November 12 – November 18, 2015
Harnessing and celebrating the best of Northwest film is both the Film Center’s responsibility and joy. As we continue to grow as a fresh and vital institution for the study and celebration of regional film, we’re compelled to keep up a constant search for new filmmakers, new work, and new ways the Film Center can bring artists and audiences together.
As we’ve discovered over the past 42 years, Northwest filmmakers continue to create engaging and progressive work that provides a guarantee of ongoing innovation year after year. Our task is to create a showcase that captures the vibrancy and variety of the cinematic art being created across the Northwest. We invited Steve Anker to help us shape this year’s selection and we hope his discriminating vision, heart, and mind add to your enjoyment of the program.
In addition to the films, this year’s Festival features the annual “part game show, part filmmaking master class” What’s Wrong with this Picture? with Seattle film guru Warren Etheredge. Our invaluable Filmmakers’ Un-conference, created so that filmmakers have a place and time to share ideas and inspiration, allows makers to become the teachers. And, as we are never ones to rest on our plush conifer laurels, we’re proud to announce that this year will feature the first Northwest Filmmakers’ Expo. Top motion picture equipment manufacturers and vendors will be showing off their latest cinematic toys along with demonstrations, presentations, and the opportunity to see and handle the latest cutting-edge motion picture gadgets.
Many thanks go to friends who have helped plan and execute this event, including Tim Williams at the Oregon Film Office, Nathaniel Applefield at the Oregon Media Production Association, and the team at Professional Video and Tape. We also offer big thanks for some heavy lifting from Matt Schulte and Lower Boom who, in addition to helping envision and organize the first Northwest Filmmakers’ Expo, created all the gorgeous design work and trailer for this year’s Festival.
The Festival appreciates the longtime support of LAIKA, the ongoing institutional support of the Regional Arts and Culture Council and Oregon Arts Commission, and the sponsorship of Sierra Nevada Brewing and Koerner Cameras. This year, the Festival is especially honored and thankful to receive support from the Oregon Cultural Trust (and the citizens who fund it) who, like us, are committed to helping artists thrive. The Trust’s investment will help this year’s Best of the Festival Touring Program reach audiences throughout the region.
All these friends have helped the Film Center put together a Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival that will knock your socks off. We hope you’ll come meet and support this year’s filmmakers.

And We Were Young
Directed by Andy Smetanka
Andy Smetanka’s work has ranged from creating a short segment for Guy Maddin’s MY WINNEPEG to ‘The Bachelor and the …

Arresting Power: Resisting Police Violence in Portland, Oregon
Directed by Jodi Darby, Julie Perini, Erin Yanke
Media artists and social activists Jodi Darby, Julie Perini, and Erin Yanke’s film speaks to the history of police violence …

Birds of Neptune
Directed by Steven Richter
Young sisters Mona and Rachel are left to their own devices after the loss of their cult-member parents. Confined to …

Christiania — 40 Years of Occupation
Directed by Robert Lawson, Richard Jackman
For over 40 years a squatter community has occupied an abandoned military base in the center of Copenhagen, Denmark. The …

Death On a Rock
Directed by Scott Ballard
Ballard’s (A STANDING STILL, WELCOMING DEPARTURE) latest feature follows a young woman coming to terms with a trying event in …

Direct Route
Directed by Pam Minty
A blind woman (Minty’s mother) navigates her domestic surroundings and landscapes while recollecting these places prior to losing her vision. …

Drawing the Tiger
Directed by Amy Benson, Scott Squire
Filmed over the course of seven years, DRAWING THE TIGER focuses on the lives of a family of Nepalese subsistence …

Hadwin’s Judgement
Directed by Sasha Snow
Grant Hadwin was a logging engineer and expert woodsman whose job was finding and removing the largest, oldest and most …

Make Mine Country
Directed by Ian Berry
In the 1940s, the US military built an airbase on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia and brought with them …

Slackjaw
Directed by Zach Weintraub
"Rob and his friend Austyn apply to become human guinea pigs at the local medical testing facility of a vaguely …

The Curio
Directed by Dicky Dahl
Based on his short film of the same name, Dahl’s first feature weaves documentary and narrative elements into a poignant …

The Sandwich Nazi
Directed by Lewis Bennet
We meet 50-something Salam Kahil in full (off)-color in his Vancouver delicatessen, where one sign says “Best Sandwiches in North …

The Tree Inside
Directed by Michelle Kim, Rob Leickner
Myra is a woman who can’t maintain a relationship with anyone longer than a couple of months—aside from a famous …

The Way We Talk
Directed by Michael Turner
Michael Turner (The Life of Vesper Geer), winner of the 2015 Oregon Media Arts Fellowship, struggles with one of medical …

Voyagers Without Trace
Directed by Ian McCluskey
In the summer of 1938, filmmaker Bernard de Colmont, his new wife Genevieve and their friend, Antoine de Seynes, set …

Welcome to the Circus
Directed by Courtney Coulson
Set in the West Bank city of Ramallah, The Palestinian Circus School welcomes The Lido, a visiting circus school from …