The Seattle Jewish Film Festival (SJFF) wrapped another exciting series of films this year for their Pearl Anniversary (30 years).  Here are some select highlights that screened in-person and streamed virtually and how you can see some of them:

Director John Helde hosted the Marcie’s world premiere in a packed, sold out crowd at Northwest Film Forum. Marcie’s follows a scrappy bartender, played by Jenn Ruzumna, who is a few payments away from fully owning the good ol’ local Ed’s Tavern—a long-held dream reached by one struggling payment at a time. But a rich, ambitious man enters and tries to persuade Ed into selling the restaurant before Marcie can finish her payments.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Seattle Jewish Film Festival—the Pearl Anniversary. SJFF uses the metaphor of the pearl to describe this year’s cinematic offerings:Like a pearl formed through resilience and transformation, the Seattle Jewish Film Festival has spent 30 years illuminating powerful stories that shine through history’s darkest moments and celebrate the triumphs of Jewish life, culture and cinema. 

This year marks the 30^th Anniversary of the Seattle Jewish Film Festival (SJFF), and the organizers and programmers are taking full advantage of the opportunity to celebrate Jewish history, culture, and ideas.

A symbol of love, unity and growth, pearls are the traditional gift for the 30th wedding anniversary celebrations and the organizers have decided to intertwine the theme of the pearl with this milestone year. SJFF is offering 30 films for 30 years, calling them “pearls of wisdom,” and you can find a wide variety of narrative, documentary, animated, and short films at this year’s festival.

Northwest Film Forum will premiere Seattle filmmaker John Helde's new film, Marcie's, on April 4 and 5, 2025. Marcie's is about a small Washington town on the outskirts of the suburbs of Seattle that is feeling the encroachment of the city and developers who want to demolish the beloved community hub of Ed's Tavern in order to bring big business to the area. I sat down with John to talk about Marcie's and his unique style of filmmaking.

Seattle has had a longstanding connection with the Francophone world. As one of the top 15 most common non-English languages spoken among Seattle residents, French is a vital part of the city. The Alliance Française de Seattle is a local nonprofit that serves as one of the central hubs for both language instruction and Francophone cultural events and programming, and has been doing so since 1987.
On March 12, AFdS hosted a screening of the 2023 film Ru at Northwest Film Forum. The event was co-sponsored by the Québec Government Office, which opened a new delegation in Seattle this year.

March ushers in an exciting moment for Washington filmmakers and cinephiles alike as Emergence Films closes applications (and vets participants) for their debut Emerging Filmmakers Program. This is an opportunity for women filmmakers of all backgrounds to gain career experience and guidance from co-founders Sienna Beckman and Rachel Noll James, who collectively have decades of professional experience with credits ranging from independent darlings to entertainment giants like HBO. The program is open to any woman 18 years or older who resides in the state of Washington.

On February 28, Seattle band Deep Sea Diver released their fourth album, Billboard Heart, their first release on the Sub Pop label. As part of their promotion of the record, the band performed songs from the album on release night at Easy Street Records in West Seattle and hosted a record signing event for fans after the show.

Founded in 1997, The Grand Cinema has been Tacoma and Pierce County's destination for independent, foreign, and repertory films. This four screen theater is a non-profit cared for and kept up by tremendous and tireless volunteers. Thanks to the generous donors who have already contributed to the Save the Grand campaign, The Grand hopes to purchase The Merlino Arts building in which it resides.

Every quarter, SFS hosts the In Focus series celebrating Seattle directors and cinematographers that features shorts, music videos, and more in a diverse range of content. SFS chooses a director who has a strong intention and vision to their stories with robust elements of “framing/staging/blocking, confidence in editing, making distinctive choices, and thematically cohesive style choices,” said the SFS Artistic Director, Marcus Baker.  

February 2025’s In Focus event showcased director and cinematographer June Zandona, known for her work on Penelope, The Sex Lives of College Girls, Special, and I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore. The screening featured three of Zandona’s shorts: Dancer, Wedding Video, and This is Concrete. 

Playland gives us one last night in Boston’s oldest and most infamous gay bar, featuring the ghosts who, even in life, haunted this place. Whimsical and bittersweet, Georden West’s film pays tribute to one of the oldest gay bars in the country: the Playland Cafe, previously located in the so-called Combat Zone in Boston, the city’s adult entertainment district. The cast of characters includes bar flies, performers, servers, and all manner of debauches and renegades.

The theater is a triplex with the largest of its three screens on the street level. The lobby is adorned with history. Photos of the original iterations of the theater line the wall with a look at what the demolition and reconstruction process was like for the theater in 1998. Within the lobby there’s a classic snack bar with everything a movie goer needs. Above your head, notice the unique glass lighting fixtures that look like jellyfish, which complements the theater's maritime theme, more evidence of which is scattered throughout the space. 

There are those of us (author included) for whom Halloween is not enough—we like to be scared year-round. Two such individuals are Taylor Bartle and Tony Gee, aka Taylor of Terror and Skeletony, co-hosts of the Grave Plot Podcast and Grave Plot Film Festival. “Thank you guys for traversing the arctic tundra,” Bartle said in his introduction, adding that when they first began the festival in 2019, the duo didn’t expect it would last more than a year. This was the 7th annual iteration of the festival, and its first at Central Cinema, the delightful 123-seat dine-in theater in Seattle’s Central District. 

Returning this month is Noir City, a film festival dedicated to all things seedy, nefarious, and tantalizing in the world of crime. As the weather stays frightful, it is a great time to watch hardboiled detectives, cruel gangsters, and the women who love them in glorious black and white celluloid with a few hundred fellow genre admirers. This year's edition of Noir City highlights films "where winsome women turn wicked.”

3 weeks, 12 venues, 100+ performances. The San Francisco Sketch Festival (SF SketchFest) is renowned as the largest festival dedicated to stand-up, improv, sketch, and all comedic art forms. The 2025 world-class lineup includes Bill Murray, Kathryn Hahn, Tim Curry, the casts of Futurama and Children’s Hospital, and an anniversary staged reading of Airplane!

Finally! Another Seattle drag queen becomes an official RuGirl!

Arrietty, a local Seattle drag queen, is one of the fortunate queens to make it to the newest season of RuPaul’s Drag Race (Season 17). Having premiered on January 3, 2025, this season is sure to be a refuge in a time when queer people need it the most.

It is tough when a beloved institution closes its doors, but it’s wonderful when it can be given an excellent send off. The Grand Illusion Cinema has been at 1403 NE 50th Street in the U District for over 50 years, the last 20 of which have been as a completely volunteer-run non-profit. The theater will be closing soon and having its final screenings this month.

The Beacon is located at the very edge of Columbia City, nestled in a wall of ivy and wedged between nail salons and a neon-illuminated funeral home. The single-screen cinema opened its doors in 2019, boasting an eclectic mix of curated films. Amidst the popularity of Robert Eggers’ new film, it’s only logical for a place like The Beacon to showcase one of its predecessors: Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu: The Vampyre. 

So obviously, when I saw that Daft Punk was re-releasing their 2003 animated film Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem and that it would be playing at Seattle’s SIFF Uptown theater, I got a ticket. The animated film sets the 2001 album Discovery to a story about an extraterrestrial band who’s kidnapped and brought to Earth by a power-hungry music executive who makes them massively popular and exploits their talent.

The cineplexes have suffered, yes, but it’s the neighborhood theaters and the art houses that are facing the brunt of the downturn. If people choose to see a film, they are more inclined to see it in a theater that provides an experience. It is not enough to be with strangers staring at a large screen. Now that screen has to be so big you have to turn your head, or the seats have to recline, or there needs to be a meal service and alcohol. People are searching for the nouveau riche instead of the walkable and homey.