In the powerful new documentary, Since I Been Down, a swastika-tattooed man named Chad Walton explains that Taking Education and Creating History (T.E.A.C.H.) -- an initiative of the Black Prisoners' Caucus -- is best described as "prisoners lifting up prisoners." Officially founded in 1972, the Black Prisoners' Caucus is an...
In the directorial debut of their feature film, Borrufa, Portland-based artist, performer, and filmmaker Roland Dahwen presents a quiet portrait of the trials and tribulations faced by immigrant families in the United States. Poetically and ambiguously named, Borrufa is shot on Super 16mm film stock and unconventional by most mainstream filmmaking...
Two months following the tragic and unexpected passing of independent filmmaker Lynn Shelton -- known for such films as Sword of Trust (2019), Laggies (2014), and Humpday (2009) -- Duplass Brothers Productions and Seattle's Northwest Film Forum announced the Lynn Shelton Of a Certain Age Grant in July 2020. In...
Welcome to Virgo season. It’s a time of transition, fraught with the frisson of both inevitable endings and fresh beginnings. There’s a pervasive undercurrent of things needing to be done. Virgo’s symbol, the maiden, is quite possibly one of the most misunderstood in the zodiac. After all, what exactly is the...
In the cinematic music video for “Wine,” Canadian Chinese singer Carson Cheng — also known as KICCC (pronounced “kick”) — emerges from hot ashes like a phoenix and finds himself face-to-face with a white wolf in the woods. The dramatic result of a creative exchange between KICCC and director Brock...
Some artists are prolific, churning out project after project at a speed that leaves onlookers wondering about their superhuman pace. Some have a much slower process -- painstaking in intricate detail -- and Eric Beltz is one of the latter. A drawing teacher at University of Santa Barbara, Beltz is a...
Strangers, Marissa Nadler's second record for Brooklyn-based Scared Bones and seventh overall, mixes elements both familiar and unfamiliar to create an uneven, but often rewarding listen. As with the best of her prior work, the songs that hit still retain the ability to steal your breath. And while...
Another year has come and gone for the Seattle International Film Festival, and this year, our top selections include a lot of black comedies and films that capture the power of human emotion, in all of its positive and negative facets. Here are some favorites from 2016. BURN BURN BURN (United...
At the start of The High Sun, Jelena (Tihana Lazovic) and Ivan (Goran Markovic) sunbathe at a lakeshore, playing instruments and wrestling flirtatiously in the sunshine. The unfettered young couple seems like it has no worries in the world -- and the last thing that one would expect is the...
Photography by Claire FinucaneWe are said to dream on any given night, even if we fail to remember its contents. For the inaugural performances of Arya Davachi's immersive theatre piece, Rough Sleeper, a woman polls us before we enter the venue. Did we sleep well last night? Did we dream?...