Tonight was the opening of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) and a publishing house sent me an invite to a reception and then onto the opening gala. It was extremely thoughtful of them and really it would have been rude it turn it down.
For those who don’t live in Seattle SIFF goes on for three weeks and this year has almost 450 films being shown in a dozen venues. It’s a major festival, by some measures the largest in the country, and has seen the premiers of some big name movies in the past, including Alien and the Hurt Locker. Also there tonight were a few members of the Sounders, including Sigi, Patrick Ianni and Tyson Wahl as the team announced a partnership with SIFF and a couple of local kids charities.
When the invite arrive a couple of weeks ago I did have a search through the SIFF site and grabbed tickets to a number of films that grabbed my interest. As the Edinburgh Fringe has been taken over by comedians since I first went. The SIFF has a lot more documentaries than I recall from 10 years ago, and there are a couple of those among the tickets I picked up.
The film tonight was “The First Grader”. A British film shot in Kenya by director Justin Chadwick, who previously directed “The Other Boleyn Girl”. It’s about an 84-year-old Kenyan villager trying to go to school for the first time, with flashbacks to his time with Mau Mau insurgency prior to Kenyan independence. It’s a very powerful story of hope, while it enjoys a few movie clichés and of course has the inevitable happy ending, it was well told and certainly worth the time this evening.
Of course what would a gala opening be without a good reception and after party? A couple of drinks, some excellent food and a lot of very, very good conversation afterwards. A big thank you to Mark for the invite, it was a lot of fun tonight.
2 Comments
Dave, it was great to finally put a face to a name last night. Very happy you could be there and look forward to working with you.
Dave, as Mike said, great to meet you last night. Interesting talk about content too and it is a difficult balance, but just because you don’t share certain things now doesn’t mean you cannot revisit the post later, expand and repost it
Sometimes this wait or interlude can serve to give us more clarity so when we do sit down to put it on the screen in words we can best describe our thoughts and circumstances. Stories don’t lose power with time and that’s is part of their magic.
Great site.