Independent Films

Seattle Film Festival closes with a French farce

After 25 days, more than 400 films, scores of guests and hundreds of screenings of films indie and epic, old and new, long and short, the 33rd Seattle International Film Festival came to a close, sent off with a screening of Laurent Tiraud's French romantic farce "Moliere" at the Cinerama and the subsequent closing night gala.

The biggest and longest film festival in the country, SIFF was once again a brambly garden of delights and frustrations, a festival so determined to be all things to all people that you have to search out the adventurous and the challenging strewn through the crazy-quilt programming of more than 270 new features and documentaries.

The excitement in such festivals as Toronto and Sundance is in the discoveries of the competition categories. But SIFF's world premieres (most of them from the New American Cinema competition, traditionally the festival's weakest collection) are rarely as exciting as the international offerings finally making their way to Seattle along the festival circuit, or as compelling as the documentaries.

What may sound like the festival's biggest weakness is also its greatest strength: It is a festival for the people of the city, not the critics or industry movers and shakers, and the city responds in kind. Filmmakers attend other festivals to connect with critics and opinion makers, but they come to SIFF, the most well-attended film festival in the country, to connect with audiences. This year's attendance increased yet again, topping the previous year's record.

In March, SIFF opened a new, year-round home -- SIFF Cinema in the Nesholm Family Lecture Hall of McCaw Hall -- but it wasn't christened until the festival, which made the new headquarters an unofficial base camp for press screenings, special guest presentations (including conversations with director Julien Temple and composer/musician Lisa Gerrard) and archival films, which is my favorite section of SIFF.

This year's revival highlights included the 1976 Netherlands classic "Max Havelaar," a lovely tribute to director Fons Rademakers (a longtime friend of SIFF who died earlier this year), and the dynamic silent film discovery "A Cottage on Dartmoor."

The Egyptian remains the flagship of the festival. It was the scene of the fest's most impressive guest event in years, "An Evening with Anthony Hopkins," where the knighted star was interviewed on stage and presented with a lifetime achievement award.

Last year's expansion to Bellevue proved so successful that screenings were expanded once again, from 11 days of films in 2006 to 18 days at the Lincoln Square Cinema this year, with greater attendance and more sold-out shows than last year.

Themes are hard to discern in such an overwhelming abundance of cinema, but a few things cam girls While German cinema got the spotlight this year, SIFF showcased three films from Romania's bold new film industry, including the 2006 Cannes award winner "12:08: East of Bucharest." The city of Paris was the ostensible star of another trio of films: "Two Days in Paris," "Dans Paris" and the unabashedly gushing love letter to the city, "Paris je t'aime."

The latter was one of three films graced by indie stalwart Steve Buscemi, who headlined "Delirious" and starred in and directed "Interview." And it was a treat to see cult actor Kevin McCarthy paid tribute in two films that couldn't be more different: Anthony Hopkins' "Slipstream" and Larry Blamire's 1950s invasion movie spoof "Trail of the Screaming Forehead."

Audiences watched internationally but voted locally when it came to the Golden Space Needle awards.

Seattle filmmaker John Jeffcoat's "Outsourced" took Best Film, while "King of Kong" was first runner-up for Best Documentary. (Top prize went to "For the Bible Tells Me So.")

For contrast, here are a few picks from the Fool Serious Awards, the exclusive poll held by full-series pass holders. While they agreed on "For the Bible Tells Me So" as the top documentary, their "Most Liked" film was the German drama "Emma's Bliss," followed by the East African-set "Sounds of Sand," films absent from the audience awards.