Bringin' It All Back Home: The Northwest Film and Video Festival

Bringin' It All Back Home: The Northwest Film and Video Festival
by Stan Hall, Special to The Oregonian
Friday November 07, 2008, 7:30 AM

When the Northwest Film & Video Festival began, Tom McCall was still in charge in Salem. Portland was altering its national reputation by tearing up a riverfront freeway and replacing it with a park. The words "Northwest" and "film industry" weren't yet a natural fit, but people were making movies -- they just needed a way to show them.

Now in its 35th year, the Northwest Film Center's exhibition of work made in (or by residents of) Oregon, Washington and British Columbia is still fresh and relevant. NW Fest gives emerging and established camera-wielders and animators a showcase to reflect the region's past, depict present realities and point to possible futures. More often than not, festivalgoers come away with altered impressions of the place they call home.
Michelle Williams in "Wendy and Lucy," part of the NW Film & Video Festival
NW Fest 2008's marquee events include Kelly Reichardt's Cannes selection, "Wendy and Lucy," starring Michelle Williams as a young woman waylaid with her dog in rural Oregon (Reichardt is this year's honorary festival judge), and the Portland debut of Arnold and Jacob Pander's "Selfless," a big winner at this year's Bend Film Festival. A Hitchcockian tale about a hot-shot architect done in by hubris and a vengeful identity thief, "Selfless" is stylish, smart and compelling as it presents a sleek, modern vision of Portland.

The documentary fare is marked by some well-crafted history lessons. "Politics of Sand" fastidiously details the political sausage-making that went into the landmark 1967 Beach Bill, which codified the public's unfettered access to Oregon's beaches. Ivy Lin's "Pig Roast & Tank of Fish" explores the vibrant past and imperiled present of Portland's Chinatown. Ilana Sol's delicate "On Paper Wings" chronicles the only fatal enemy attack on American soil during World War II, a Japanese balloon bomb that killed six near Bly. For Blazermaniacs, Dan Schaeffer's new paean to the Blazers-fan relationship, "Mania," is combined with Don Zavin's vintage curio about the 1977 championship team, "Fast Break," likely the most Zenlike, spaced-out sports film ever made.

NW Fest's heart is often found in its wildly imaginative short-film offerings. The Reichardt-selected Shorts II program includes Seattle filmmaker Margot Quan Knight's "Portrait of a Woman 1947-2007," which in three rapid-fire minutes documents 60 years of a person's life in pictures; Storm Tharp's quietly unsettling "Grey Room"; and Jamie Marie Waelchli's provocative "Little Pleasures," which consists of a single 11-minute shot of a woman gradually becoming physically distressed as she continually crams chewing gum into her mouth.

Even works not selected for inclusion get their due in the form of the popular (and free-admission) "What's Wrong With This Picture?," in which Seattle film scholar Warren Etheredge screens rejected shorts, then instantly analyzes, humorously and constructively, why they weren't up to snuff -- or why the judges made a mistake.

Where to start? Poke around the Web site (www.nwfilm.org) and find what piques your interest; I've mentioned just a few of the worthy titles. Most works will be presented by their creators, so if you're especially impressed, go ahead and tell 'em so -- it's a small way to nurture Northwest film talent.

Stan Hall is a Portland freelance writer; beyondthemultiplex@gmail.com