Archives
Welcome. We invite you to search our archives and visit past festivals through remarkable poster art, select photos and quotes, special guest and special event facts, as well as the original film schedule and detailed film descriptions.
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Founding Story
The Port Townsend Film Festival began life in 1999 as the vision of four film buffs who saw an opportunity to create a three-day event with something for everyone.
The event, modeled on the concept of the popular festival in Telluride, Colorado, was spearheaded by Rocky Friedman. A highly respected local film lover, Rocky restored and operates Washington's only remaining nickelodeon, the Rose Theatre, and is dedicated to showing a wide range of independent, foreign-language, commercial and art house films. Joining Rocky in his efforts to create a local film festival were a landscape designer, an international management consultant, and the director of a nationally-recognized workshop for the developmentally-disabled. All four had previously spent several years attending the Colorado festival and had remarked how its community flavor would be a good approach for Port Townsend.
The foursome soon determined they would need additional help and enlisted five other Port Townsend movie lovers to form an operating committee. They included an attorney, a former Microsoft marketer, an economic development director, a candle maker, and an officer in the state Democratic party.
Together, with the efforts of more than two hundred local volunteers, the festival made its debut on September 22, 2000 with the motto, "A film lover's block party celebrating great films and filmmakers." Closing off a downtown street for three days, the festival screened twenty-four documentaries, features and shorts in three venues. This included the mammoth task of transforming a community gymnasium into a 350-seat movie theater for three days. That theater was named for the late independent filmmaker James Broughton. They also had one outdoor theater smack-dab in the middle of the downtown historic district. Writers, actors and filmmakers were on hand at many of the screenings to discuss their work with the audience. As a result of the sponsorship of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), the Festival was able to present an appearance by TCM primetime host Robert Osborne and famed actor Tony Curtis. The two delivered a lively question-and-answer session after the screening of Curtis's classic film, Sweet Smell of Success. The first annual festival was such a smashing success that it guaranteed continuation.
Now in its 9th year, the Port Townsend Film Festival is constantly revising and re-visioning its programming in response to the availability of films throughout the world and cinematic responses to the topic issues of the day, but it still holds to the original vision, "A film lover's block party celebrating great films and filmmakers."