The Northwest Film Center announces the 32nd Portland International Film Festival (PIFF), its annual cinematic foray of thought provoking and entertaining works from around the globe. Over the last 31 years, the Festival has provided diverse and innovative films to thousands of people from throughout the Northwest. This year’s Festival will showcase 115 compelling new films from over three dozen countries, including regional work, to an audience of more than 35,000.

The Festival opens Thursday, February 5th at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall with the gala premiere of Oregon-based animation studio LAIKA’s new movie Coraline. Combining the visionary imaginations of two premier fantasists, director/screenwriter Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) and author Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Coraline is a wondrous and thrilling, fun and suspenseful adventure that honors and redefines two moviemaking traditions. It is a stop-motion animated feature – and, as the first one to be conceived and photographed in stereoscopic 3-D, unlike anything moviegoers have ever experienced before. Distributed by Focus Features, Coraline, stars Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David, John Hodgman, Robert Bailey Jr., and Ian McShane. Following the screening will be an Opening Night party with filmmakers in attendance. The Opening Night party is sponsored by LAIKA with additional support from Hollywood Video. A limited number of tickets to the screening and the party are available.

One of the region's most culturally diverse arts events, this year’s Film Festival offers a broad mix of new international feature films, shorts, documentaries, and visiting artists, including two-dozen of this year’s submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, works by New Directors, and showcases of new documentaries, shorts and Pacific rim cinemas. Press screenings will start January 28.

PIFF films will be shown at the Regal Broadway Metroplex, and at the Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium in the Portland Art Museum. This year's PIFF Presenting Sponsors include The Oregonian, Regal Cinemas and Hollywood Video. Major program sponsors include the Academy of Motion Picture and Sciences, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, LAIKA, and Wieden + Kennedy.

The Festival is produced by the Northwest Film Center, a regional media arts resource and service organization founded to encourage the study, appreciation, and utilization of the moving image arts, foster their artistic and professional excellence, and to help create a climate in which they flourish. In addition to the Portland International Film Festival, the Center produces the annual Northwest Film & Video Festival, Portland Jewish Film Festival and a variety of year-round of film and video exhibition, educational and information programs serving Oregon and residents of the Northwest.

Festival Screening Locations:
Regal Broadway Metroplex, 1000 SW Broadway
Arlen Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1111 SW Broadway
NW Film Center, Whitsell Auditorium-Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Avenue

Festival Box Office:
Mark Building, Portland Art Museum, 1119 SW Park Avenue.
Opens January 28 — Daily from 12-6
Advance tickets by phone at (503) 228-PIFF
Advance tickets online @ www.nwfilm.org.

Admission Prices:
$9 General, $8 Portland Art Museum Members, Students, and Seniors, $6 NW Film Center Members
Opening Night: $50, $40 NWFC Silver Screen Members.
Closing Night Party: $10 Members free.

Festival Schedule:
The full PIFF Program is available online January 23 at www.nwfilm.org.