SIFF announces lineup, tributes & premieres slated for the

50th Seattle International Film Festival, returning May 9-19

261 films with 18 World, 26 North American, and 14 U.S. Premieres make up the lineup for the Festival’s 50th anniversary, screening at venues across Seattle, including SIFF’s newly opened

SIFF Cinema Downtown

SEATTLE – SIFF announced today the lineup of films included in the 50th Seattle International Film Festival, to be held May 9–19 at venues across Seattle and followed by a week of select virtual screenings on the SIFF Channel May 20–27. The Festival will screen 261 films representing 84 countries/regions, including 92 features, 47 documentaries, five archival features, two special tributes, two secret screenings, and 115 short films.

In addition to the full lineup, SIFF announced today that Seattle native and Emmy®, Golden Globe®, SAG Award®, and Critics Choice Award-winning actress Jean Smart will be awarded The Hollywood Reporter’s Trailblazer Award for her contributions to storytelling on film, television, and the stage. The event will feature a screening of an episode from the new season of the Max Original comedy series Hacks, followed by the Trailblazer trophy presentation and a conversation between Smart and THR Contributing Editor Stacey Wilson Hunt. 

The Festival will open with Josh Margolin’s action comedy Thelma from Magnolia Pictures, which will screen at The Paramount Theatre during the Festival's Opening Night on May 9. The film will be followed by a Q&A with Writer & Director Josh Margolin, lead actress June Squibb, and producers Zoë Worth and Chris Kaye. Following the Q&A, there will be an after-party onstage and outside on Ninth Ave.

SIFF will honor June Squibb with the 2024 Golden Space Needle Award for Outstanding Contribution to Cinema for the unforgettable work she’s presented throughout the span of her career. The Oscar-nominated actress and lead of the Festival’s Opening Night film,

Thelma, will be presented the award at a special Tribute Event on May 11 at SIFF Cinema Downtown with a conversation moderated by Variety’s Jenelle Riley. Prior to the event, there will be an Honoree Brunch with Squibb at Palace Kitchen.

Closing the Festival is Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing from A24, which will screen on May 18 at SIFF Cinema Downtown. Director and co-writer Greg Kwedar will be in attendance and participate in a Q&A after the screening along with members of the film’s ensemble cast, who will receive a Golden Space Needle Award for excellence in Ensemble Acting. A Closing Night party will follow at the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI).

Additional highlights showing throughout the Festival include Focus Features’ Sundance award-winner Dìdi (

弟弟), a directorial debut from Oscar® nominee Sean Wang (SIFF 2023 Grand Jury winner for Live Action short); Neon’s Babes written by and starring Ilana Glazer and directed by debut helmer Pamela Adlon; IFC’s stirring and emotional Ghostlight which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; Harmony Korine’s latest boundary-pushing work AGGRO DR1FT; a new 4K restoration of Wim Wenders’ iconic Wings of Desire, in celebration of the 70th anniversary of German Films; and an exciting new slate of cINeDIGENOUS films, including the world premiere of Molokaʻi Bound, directed by Alika Tengan (Kanaka Maoli).

A variety of film and event passes are on sale now. Ticke

Hello Alex! Welcome to SIFF.

Originally this was a whole other movie where there was no romance or love interest. It was made without any real goal at the end other than making it. We all have experiences outside of our daily routine we can classify as extrasensory – be they dreams, premonitions, communication with loved ones who have passed on, near death experiences. These are all very normal and accepted experiences now, but before these were seen by the scientific establishment as craziness. In order to know thy self, one often has to go past the known and accepted and into the unknown. My initial thought with this film was as an exploration of that unknown through the Sam character leading him to find a guru in Arizona and finding out what his connection to those deities was, which we were doing while filming the movie. It still retains a bit of that hero’s journey flare, let’s get it done, and cross that bridge when we get to it feeling. Never did I think it would become what it became or be accepted by festivals, or accepted for distribution.

This movie is this movie because I asked Ewa to help me with the film, and our personal experiences fed into what we had shot already naturally, well that and the original idea included a guru in Sedona, who we later found out wanted to use the project as a springboard for his own aggrandizement, and to expand his donations and power base. As Charlie Chaplin once said “You need Power, only when you want to do something Harmful, Otherwise Love is Enough to get everything done”, so I killed that project and that film and we made this one which I really love as it has parts of both of us. I hadn’t touched anything in the cinema for 6 years and I felt comfortable with Ewa helping me as we have a unique connection. As we worked, I could see our quantum entanglement at play as she never worked on a film before but I noticed it was a very different experience like a telepathic communion where she automatically knew what to do and how to do it. We didn’t really speak as we worked, it sometimes caught people by surprise that we never made a film together before. This is where we noticed our story was more interesting than the original one.  I also roped in Alex Lora Cercos, whom I have known for about 11 years, and we have worked on a few projects together similar to this one (no budget ? Al was finishing up his first international feature “Unicorns”, which premiered in theaters internationally mid 2023 and his recent short “The Masterpiece” which won the Grand Jury Award at Sundance 2024, so he wasn’t able to jump on a plane with me to Arizona, but he was super helpful with equipment recommendations, a few caveats given my run and gun style, and genuinely being a godfather for the project. We joke that we give each other associate producer credit and special thanks on all of our projects. He really is a one of a kind in this industry. 

I  wouldn’t call them creative challenges, I would call them creative opportunities – as I didn’t have any one in my network available to help me with post production it became a matter of teaching an old dog new

For the last two decades, Shorts TV has been at the forefront of screening the best of shorts to audiences across the globe. Their online library includes over 13,000 international titles from all genres, including animation, comedy, horror, drama, documentary and thriller. They have showcased Oscar-nominated projects for over 15 years. Here’s our selection of must-watch films from Shorts TV, some of which have also screened at Aesthetica Short Film Festival.

Lightning | Christina Isoli, 2018

A feel-good romance story about a quirky musician named Sean, who moves to London and crosses paths with Summer at a traffic light. Summer, a deaf girl who works in a café, is dreaming of becoming a pilot. Later on, she discovers that Sean has a secret as their friendship evolves.

Dela | Bernard Attal, 2018

Bernard Attal’s short centres around Dela, a young girl who lives with her father on the magical island of Itaparica in Brazil’s Bay of All Saints. She does not understand why all the other kids at school keep on making fun of her name and her hair, but she is on a journey to sort it out. Dela screened at Aesthetica 2020.

Steve | Rupert Friend, 2010

British actor Rupert Friend’s short, Steve is an award-winning drama starring Colin Firth and Keira Knightley We witness a couple’s strained relationship getting interrupted by their neighbour. Soon we find out that his amiable demeanor hides his true intentions.

Bear Story | Gabriel Osorio Vargas, 2014

A humble fable for all generations, Gabriel Osorio Vargas’ Bear Story is an Academy Award-winning animation, inspired by the director’s own grandfather. The short centres around a lonesome bear who tells about his life with the help of a mechanical diorama. It is the first Chilean animation to be nominated for or win an Oscar.

Colonies Under The Sea | Armel Ruy, 2019

Colonies Under The Sea is a visually stunning and fascinating documentary. A group of divers explores shipwrecks in the heart of the Bahamas archipelago. They are on a mission to discover unknown species. The film reveals how forgotten shipwrecks have been colonised by sea creatures, transforming debris into an oasis teeming with life.

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Visions du Réel is delighted to announce that the Special Guest for the 55th edition of the Festival (12 – 21 April) will be American filmmaker John Wilson. He is mainly known for his documentary series How To with John Wilson, nominated for the 2022 Primetime Emmy Awards, in which he explores the eccentricities of daily life through a succession of quirky and hilarious comic detours. To accompany a selection of episodes from his series and earlier works presented during the Festival, John Wilson will take part in a public discussion of his work (Thursday, 18 April) as well as curate a carte blanche.

John Wilson has been working in American television for a decade, alternating between commissions and more personal projects, all with his trademark offbeat approach. His landmark HBO series How To with John Wilson (2020-2023) is an invitation to explore the eccentricities of daily life, and proved a runaway success. Armed with a camera and a keen sense of observation, John Wilson uses the streets of his native New York as his backdrop. Pastiching the video tutorials ubiquitous on social media, How To with John Wilson proposes a series of life lessons on trivial themes which border on the absurd: "How To Cook the Perfect Risotto", "How To Put Up Scaffolding", "How To Clean Your Ears"... Each exploration sparks a succession of improbable meetings with strangers, some bizarre and fascinating, following an idiosyncratic logic and offbeat association of ideas.

From an always unassuming starting point, John Wilson's work always reaches for disconcerting depth. His anti-spectacular cinematography, incorporating a kind of formal austerity inspired by Gonzo journalism, showcases the comic potential hidden in the banality of the everyday. Without ever distracting from the highly entertaining premise of his project, John Wilson implicitly questions the human condition, the absurdity of existence, and the complexity of the modern world in a set of remarkably effective DIY wild goose chases. The third (and final!) season of this unmissable series was broadcast last summer, and garnered its director a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

The aim of Visions du Réel is to ceaselessly explore the full spectrum of non-fiction cinema, in all its richness and diversity, and in all its freedom. Welcoming a filmmaker such as John Wilson is an incredible opportunity to showcase a singular and original body of work: joyful, personal, droll, collaborative and highly contemporary, all with cinephile eye.

“I’m really flattered that Visions du Réel asked me to screen some work at the festival this year. I always wanted to travel internationally and screen my work but no foreign festivals ever accepted my submissions. I’m very excited to watch documentaries in Switzerland.”  – John Wilson.

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