We're proud to have the Seattle International Film Festival as part of our cultural landscape here in Seattle. Perhaps what we appreciate best about it is that SIFF provides a platform for filmmakers from around the world to share their stories with us.
Particularly striking this year are the stories being told to us about topics that range from the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, to community gardens in Los Angeles, to the impacts of oil in the Nigerian River Delta.
Here's our guide to the films that have caused the most stir around here in the Worldchanging office.
California Company Town
"This...documentary is about California's industrial "company" towns that were abandoned after the industry dried up. Over the footage of these ghostly towns, filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt discusses their impact on the economy and the environment." - Seattle Times SIFF Guide.
Screening: Northwest Film Forum, 9 PM May 23rd & 7 PM May 26th.
Food, Inc.
"Food, Inc. is a call to dining table activism...Filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on the nation's food industry, exposing practices that wreak havoc on our environment and health." - Seattle Times SIFF Guide
Screening: Egyptian, 4:15 PM May 30th & 7 PM May 31st.
Garbage Dreams
"Adham, Osama, and Nabil are three of the 60,000 residents of Mokattam, a garbage village on the outskirts of Cairo. For generations, the larger city has depended on the villagers, the Zaballeen, to keep order for a community that lacks a formal sanitation system. They don't just keep order. A staggering 80 percent of the waste they gather is recycled. American-born, half-Egyptian Iskander views the chaotic closeness of her homeland and the creative efficiency of the Zaballeen through the eyes of these unique young men. When Cairo's decision to partially privatize the garbage trade threatens their day jobs, Iskander finds their goofy passions and earnest dreams undiminished." -SIFF
Screening: Pacific Place, 5 PM June 9th; SIFF Cinema, 7 PM June 10th.
The Garden
Constructed just after the devastating 1992 riots in South Central Los Angeles, a 14-acre community garden was built on a former dumping ground at 41st and Alameda Streets. What started as a step in the post-riot healing process soon became the largest urban farm in the United States. This community miracle brought together families and neighbors as they grew their own food and nourished their families, creating a shining light in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. However, only a few years after achieving success and sustainability, the garden’s existence was threatened by a developer’s plans to construct warehouses on the site..director and producer Scott Hamilton Kennedy follows the garden’s mostly Latino farmers over a period of four years as they organize and fight back to save their hallowed patch of ground. -SIFF
Screening: Pacific Place, 7:00 PM May 28th & 11:00 AM May 30th.
Independent America: Rising from Ruins
"Explores the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and how the mom-and-pop businesses provided hope where corporate America disappointed." - Seattle Times SIFF Guide
Screening: Pacific Place, 6:30 PM May 25th & 4:45 PM May 27th.
Modern Life
"As small family farming disappears from the French countryside, the people who have worked the land for generations refuse to give up and let their livelihoods crumble around them.." - Seattle Times SIFF Guide
Screening: Uptown, 11 AM May 23rd; Harvard Exit, 7 PM June 2nd.
Sweet Crude
"Few of us know the social and environmental devastation that the oil business wreaks [in Nigeria]. Seattle filmmaker Sandy Cioffi brings her camera overseas to expose the corruption and the growing militant reaction to the oil companies in the Niger River Delta." - Seattle Times SIFF Guide
Screening: Egyptian, 7 PM June 3rd & 9:30 PM June 12; Kirkland Performance Center, 1:30 PM June 7th.
The Yes Men Fix the World
"The Yes Men Fix the World reveals the absurdity that lurks at the heart of global free trade." -Seattle Times SIFF Guide
Screening: Neptune, 7 PM May 22nd & 11 AM May 23rd; Kirkland Performance Center, 4:30 PM June 4
And now we want to shift the spotlight to you. If you had a chance to see them, what did you think? Please join our conversation and comment below.
Image/Photo credits: SIFF
