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The Whitsell Auditorium and the Northwest Film Center Equipment Room are closed to the public in an effort to further stem the spread of COVID-19. All classes canceled until further notice. Stay connected to art, film, and more by signing up for our newsletter.

PIFF XL: Ways of Seeing

February 10, 2017 – February 25, 2017

Bold, original, and aesthetically inventive new works pushing against the borders of cinematic expression, which in the process challenge our assumptions about the possibilities of image and sound, form and narrative.

Return to PIFF XL

All the Cities of the North

Directed by Dane Komljen

Built around origin myths and mysteries from a not-so-distant past, Komljen’s debut is set in an abandoned, hotel complex near …

Dead Slow Ahead

Directed by Mauro Herce

Despite new technology, the transport of physical goods continues to rely on age-old means. Herce’s film is a hypnotic and …

Eldorado XXI

Directed by Salomé Lamas

Set at 18,000 feet in the Peruvian Andes and focused on a community of exploited miners in the small village …

Kékszakállú

Directed by Gastón Solnicki

Loosely based on Béla Bartók’s 1918 opera “Bluebeard’s Castle” and largely constructed out of improvised scenes featuring non-actors, Solnicki’s film …

SHORT CUTS 7: Return to Landscape

Directed by Various

SHORT CUTS 8: In Pursuit

Directed by Various

The Dreamed Ones

Directed by Ruth Beckermann

In 1948, Paul Celan, a concentration camp survivor and esteemed post-war poet, met Ingeborg Bachmann, a writer whose father was …

The Dreamed Path

Directed by Angela Schanelec

Influenced by the ethos of legendary French director Robert Bresson, The Dreamed Path is a riddle of a film and …

The Human Surge

Directed by Eduardo Williams

Work and leisure—particularly in the “developing” world—has inexorably shifted to a quasi-industrial, quasi-service hellscape where everything is commodified and interpersonal …

The Northwest Film Center recognizes and honors the Indigenous peoples of this region on whose ancestral lands the museum now stands. These include the Willamette Tumwater, Clackamas, Kathlemet, Molalla, Multnomah and Watlala Chinook Peoples and the Tualatin Kalapuya who today are part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and many other Native communities who made their homes along the Columbia River. We also want to recognize that Portland today is a community of many diverse Native peoples who continue to live and work here. We respectfully acknowledge and honor all Indigenous communities—past, present, future—and are grateful for their ongoing and vibrant presence.