run project under the fiscal sponsorship of a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization (Shun Pike) so you can always: