PNW films to see at SIFF 2024

While this year’s Seattle International Film Festival boasts plenty of great films from all over the world, it wouldn’t be complete without the Northwest Connections programming. Showcasing movies filmed or set in the Pacific Northwest, it provides a dedicated track for the local talent making work here. With one narrative feature, six documentary features, a shorts program, and an episode of a web series, here are the films to see May 9-19 in theaters, then online when most are made available May 20-27.

This year’s standout Northwest film is writer-director Stimson Snead’s splendid feature debut “Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox” (May 10 and 11). A dark science-fiction comedy shot in and around Spokane with support from Washington Filmworks, it has the indie sensibility of modern genre classic “Primer” but with its own gleefully absurd twist. Playing multiple doubles (different versions of himself from various points in time) is a perfectly smarmy Samuel Dunning whose titular Tim discovers time travel and all the perils that come with it. With a great supporting cast including former Seattleite Joel McHale, Felicia Day, Danny Trejo and Keith David, it’s the film most primed to become a local cult classic. Most sci-fi could only hope to kill so many doubles with such verve. 

Shifting to documentaries, Isaac Olsen’s “Rainier: A Beer Odyssey” (May 13 and 16) is like sitting down at a bar for a boozy yarn about a chapter of Washington history that’s as robustly entertaining as it is enthralling. It paints a remarkably comprehensive portrait of the creative minds behind the rise and fall of the advertising campaign that made Rainier beer famous.

Cady Voge’s “All We Carry” (May 18 and 19) is a focused, fly-on-the-wall documentary that follows the Honduran couple Magdiel and Mirna as they attempt to start a new life in Seattle with their son. Taking us beyond the headlines and talking heads to grapple with the painful limbo of waiting for asylum, it’s a delicately honest yet abundantly compassionate film in how it captures an often uncompassionate system that people must navigate just to survive. 

Jacob Patrick’s poetic portrait of an artist, “Sono Lino” (May 16 and 17), has as much to do with the works of acclaimed glass artist Lino Tagliapietra as it does with Tagliapietra retiring. With a striking presentation that captures the thrill of creation, it is a film about leaving beauty behind. This all culminates in a joyous presentation at the hot shop in Tacoma’s Museum of Glass where an emotional torch is passed just as a door is left open for a man who loves creating.

The shortest of the Northwest documentaries this year is Francine Strickwerda’s “Ultimate Citizens” (May 12 and 14) which, tells the story of Jamshid Khajavi, an Iranian American immigrant who works as a school counselor and ultimate Frisbee coach at Seattle’s Hazel Wolf K-8 school. This sincere film shines a light on an unsung hero.

Produced in part by Northwest Treaty Tribes, “Fish War” (May 11 and 12) covers the history of Indigenous fishing rights in Washington. However, it doesn’t stop there as, following a landmark legal victory, it reflects on how modern tribes must face a new crisis: climate change.  

Silvio Mirošničenko’s gregarious “Grandpa Guru” (May 14 and 15) is a loving profile of Srđan Gino Jevđević, founder of the Balkan punk band Kultur Shock. Leaning on archival footage and talking heads, it traces how he fled Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, before leaving his musical mark on Seattle. 

When it comes to the Sound Visions shorts package (May 16), “Donut Boy” is a bittersweet Tacoma boxing story, “Dream Creep” is an uproarious horror romp, “Eileithyia” is an ephemeral yet evocative meditation on starting a family, “I’ll Take Porn for $200” is a playful little comedy with a sweet climax and “The Influencer” is a spoof of social media before taking a delightful hard turn into horror. “I Think I’d Like to Stay” is a meditative trip into the natural world and the mind itself, “Last Dawn of the 6th” is a menacing mystery, and “Trial” captures a silly carpooling study playing out over several days. 

Though it isn’t technically a film, the festival will also be showing two new episodes of the meta indie web series “The Uncertain Detective” (May 15 and 17).