Port Townsend Film Festival

The Port Townsend Film Festival began screening independent films in 1999.

Today, PTFF has expanded to eight theatres and screens over 90 films, mid-September, in Port Townsend's walkable National Historic District. Port Townsend, Washington, United States). Port Townsend is at the end of a peninsula surrounded by Port Townsend Bay, Admiralty Inlet and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is adjacent to Olympic National Park.

Theatres include the beautifully restored vaudevillian-era Rose Theatre and crystal-chandeliered "Starlight Room," with views of the snow-peaked Cascade mountains. Five more theatres are "created" in downtown buildings for the three-day weekend by installing large screens, projectors and state-of-the-art sound. Theatre seating ranges from 46 to 250.

Independent documentary and narrative film submissions are accepted from January–May, and are evaluated by a team of 26 reviewers. The Festival charges a small fee for submissions. Additionally, programmer Jane Julian attends larger festivals, such as Sundance, to select films and to invite chosen filmmakers to attend the Festival in person.

PTFF's mission is "to spark community by connecting filmmakers & audiences." More than 60 filmmakers attend the Festival. Passholders can choose from 42 films being screened each day, many of them with Q&A afterwards. Filmmaker panel discussions – with, say, composers or screenwriters; covering topics like indie film challenges; the popular recurring "storytelling" panel – are Saturday and Sunday mornings and open to passholders at any level.

Special Guests of the Festival (actors, directors and filmmakers of note, see below) meet students at local school assemblies, as well as speak to adult audiences during hour-long interviews after their films have screened. In April, the Festival invites women directors, producers, screenwriters and other film professionals for a weekend of "Women & Film", held at the Rose and Rosebud Theatres, with a special screening and a filmmaker roundtable at Fort Worden State Park's 250-seat Wheeler Theatre.

The Festival has more than 250 volunteers to assist with managing the Festival. PTFF operates year-round with a staff of three, and is supported by donors, local small businesses and pass sales.

The most popular gathering place between films during the Festival is Area 51, "The Festival Bar on the Dock." Housed in a small historic building on the city dock, the bar overlooks Port Townsend Bay.

The city also closes off one block of Taylor Street in front of the Rose Theatre in downtown Port Townsend during Festival days to house the Taylor Street Outdoor Theatre. The Outdoor Movie, which begins at dusk (7:30 p.m.), offers a free kid-friendly film each night of the Festival. The Outdoor Movie is projected onto a gigantic inflatable screen, nicknamed after the orca whale Keiko, with seating on straw bales.

Pass sales range from a one pass ($40) to Patron Pass with access to all parties ($1,500). The "Festival" level pass includes Friday's "Dinner on Taylor Street." More than 650 passholders and filmmakers are served.

All passes include a year-long Festival membership with film library privileges and discounted ticket and popcorn price to "First Tuesday Salon," held each month at the Rose Theatre. The Salon screens a film currently in national distribution, with an invited guest, often a film academic, to discuss various aspects of the film.

Schedules, links to film trailers, film synopsis, and filmmaker interviews are posted by August 10 at http:// www.ptfilmfest.com

Noteworthy guests

The following actors, directors, screenwriters, producers, critics and authors have made appearances at PTFF:

*2000
**Actor Tony Curtis
**Film Historian Robert Osborne
*2001
**Actress Eva Marie Saint
**Actor Vincent Schiavelli
*2002
**Actress Patricia Neal
**Screenwriter Stewart Stern ( Rebel Without a Cause, The Ugly American)
*2003
**Actress Shirley Knight
**Actor / Director Peter Fonda
**Actress Verna Bloom
**Film critic / Screenwriter Jay Cocks
**Screenwriter Stewart Stern ( Rebel Without a Cause)
**Director Mark Decena ( Dopamine (film))
**Actor John Livingston ( Dopamine (film))
*2004
**Actress Jane Powell
**Former Child Actor Dickie Moore
**Writer Tom Robbins
**Director Zana Briski (Academy Award winner Born into Brothels)
**Actor Tshewang Dendup ( Travellers and Magicians)
*2005
**Actress Debra Winger
**Actor / Director Arliss Howard
**Mountaineer Jim Whittaker
*2006
**Actor Malcolm McDowell
**Actress Greta Gerwig (LOL (2006 film))
**Director Joe Swanberg (LOL (2006 film))
**Producer Mike Kaplan ( The Whales of August)
**Filmmaker Linda Hattendorf ( The Cats of Mirikitani)
*2007
**Actor Elliott Gould
**Actress Melissa Leo
**Director Charles Burnett
**Poet Billy Collins
*2008
**Actress Piper Laurie
**Writer / Producer Sherman Alexie
*2009
**Actress Cloris Leachman
**Author Gail Buckley (Daughter of Lena Horne)
*2010
**Actress / Director Dyan Cannon
**Radio Host Sedge Thomson
*2011
**Actor / Screenwriter / Director Buck Henry
**Film Critic Moira MacDonald ( The Seattle Times)
*2012
**Actor Bruce Dern
**Actress / Singer Chely Wright
**Composer / Keyboardist Wayne Horvitz
**Radio Host Sedge Thomson
*2013
**Actress Karen Allen
**Mountaineer Lou Whittaker
**Film Critic Robert Horton
*2014
**Director / Writer John Sayles
**Producer Maggie Renzi
**Filmmaker Lynn Shelton
**Director / Writer Ari Seth Cohen
**Author Daniel James Brown
**Film Critic Robert Horton
*2015
**Actor Beau Bridges
**Actor Chris Cooper
**Actress / Writer Marianne Leone Cooper
**Director Ali Selim
**Producer Jim Bigham Sweet Land
*2016
**Actor / Writer Andrew Perez
**Actress / Director Karen Allen
**Director / Composer Alexander Janko (Year by the Sea, My Big Fat Greek Wedding)
**Director Charlie Soap (The Cherokee Word for Water)
*2017
**Director Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom)
**Director / Actress Karen Allen
**Editor / Producer Doug Blush
**Astronaut Trainee Alyssa Carlson
**'Bionic' Chef Eduardo Garcia
*2018
**Actor / Director / Activist Danny Glover
**Director Charles Burnett
**Director Jane Campion
**Filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi (Academy Award winner Period. End of Sentence.)
**Director Tedy Necula ( Beside Me)
**Director / Screenwriter Megan Griffiths
**Human Rights Advocate Rais Bhuiyan
*2019
**Actor Stephen Tobolowsky
**Writer Cheryl Strayed
**Director / Actress Karen Allen
**Director Michael Brown (film director)
**Director Ward Serrill (The Heart of the Game)
**Editor / Producer Doug Blush (20 Feet from Stardom)
**Film Critic / Author Robert Horton ( National Society of Film Critics, Scarecrow Project)
**Film Critic Moira Macdonald ( The Seattle Times)
**Co-publisher & Co-editor Joseph Bednarik ( Copper Canyon Press)
**Educator / Film Producer Warren Etheredge
*2020 Virtual Festival only
*2021 Virtual Festival only
*2022
**Former Director & Programmer John Cooper (Sundance Film Festival)
**Filmmakers Jared and Jerusha Hess ( Napoleon Dynamite)

History

The Port Townsend Film Festival is a 501c3 non-profit, now in its 17th year. It occupies offices year-round in the historic Baker Block Building, at 211 Taylor Street, Suite 401-A, 98368. (360) 379–1333. From the beginning the Festival has maintained a film library of Festival films, available to members.

The Festival is juried each year by a team of film professionals. In 2016, and annually, PTFF will award "The Jim Ewing Young Director Award" in memory of Jim Ewing, one of the Festival's founders.

In 2014 the Festival began its "Film Fellowship" program, offered to one film professional needing several months of rent-free housing to work on a project.

In 2013 the Festival began offering annual Festival scholarships (two-night free lodging and festival passes) to film and journalism students.

The Festival also, from the beginning, has partnered with local non-profits at no charge, to provide films that help support their missions.

The largest annual fundraiser for PTFF is held in late February or early March, with live music, dinner, drinks, and a simulcast of the Oscars.

Founders

The Port Townsend Film Festival founders, Jim Ewing, Rocky Friedman, Jim Westall, and Linda Marie Yakush, were all veteran attendees of the Telluride Film Festival in Telluride, Colorado. That festival served as the model for the Port Townsend event. The PTFF founders also established an organizing committee consisting of Erik Andersson, Nancy Biery, Michael Harvey, Sherry Jones, Peter Simpson, and George Yakush.

Future festival dates

Focus: Women & Film, April 12–14, 2019; 20th Annual Film Festival Sept. 20–22, 2019.

References

External links

Port Townsend Film Festival Official Site

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Film festivals in Washington (state)
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