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Discussing Seattle’s film community with Northwest Film Forum’s Executive Director Michael Seiwerath is much easier than getting him to talk about himself. During my interview, Siewerath spoke a lot about the programs at NWFF, the staff there, and a series of firsts that the organization has experienced in the last year.
Born as an all-volunteer filmmakers' collective in 1995 from the mind of Jamie Hook and Deb Girdwood, the group purchased the Grand Illusion theatre in the U-District back in 1997. (They sold it last year.) In 1998, they built their Little Theater on 19th Ave on Capitol Hill, and only recently upgraded to much larger and nicer digs on 12th Ave, between Pike and Pine. As far as filmmaking and film programming, they are a solo act up on the hill these days. (911media moved adjacent to S.I.F.F. headquarters recently, and both are right around the corner from Consolidated Works). But with two theaters seating 48 and 118, they’ve jumped up the ladder quite a bit.
Siewerath started at NWFF modestly, coming into the collective with an interest in editing a feature-length film. Eventually he discovered his calling would turn out to be programming films and producing. When the top spot in the organization was vacant several years back, the group considered shopping nationwide for a new director, but Siewerath stepped up instead, and has been at the helm ever since.
These days, it takes ten people to run the show, not counting interns and volunteers. The NWFF boasts an eclectic history of workshops and seminars geared toward the filmmakers in the community. “We’ve developed a strong curriculum,” Siewerath said. “And I’m the most excited about the classes we hold with artists from out of town.” The strangest class they’ve had, according to Siewerath, was taught by Slovene director Elias Mehrige, creator of “Shadow of the Vampire,” with Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich. “Mehrige required his students to get naked for a part of the class,” Siewerath remembers.
More relateable than nude filmmaking classes would be the Film Forum’s new effort, the Film Company. “We wanted to develop a space for working artists to work in the space,” Siewerath explains. “Films that are made here in Seattle, shot (mostly) here, and that will premiere here.” Siewerath mentions “Police Beat,” a film shot in over 100 Pacific Northwest locations, edited at Wigglyworld (NWFF’s filmmaking branch), but set to premiere at Sundance.
Siewerath developed this idea with Forum alum Greg Lachow. In its first quarter, the company produced and screened its debut work, “The Telephone Numbering System,” in December. Their efforts are geared to “generate, develop and produce a yearly season of new films and mixed-media projects” that they will ultimately screen in their theaters.
Not content to merely build up their own castle walls, the Film Company’s chief goal is to create a repeatable model (much like the '60s-era Guthrie Theatre, which spawned the regional theatre movement) that would change the way films are made around the world.
Ambitious, to say the least. It turns out that Seiwerath really is a pioneer of film here in Seattle, though he probably won’t cop to it.
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