With over 250 films of every kind to choose from, (mostly new or very recent, but some archival oldies as well), the Seattle Int'l Film Festival might be described as an "embarrassment of riches", mostly gold but, inevitably, some dross and Fool's Gold mixed in with a treasure chest as large as this. The main problem for the would-be writer is not filtering out the nuggets from the crap, the promising from the obviously to be avoided, but trying to navigate the city bus system between the widely...

The 33rd edition of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) initiated its marathon 24 day run on Friday, May 25, with 18 films bursting out of the starting gates at six festival venues strategically located around the city from the landmark Space Needle to the University District (and a seventh across the lake in satellite city Bellevue). The opening event I chose to attend was "An Evening with Lisa Gerrard", hypnotic Australian song-bird/composer, introducing the screening of a mystico-...

Toronto Opens 2006 Festival with World Premiere of “The Journals of Knud Rasmussen”The largest and one of the most respected Film Festivals in the world will open its doors to the public with Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn's “The Journals of Knud Rasmussen". Their last film "Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner),” had won the Camera D'or in Cannes and then the prize for best Canadian film here in Toronto in 2001. Festival Co-Director Noah Cowan felt that this was one of the most important film...