Allen HuangSIFF 2011 is upon us. The Northwest’s largest film festival and one of the biggest in the country continues its grand tradition of bringing a vast cornucopia of films to the Seattle area. This year the festival will feature 441 films from countries all across the globe, and will spread them over 25 days at various theaters in the region.
I don’t have any screeners yet, but I can already point to a handful of movies that I’m incredibly excited for.
Cult director Alex de la Iglesia returns with The Last Circus, a blood and guts romp about two warring circuses during the Spanish Civil War. I loved his Accion Mutante and 800 Bullets, and this film seems to be in a similar vein.
Miranda July also brings her twee sensibilities to the festival with The Future. Like in Me and You and Everyone We Know, her new film also stars July and is sure to be about almost everything except for what the blurb says it’s about.
Norwegian Wood is a Japanese film based on the Murakami novel. From the trailer, it features a lot of sad, longing looks and snow. The soundtrack is by Jonny Greenwood, who, if you’ve seen There Will Be Blood, is actually pretty good at this kind of thing.
Late Autumn is a Korean love drama filmed right here in Seattle. It stars one of the hottest Korean actors (in every sense of the word), Hyeon Bin (of My Lovely Samsoon fame). It’s a piece of Locale-porn (“Hey! I’ve been there!”) wrapped around a Korean melodrama, which I’m always a sucker for. From director Kim Tae-Yong, who made the very capable Memento Mori.
Also, Seattle gets to watch the new Winnie the Pooh film about a month earlier everyone else. That’s kinda cool, right?
Anyways, there are way more films than this that will be worth watching, but these are the ones I can name off the top of my head. Watch this space for previews, reviews and more.
Vee Hua 華婷婷
Navi Esparza
