The 2012 Program
By Day:
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
By Type
Outdoor Movies
Special Events
Featured Documentaries
Featured Narratives
Short Narratives
Short Documentaries
Shorts Program
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What's New for 2012
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Outdoor Movies
E.T the Extra-Terrestrial
Director: Steven Spielberg
Friday, 7:30 p.m.,
Taylor Street Outdoor Cinema
Speilberg already had an impressive track record when "E.T." was made, directing some of the top grossing movies of the decade: "Jaws", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark". "E.T." hit a nerve with moviegoers in the 1980s. The story of a young boy who befriends an alien accidently left behind by his companions. Audiences were not disappointed by E.T., the film swept the Academy Awards. Lots of us can feel that they've been left behind, yearning for love and connection with our own kind.
The underlying emotional content of the film is based on Director Steven Spielberg's first-hand sense of being an outsider, being bullied on the playground, and the comfort he drew from his own imaginary friend when his parents were divorcing. Elliott, a lonely boy, befriends and protects the distraught E.T., and helps him go home.
USA/1982/115 min.
Shown with Luminaris
The Empire Strikes Back
Back Director: Irvin Kershner
Website
Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Taylor Street Outdoor Cinema
Is it any surprise, that 30 years after America's space race with Russia began and film technology caught up with rocket ships, the first epic space opera was made? In "The Empire Strikes Back", the second entry in George Lucas' Star Wars Trilogy, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) has grown from a naïve boy to a seasoned warrior.
Luke and his friends, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) battle the terrifying authority of the Galactic Empire.
Darth Vader, brooding, robotic villain, pursues our hero with his technologically advanced space warriors. Skywalker, has The Force with him, as well as the sage advice of strange little Jedi-master Yoda, who bolsters his resolve with Zen-like advice "fear is the path to the dark side." Hope for clear skies, stars and planets, as we sit outside on hay bales, bundled up for this most popular of the Star Wars trilogy!
USA/1980/124 min.
Tootsie 
Director: Sydney Pollack
Website
Sunday, 7:30 p.m., Taylor Street Outdoor Cinema
After playing major roles in films such as "Death of a Salesman", "Marathon Man", "Rain Man" and "Little Big Man," Dustin Hoffman shows us that he is "more than just a woman" when he dons the wigs, clothing and eyeglasses of the 1980s and gives us his "Miss Dorothy Michaels."
We watch the transformation of Hoffman, portraying Michael Dorsey, a handsome, difficult actor who can't find a job, covertly dressing up as a woman to land a role in a soap opera.
He falls in love with his co-star, Jessica Lange (Julie) but can't step out of his role as Dorothy for fear of losing his job. Worse, Julie's widowed father has the hots for Dorothy from which Michael tries desperately to extricate himself without hurting the old man's feelings.
Geena Davis makes her screen debut as a daytime drama queen and supporting actors Bill Murray, Teri Garr, George Gaynes and Dabney Coleman play their comic roles perfectly off of Hoffman's high camp, highly conflicted prance.
USA/1982/110 min.
Special Events
Opening Night Event: Single screening of Yasujiro Ozu's silent film, "Woman of Tokyo," accompanied by a live performance of the original score by composer Wayne Horvitz.
Friday, 6:15 p.m., Rose Theater
Sponsored by Centrum
Woman of Tokyo (Tokyo No Onna)
in Japanese with English subtitles
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Website
This classic film will be accompanied live with an original jazz score played on piano by composer Wayne Horvitz and accompanied by Geoff Harper, bass; Eric Eagle, drums; Jacques Willis, vibraphone; Greg Sinabaldi, tenor sax and bass clarinet.
Ozu's sizzling melodrama is the story of Chikako, the dutiful woman of the title, who does everything she can, both at home and at work, to support the university education of her younger brother Ryoichi. When it emerges that Chikako, a typist by day, is not in fact spending her evenings assisting a professor with translation, but instead earning money on the side as an entertainer and prostitute. Ryoichi fails to comprehend his sister's self-sacrificing motives, with harrowing consequences.
Completed in just nine days, the film is a treasure among Yasujiro Ozu's lifetime study of the rhythms and tensions of a country trying to reconcile modern and traditional values.
Watch for his signature style: static shots from the vantage point of someone sitting low on a tatami mat, patiently pacing and the isolated beauty of everyday objects.
Originally commissioned by the NW Film Forum, the WOMAN OF TOKYO jazz project has been performed in Seattle, Syracuse, and at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City.
This performance is generously underwritten by Centrum, in collaboration with The Reverberations Festival.
Japan/1933/47 min.
A Special Evening with Bruce Dern
Saturday 6:30 p.m.,Uptown Theatre
Sponsored by Champion Video Productions
Bruce Dern, this year's Special Guest, knows a lot about getting shot and/or killed. In the movies, that is.
He's played plenty of villains, like the psychopath pilot who tries to blow up the Super Bowl in 1977's "Black Sunday" and he's also known as "The Man Who Shot John Wayne," a dubious, though distinctive claim to movie fame. He shot The Duke in the back, as a matter of fact, in the 1972 western, "The Cowboys."
Dern confirmed a well-known story that Wayne leaned over and whispered "America's gonna hate you for this" before the shoot. And that he replied to The Duke, "Yea, but they'll love me in Berkeley."
Dern, who recently turned 76, was nominated for the Oscar Best Supporting Actor for 1978's "Coming Home." He's often played oddball – if not always villainous – characters throughout his movie career, which started in the early 1960s and includes such classics as 1972's dark sci-fi film "Silent Running," in which he played the caretaker of earth's last forests. (He may feel right at home here on the woodsy Olympic Peninsula.) He also co-starred with Jack Nicholson in "The King of Marvin Gardens." Last year, he won an Emmy for his scary polygamist role on HBO's acclaimed Utah-based series "Big Love.
Asked about a rare comedy in which he starred, "Smile," this year's Festival selection, Dern reacts warmly, calling it "one of my five favorite films. "Michael Ritchie was a terrific director and he had a great script to work with," he says of "Smile," arguably one of the funniest (and most cynical) films ever- an underrated and overlooked comedy gem.
Before Dern broke into film, he paid his bills by doing lots of episodic TV, including "Sea Hunt," "Route 66," and "Gunsmoke," usually playing villains. "I learned that you could do one 'Gunsmoke' a year if you got killed," he chuckles.
The blunt-spoken Dern, a graduate of the prestigious Actors' Studio, repeatedly says he was lucky to work with "people who were truly larger than life" like John Wayne and Bette Davis.
The Chicago-born actor says one day early in his career, he showed up on the set of "Gunsmoke" at CBS and was surprised to see Davis, "chain-smoking four or five packs a day as usual." "I asked Miss Davis respectfully why she was doing TV, and she snapped back, 'How else am I gonna pay for these f---ing Chesterfields?" Dern chuckles.
The rail-thin Dern still stays in shape the way he always has by running. He says he once ran 72 miles in a single day. "I've run countless marathons," he says, "and I figure I've run the equivalent of four times around the world." Dern, the father of actress Laura Dern (from his first marriage to actress Diane Ladd) still runs 10-15 miles a week. When I asked if he'll be running when he's here at the Film Festival, Dern replies, "I sure as hell don't see why not."
Interviewed by Bill Mann
Join us for A Special Evening… interview with Bruce Dern following this screening of SMILE!
Smile
Director: Michael Ritchie
Website
Saturday 6:30 p.m.,Uptown Theatre
USA/1975/113 min
The beauty pageant's about to get ugly. The Santa Rosa Jaycees are organizing a California version of the American Junior Miss pageant. With 30 young women raised on hamburgers and soda pop striving to be everyman's girl-next-door and a host of self-centered behind-the-scenes flawed characters, we have plot, setting, screwball comedy & a cult following assured.
Starring Bruce Dern & Barbara Feldon, "contestants" include future stars Coleen Camp, Denise Nickerson, Annette O'Toole and Melanie Griffith.
Bringing together dozens of vignettes, the one-liners are great, especially the disingenuous "Santa Rosa is so beautiful. I mean, I thought the shopping mall in Anaheim was great until I saw yours. It's…a credit to the vision of your business community."
Vincent Canby, reviewing for the New York Times, called SMILE "a rollicking satire that misses few of the obvious targets, but without dehumanizing the victims…about a society in which optimism and positive thinking virtually amount to a political system, a guide to making choices, the principal goal of which is to have fun."
What The Heck Does A Producer Do Anyway?
Saturday 3:30 p.m.,Uptown Theatre 
Welcome producer Jeffery Kusama Hinte as he shares behind the scenes tales about introducing the concepts of this remarkable film, THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT to an industry that had never before presented non-traditional family issues in the context of a major motion picture. Writes Kusama Hinte: "The Kids Are All Right serves as a good example of the good, the bad, the ugly … and the really terrible-awful-horrible.
It started off wonderfully well. Right after making "Laurel Canyon", Lisa (Cholodenko) and I decided to make a new film based on her original idea. Stuart Blumberg was brought into the process, and they started writing. In a few months we had a great treatment, and by the end of the year a solid screenplay. We set about casting and seeking financing. At the two year mark we thought we had it all together, but the financing fell apart, and then it fell apart again, and again. We kept working on the script and cutting the budget. It was frustrating but we soldiered on. And then…" Join Jeffery for an interview & the rest of this conversation following the screening of this ground breaking film.
The Kids Are All Right
Director: Lisa Cholodenko
Website
Starring: Julianne Moore, Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo.
Saturday 3:30 p.m.,Uptown Theatre
The set-up: The son of a same sex couple enlists his sister in seeking out their sperm donor dad. The complication: Thrilled to meet his long lost children whom he never expected to see, sperm donor reaches out, challenging the couple's mothering.
Further complications: Sparks fly between sperm donor and mom who had the pregnancies, and who might be persuaded to switch sides. And the kids love him at first sight.
USA/2011/ 106 min
Wish Me Away
Chely Wright appears with this film on Friday night only!
Directors: Bobbie Birleffi, Beverly Kopf
Website
Friday, 6:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
Saturday, 12:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Wish Me Away has left audiences cheering! We share the journey of a young girl from Kansas who makes the decision that a life of integrity is worth risking her career. This documentary is a personal and intimate look at Chely Wright who, after a lifetime of hiding, becomes the first commercially successful country music singer to come out as a lesbian.
With unprecedented access over three years, which include her private video diaries, this film chronicles Chely's rise to fame and beyond the moment she steps into the media glare and shatters the cultural and religious stereotypes of Nashville. Wish Me Away shows both the devastation caused by Chely's internalized homophobia and the transformational power of living an authentic life. Port Townsend Film Festival welcomes Chely Wright to the Uptown Theatre on Friday, September 21st at 6:30pm for the screening of the film, followed by a conversation with film critic & author Rebecca Redshaw.
USA/2011/96 min.
West Coast Live!!
Saturday 10 a.m., Upstage Theatre & Restaurant 
Saturday 2 p.m., Upstage Theatre & Restaurant
With host Sedge Thomson
This lively, entertaining and informative National Public Radio program is returning to Port Townsend once again! WCL is a live two hour radio variety show that has been a Saturday morning Bay Area staple and is often (when not touring) broadcast from the Ferry Building in San Francisco or the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. What makes this radio program so special is the likeable and ever-curious personality of Sedge Thomson. He and his droll, literate troupers seek the cultural variety that is widely available in Port Townsend.
The show broadcasts from 10 a.m. – noon at The Upstage Restaurant. Check here for the latest details on guests.
Come join the theater audience! This popular show sells out so if you want a ticket, buy in advance for $15 here. Doors open at 9:30 a.m. Tickets are $20 at the door, if there are any left.
You can find affiliate radio stations to tune in here or listen online (and for a week after) via KALW here.
Awards Bash
On September 22nd, 9pm we are back at the Peter Simpson Free Cinema, 209 Monroe Street. Ditch the tuxedo and get ready to celebrate great films and awards without having to dress up. Share a bite, toast the Jury Award Winners, and winner of The Spirit of the PT Film Fest, and see who wins The Big Cheese! Open to all passholders $185 and above. Cash bar.
The Nuts & Bolts of Production
Saturday 1:00 p.m., 4th Floor Mt Baker Block (Follow the signs at the left of the top of the stairs)
Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte (THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT-Producer)
JJ Kelley (Filmmaker GO GANGES! and PADDLE TO SEATTLE, and Assoc. Producer at National Geographic Television)
Matt Murray (Producer-HIGH GROUND)
Sonya Senkowsky (Producer-DAY IN OUR BAY)
Alexandria Bombach (Filmmaker/Producer JULIO SOLIS: A MOVE SHAKE STORY, and related projects)
And moderated by Jon Gann, director of DC Shorts film festival in Washington DC
Featured Documentaries
Trash Dance 
Director: Andrew Garrison
Website
Friday, 9:15 a.m., Rose Theatre
Sunday, 6:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Sometimes inspiration is found in unexpected places. Choreographer Allison Orr finds beauty and grace in garbage trucks - and in the men and women who pick up our trash. She joins city sanitation workers on their daily routes to listen, learn and ultimately try to convince them to collaborate in a unique dance performance. Hard working, often carrying a second job, their lives are already full with work, family and dreams of their own. But some step forward, and after months of rehearsal, two dozen trash collectors and their trucks perform an extraordinary spectacle. On an abandoned airport runway, thousands of people show up to see how in the world garbage trucks can "dance."
Filmmaker Andrew Garrison illuminates the reality that all work matters and has dignity.
USA/2012/ 68 min.
Shown with Driving William
Bitter Seeds 
Director: Micha X. Peled
Website
Friday 12:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Saturday, 6:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Follow the journey of a young Indian student, intent on becoming a journalist in a country where girls are rarely allowed an independent voice. Her story? Indian farmers, driven to despair by inescapable debt, are committing suicide.
Determined to document why this is happening in her village, she also exposes international industrial agriculture (such as Monsanto) determining the fate of farming in India.
A number of stories are told here, but especially the collapse of one cotton farmer's life and farm as all his hard work comes to nothing. Bitter Seeds is the final film of Micha X. Peled's Globalization Trilogy (Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town and China Blue).
USA/India/2011/88 min.
Shown with Water
The Girls in the Band 
Director: Judy Chaikin
Website
Friday, 9 p.m., Rosebud Cinema
Saturday, 3:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
How did playing an instrument, particularly drums and horns, become so gender specific that exceptional musicians are routinely ignored and forgotten because they're women?
Forgotten by most, except by fans and musicians, such as ebullient sax player Roz Cron whose memories sparked director Judy Chaikin to make the film. Girls in the Band contains footage from three generations of all-women big bands, such as the Ada Leonard Orchestra, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the Melodears and the Ingenues, as well as interviews with players about the frustrations of exclusion.
Have you ever heard of saxophonist Vi Redd or trombonist Melba Liston? Variety magazine suggested this film might prompt a "rewrite of jazz history."
USA/2011/87 min.
Shown with The Way Home
Under African Skies 
Director: Joe Berlinger
Website
Friday, 9:30 a.m., Uptown Theatre
Saturday, 9:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
Paul Simon returns to Africa on the 25th anniversary of his "Graceland" album to examine the repercussions of his stealth opening of South African culture to the world.
Demonstrating, on the world stage, that whites and blacks can work together, and that whites could respect and embrace African cultures, was a revolutionary act.
He was then accused of breaking the United Nations cultural boycott of South Africa designed to end Apartheid!
Ironically, he simply slipped under the wire and exposed the world to the best South Africa had to offer: its black culture and music.
USA/2012/102 min.
Smokin' Fish 
Director: Luke Griswold-Tergis
Website
Friday, 3:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
Sunday, 9:15 a.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Cory Mann is a harried native businessman mass- producing, importing, exporting and wholesaling traditional art to tourists in Juneau, Alaska.
Like many Tlingit people, his mother left Juneau where discrimination against Alaska Natives was as common as it was against African Americans in the south. She raised him in San Diego until two aunts decided to bring him back into the family and back into Tlingit culture. Terrified of Alaska and not comfortable with his heritage, Cory worked hard to become a successful capitalist.
Cory succumbs to his hunger for smoked salmon, a favorite food from childhood, and decides to spend the summer catching and smoking fish at his family's fish camp. Raised by seven women, including his great grandmother, who attempted to negotiate the clash of cultures themselves, Cory tries to keep the IRS off his back and his business afloat while dipping into traditional waters.
Canada/2011/81 min.
Shown with Day in Our Bay
The Revolutionary
Producer/Directors: Irv Drasnin, Lucy Ostrander & Don Sellers
Website
Friday, 6:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Saturday, 12:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution was embraced by thousands of Chinese and one American.
Brilliant and engaging Sidney Rittenberg, now 91-years-old, was a Chinese language expert stationed in China at the end of World War II.
He first met Mao Zedong in the caves of Yan'an, birthplace of the revolution. Seeking friendly relations with the United States, Mao recruited Rittenberg to become his bridge to the western world.
This story chronicles Rittenberg's journey as the only American member of the Chinese Communist Party and his hopes for positive change and his subsequent fall from grace and into prison.
In 1968, imprisoned in solitary confinement, the Red Guard ran rampant, ransacking cultural and historical sites and terrorizing their own people.
Rittenberg was released in 1977, a year after Mao's death and returned to the US in 1980.
Produced by PTFF Alums, Lucy Ostrander and Don Sellers, this film has been met with worldwide interest and acclaim.
USA/2011/92 min.
Shown with Ink & Paper
High Ground 
Director: Michael Brown
Website
Friday, 9:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Sunday, 3:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
With minds and bodies ravaged by war, 11 soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan join an expedition to climb the 20,075-foot Himalayan giant Mount Lobuche, eight miles from Everest.
Led by blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer and a team of Everest climbers as their guides, they set out on an emotional and gripping climb to reach the top. The mountain itself is a metaphor for one of the basic concepts of military action—the highest ground is the safest, most defensible place with the greatest perspective.
Something to listen for: The film was scored by composer Chris Bacon, beginning with conventional American guitars and instrumentation, and as the journey progresses, to more spiritual and exotic music as the wounded climbers overcome emotional and physical challenges to reach their goal.
Vertigo-inducing cinematography through the villages of Nepal, over raging rivers and up terrifyingly steep terrain by three-time Emmy winner, director Michael Brown.
USA/2012/92 min.
Shown with The Freedom Chair
Big in Bollywood 
Director: Kenny Meehan
Website
Friday, 9:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Sunday, 6:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
Omi Vaidya, a non-resident Indian who grew up in Palm Springs, is forever changed after landing a part in Bollywood's "3 Idiots."
Long before Omi and his filmmaker friends realized "3 Idiots" would be an unanticipated hit in India, they packed up and went to India to document Omi's premiere. They could never have anticipated the hilarious events that transpired.
Big in Bollywood was filmed on five cameras by five filmmakers in five different video formats. Even the filmmakers themselves are in front of the camera, a transparency that allows the audience intimacy with this group of best friends.
USA/2011/69 min.
Shown with The Love Competition
Mulberry Child 
Director: Susan Morgan Cooper
Website
Saturday, 3:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Sunday, 9:30 a.m., Uptown Theatre
Jian Ping's family is subjected to shame and brutality during Mao's Cultural Revolution. Her parents undergo humiliation and imprisonment at the hands of the Red Guard, the older children are sent to brutal "re-education camps."
Born premature and sickly in 1960, Jian is emotionally abandoned by her mother. She and her grandmother are banished to a remote mud hut to endure sub-zero temperatures and primitive conditions. Her earliest memories are of villagers throwing rocks at her as she tries to visit her father in prison.
After Mao's death China moves forward. Jian earns a bachelor's degree in English and emmigrates to the United States where she must assimilate in the capitalist world. Following her move to America as a young adult, Jian's privileged American born daughter doesn't understand her mother's emotional distance. They attempt to reconcile with a trip to the 2008 Olympics.
Travel can open many doors, even the doors of the heart.
USA/2011/85 min.
The Eyes of Thailand
Director: Windy Borman
Website
Saturday, 6:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Sunday, 12:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
The true story of Soraida Salwala, a passionate Thai woman who dedicated 10 years of her life to saving victims of land mines.
Her patients are endangered Asian Elephant survivors whose grievous wounds she nurses. She is determined to build elephant-sized prostheses so they can walk again.
Elephants Mosha and Matala are unforgettable recipients of Salwala's love and compassion in the world's first elephant hospital, meeting the challenges caretakers face in caring for a patient weighing 9,000-12,000 lbs.
"The Eyes of Thailand" tells the true and heartwarming story of Soraida Salwala's quest to help two elephant land mine survivors walk again. Treating their wounds was only part of the journey; building elephant-sized prostheses was another.
Narrated by Ashley Judd, "The Eyes of Thailand" is a story of sacrifice and perseverance about how far one woman will go to save an endangered species from threats above and below the surface.
The Northwest Premiere on September 22nd is also International Elephant Appreciation Day.
USA/2012/63 min.
Shown with Julio Solis: A Moveshake Story
Go Ganges!
Director: JJ Kelley
Website
Saturday, 6:00 p.m., Rosebud Cinema 
Sunday, 12:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Two seasoned Alaska wilderness adventurers attempt to travel 1,500 miles down India's River Ganges, by whatever means possible, encountering both the unspeakable and the divine. Josh Thomas and J.J. Kelley, (PTFF alums 2009) the comic pair of "Dudes on Media" and makers of the Emmy award-winning "Paddle to Seattle" ask the question of "how could a river regarded as a god, be so polluted?"
The Ganges begins under the ice as a trickle from melting Himalayan glaciers and snakes across India's subcontinent of 400 million people to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.
USA/2012/83 min.
Chasing Ice 
Director: Jeff Orlowski
Website
Trailer
Saturday, 9:30 a.m., Uptown Theatre
Sunday, 3:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
"I'm fascinated with the beauty of it, the mutability of it, the malleability and the fabulous shapes in which it can carve itself," says filmmaker James Balog in a 2009 TedTalk about Greenland's shrinking glaciers and ice fields.
"But," he says, "Ice is the canary in the global coal mine." Twenty-seven cameras are deployed at 18 glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, the Nepalese Himalaya, Alaska and the Rocky Mountains, recording changes every half hour, year round during daylight hours.
Over 8,000 frames, taken by each camera over a year's time, have been edited into spectacular time- lapse sequences that reveal exactly how fast vast regions of the planet are transforming. It's no easy task for filmmakers to keep their cameras operating in shrinking ice, pummeled by boulders, blizzards and hurricane force winds. We share Balog's struggle to capture astonishing change in impossible conditions.
USA/2012/74 min.
Shown with Song of the Spindle
Brooklyn Castle
Director: Katie Dellamaggiore
Website
Saturday, 3:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Over the last decade, students in one of New York's poorest inner-city schools have learned to play chess, one of the world's oldest and most complicated games. They win over 26 national chess titles, a huge achievement for any school.
This school has also produced the first female, African American Grand Chess Master. Now I.S. 138 is threatened with a million dollar budget cut that will checkmate the after-school chess program, one of the few avenues these kids have for empowerment. Say the teachers defending their program: The kids "play chess in a theatre of hard work and determination where they negotiate larger conflicts by maneuvering their armies of rooks, knights, pawns and bishops—and where they can become queens and kings, far beyond the tabletop battlefield."
USA/2012/101 min.
Shown with TXT
Otter 501 
Director: Bob Talbot
Website
Saturday, 9:30 a.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Sunday, 3 p.m., Rosebud Cinema
The saga of an orphaned pup rescued by a sea kayaker, could very well be one of our own sea otters that live in the bull kelp beds, 60 miles from Port Townsend, on the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
This three-day-old baby otter was found on one of the beaches of Northern California, nursed on a baby bottle, taught how to survive at the Monterey Bay Aquarium with a surrogate mom and released back into the wild. The score alone will have you in tears.
Instead of the usual dry documentary, filmmakers introduced another character, a young biologist into the story, hoping traditional storytelling would better engage younger viewers' empathy for the plight of otters and other marine life.
USA/2011/85 min.
Shown with The Majestic Plastic Bag
Beauty Is Embarrassing
Director: Neil Berkeley
Website
Saturday, 9:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Sunday, 12:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
It's beautiful out here, it's so beautiful it hurts my feelings, says Wayne White, among other artistic pursuits, former set designer of "Pee-wee's Playhouse." "I learned art could be a 24/7 lifestyle," says banjo-playing White, "do what you love–it's going to lead to where you want to go." However, after "Pee-wee's Playhouse" was cancelled, his career stalled for over a decade.
Surreal, provocative and subversive, White may be best known for his grotesque sculptures of famous people's heads—whose eyes blink and jaws open and shut. Then his paintings caught the attention of the Los Angeles art world. Director Neil Berkeley chronicles White's roller coaster career from his youth as a Tennessee farmboy, his truncated career in television and his emergence as a fine artist. The film is spliced with narration by White of his own slide show.
USA/2012/88 min.
Shown with "Mr. Smith's Peach Seeds"
Big Boys Gone Bananas 
Director: Frederik Gertten
Website
Saturday, noon, Rosebud Cinema
Sunday, 6:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
If the multi-national corporation Dole Foods thought they could get away with lawsuits, manipulation and squelching free speech when they sued a documentary filmmaker, they misunderstood the genre.
The original documentary, 'Bananas,' follows million-dollar personal injury attorney Juan "Accidentes" Dominguez on his biggest case ever.
He's suing Dole Food Company and Dow Chemical in a ground-breaking legal battle for their use of a banned pesticide exposing 10,000 field workers to known sterility and death.
Now Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten takes the heat as Dole turns its wrath on him. Although Bananas is selected for competition by the Los Angeles Film Festival, Gertten gets a message it's been pulled, then a scathing article mysteriously appears in the LA Business Journal targeting him, and a letter from Dole's attorneys threatens him with legal action.
Eventually the Los Angeles Superior Court and the Swedish Parliament get involved.
Sweden/2012/88 min.
Shown with Among Giants
Featured Narratives
Kinyarwanda 
Director: Alrick Brown
Website
Friday, 9:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Saturday, 12:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
"I thought I knew something about Rwanda, but I didn't really know very much. I was moved by "Hotel Rwanda," but not really shaken this deeply," says film reviewer Roger Ebert.
Like the film "Crash", "Kinyarwanda" tells six survival stories of apparently unrelated characters whose lives eventually intertwine, centering on documented acts of cruelty and courage during the hundred days of 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Unlike Hotel Rwanda, this film is produced by Rwandans, and addresses the way some crossed the lines of hatred to protect each other, including Islamic (an imam) and Christian (a priest).
At the time of the genocide, the Mufti of Rwanda issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims to participate in killing the Tutsi.
Mosques became places of refuge where Muslims and Christians, Hutus and Tutsis came together to protect each other. These stories are true accounts from survivors who took refuge at the Grand Mosque of Kigali and the madrassa of Nyanza.
Rwandan filmmaker Ishmael Ntihabose, received a grant from the European Commission on Human Rights to produce the film in collaboration with writer/director Alrick Brown, who joins us as an honored guest of PTFF.
USA/2011/100 min.
Foreign Letters 
Director: Ela Their
Website
Friday, 9 a.m., Rosebud Cinema
Saturday, 9 p.m., Rosebud Cinema
Harking back into ancient history, we now have films set in the pre-e-mail era of the 1980s. Schoolgirl Ellie, newly arrived to Connecticut from Israel, is homesick, lonely, alienated and waits anxiously for letters from her best friend back home—a lifeline to who she was before she became so lost in America.
She meets Thuy, a Vietnamese refugee her age who becomes her new best friend. The girls share commonality of war-torn childhoods and adjustment to new territory but neither is prepared for the treachery of junior high school. They share being different, bullying, shame, friendship and the love of family, in markedly different cultural styles.
The film score is a mélange of international music, including songs by iconic Israeli folk artist Chava Alberstein.
USA/2012/100 min.
Free Men 
Director: Ismael Ferroukhi
Website
Friday, noon, Rosebud Cinema
Sunday, 9 a.m., Rosebud Cinema
Friendship has a way of taking a person down unexpected paths, in this case, an apolitical Algerian immigrant who joins the resistance during WW II because of a new friendship with a Jewish man.
This is a fact-based thriller set in Paris's Muslim community and in the city's principal mosque where Jews and members of the resistance were kept safe in the basement while Nazi occupiers paused in their hunt for Jews to admire the Islamic Art upstairs.
France/2011/99 min.
Shown with North Atlantic
Shun Li and the Poet
Director: Andrea Segre
Website
Friday, 6 p.m., Rosebud Cinema
Saturday, 9:15 a.m., Maritime Center
Theatre Romance between an older man and younger woman is common, but between an old Slavic fisherman and a young Chinese immigrant on a provincial island off Italy's Venice coast, it's scandalous.
Shun Li works in a textile factory, in Rome and is suddenly transferred to Chioggia to work as a bartender in a pub.
A handsome fisherman, Slavic Bepi, nicknamed "The Poet" by his friends, is a regular at the inn. These two lonely people find a tender and delicate poetic escape in their meeting; but their friendship and romance stirs both the Chinese and local communities' deepest fears about the "other."
Described as "rapturous, exquisite, delicate and atmospheric" by Guy Lodge in Variety and "an aesthetic gem" in Sight and Sound (British Film Institute's magazine).
USA/2011/100 min.
Dreamworld 
Director: Ryan Darst
Website
Friday, 12:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
Saturday, 3 p.m., Rosebud Cinema
Two losers of epic proportions meet in this quirky but quiet road film which explores the nature of a relationship based on vulnerability, and we want them to succeed in spite of what they do to each other and themselves.
Oliver Hayes an aspiring animator whose confidence is at a low point, meets the captivating and impulsive Lily, who encourages him to drop everything and go with her to Northern California in the hopes of fulfilling his fantasy of working for Pixar. Along the way our hero learns disturbing things about his companion and has to decide whether to face reality or stay in dreamworld.
A riff on Jonathan Demme's 1986 farce "Something Wild," this "roguemantic" comedy employs French New Wave cinema verite. Rated QCWG, for quirky characters wearing glasses.
USA/2012/93 min.
Shown with Los Gritones (The Screamers)
Gayby 
Director: Jonathan Lisecki
Website
Friday, 9:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
Sunday, 3:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Jenn and Matt are best friends who met in college before Matt realized he was gay. She teaches hot yoga; he is a blocked comic-book writer and grieving his ex-boyfriend. Sure she'll never find a worthy man in all of New York, she asks Matt to father her child—the old fashioned way.
A deft and irreverent comedy with zingy one-liners about friendship, loneliness, growing older, sex and the family you choose.
USA/2012/88 min.
Shown with Clean
Starbuck 
Director: Ken Scott
Website
Friday, 3:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Sunday, 12:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Perpetual adolescent and deliveryman for a butcher shop, 42-year-old sperm donor David Wozniak discovers he has fathered 533 children.
Thugs are chasing him because he owes them money, and 142 of his children are trying to force the fertility clinic to reveal the true identity of "Starbuck," the pseudonym he gives himself when donating sperm, and the name of a Canadian Holstein bull famous for fathering thousands of calves by artificial insemination in the 1980s and 1990s.
Wozniak's girlfriend Valerie is also pregnant with his child and has choice opinions on whether or not he's mature enough to be a Dad, unaware he's already fathered many.
Canada/2011/109 min.
Shown with The First Anders
The Finger (El Dedo) .jpg)
Director: Sergio Teubal
Website
Friday, 12:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Saturday, 9 a.m., Rosebud Cinema
Ah, small town life.
In a remote village in 1980s Argentina, newly incorporated as a town, two men compete for the new post of mayor.
Boldomero, a finger-tapping natural-born leader opposes the ingratiating slick Hidalgo, and soon turns up dead.
His shopkeeper brother vows revenge, keeping Boldomero's severed finger in a jar first as remembrance, and then waved about as an icon of leadership and democracy, rousing the villagers to action.
The town's residents, who have already spent seven years under a dictator before their liberation, are spurred on by "the finger" to defy Hidalgo, stop crooked elections and block interloping powers.
Styled in dusky browns, beiges and shades of white (even the freckling on a departing pony coordinate like a pillow on a couch with its chestnut companion).
Argentina/2011/93 min.
The Dynamiter
Friday, 3:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Website
Sunday, noon, Rosebud Cinema
All 14-year-old Robbie Hendrick wants is an intact family, but as the Mississippi summer begins he is caring for his half-brother, Fess. Their mother has abandoned them after a breakdown.
Mom begins sending postcards to the boys, and older brother Lucas shows up, offering some hope, but Lucas soon reveals himself to be a freeloading womanizer coasting on his small town reputation as a high school athlete.
When social services shows up, Robbie gears up for a fight to save what's left of his family.
USA/2011/73 min.
Shown with Curfew
Not That Funny 
Director: Lauralee Farrer
Website
Friday, 6:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Sunday, 9:15 a.m., Rose Theatre
This is a simple story of just how far a serious man will go for love. By his own admission, Stefan is alone but not lonely. But this changes when Hayley, weary from a high-pressure job with a self-absorbed boss/boyfriend, returns to her hometown to visit her aging grandmother. When Stefan overhears Hayley tell her grandmother that all she wants is a guy who makes her laugh, Stefan sets out to become funny and win her heart. Unfortunately, Stefan is not that funny, but his attempt leads to important transformations for both of them.
Tony Hale (Buster on Arrested Development) portrays the affable, 40-ish Stefan with insight and charm, both as the clueless wannabe suitor to Hayley, and the compassionate caretaker for her grandmother. This sweet, humble film is both humorous and smart, and touches on the importance of family, friendship and truth.
USA/2011/105 min.
Shown with Luminaris
QWERTY 
Director: Bill Sebastan
Website
Saturday, 12:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Sunday, 6 p.m., Rosebud Cinema
A comedy about Scrabble, featuring sock monkeys and a 20-something cast (Dana Pupkin, Eric Hailey and Bill Redding).
Zoe, a word geek who works for the Chicago Department of Motor Vehicles, checks every vanity plate request for hidden dirty meanings. This is her JOB.
The black sheep of her own family and possessing few social skills, co-workers also think she's WEIRD, (maybe because she dreams of competing in the national Scrabble contest).
Zoe finds a love interest, Marty, who's lost his will to live after being fired from his job selling underwear in a retail store and whose friend is a homeless person who talks with Jesus. A quirky, romantic comedy that will give you some winning Scrabble words!
USA/2012/91 min.
Shown with TXT
Short Narratives 
North Atlantic
Director: Bernardo Nascimento
Website
Friday, noon, Rosebud Cinema
Sunday, 9 a.m., Rosebud Cinema
"Nature isn't cruel, just indifferent. So, goes the old adage." For one aircraft controller alone in his station in the Azores, contacting the pilot of a small plane lost over the North Atlantic offers a chance to provide critical human support in a time of distress. For the pilot, facing nature in all its cruelty, the controller's voice may be the last human voice he hears…or perhaps not! Based on a true story.
Portugal/2011/15 min.
Shown with Free Men
Curfew 
Director: Shawn Christensen
Website
Friday, 3:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Sunday, noon, Rosebud Cinema
Despair can drive us to consider very sad choices. In the midst of despair, it can be a drag to be asked to babysit your pre-teen niece, especially if it interrupts something very serious and personal! Hope and inspiration can come from the most unexpected places and in the most unexpected forms. Suddenly the whole world may be sharing your song, and life can take a much different turn!
USA/2011/19 min.
Shown with The Dynamiter
Los Gritones (The Screamers)
Director: Roberto Perez Toledo
Website
Friday, 12:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
Saturday, 3 p.m., Rosebud Cinema
Can a filmmaker tell a meaningful in-depth story about a boy/girl relationship in only one and a half minutes? Some feature films have attempted to tell this kind of story in an hour and a half or more, and done less well in the process. We think you'll agree, but be sure to let us know!
Spain/2010/2 min.
Shown with Dreamworld
Luminaris 
Director: Juan Pablo Zaramella
Website
Friday, 6:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Friday, 7:30 p.m., Taylor Street Outdoor Cinema
Sunday, 9:15 a.m., Rose Theatre
To say that this film sheds new light on fostering innovation in the workplace would divert attention from how brightly it illuminates faces in the audience. It is creative, unusual, and rare to see stop-action animation of live actors handled in such an incandescent way. We'll just say Luminaris is a brilliant fantasy, and a very high-wattage one at that!
Argentina/2011/7 min.
Shown with ET & Not That Funny
Song of the Spindle 
Director: Drew Christie
Website
Saturday, 9:30 a.m., Uptown Theatre
Sunday, 3:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Oh those cetaceans, especially the great whales we have come to care so much about! Who would have guessed they share spindle neurons in their brains with us humans. Why on earth – or in the oceans - does that matter? Wouldn't it be great if we could just sit down with a whale and have an interesting chat about how whales spend their time? Would we want to know what they think of us?
USA/2011/4 min.
Shown with Chasing Ice
The First Anders (Den Forste Anders)
Director: Kristian Ussing Andersen 
Website
Friday, 3:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Sunday, 12:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Did you think being a Viking was only about pillage and plunder? What if a young man's Viking ancestry isn't sufficient to ward off his being bullied in school? There are many things that can torture a man's soul, even as he contemplates his Viking heritage. Can young Anderson find empowerment in a family saga shared by his father?
Denmark/2011/9 min.
Shown with Starbuck
Short Documentaries
Among Giants
Director: Chris Cresci
Website
Saturday, noon, Rosebud Cinema
Sunday, 6:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
"In the midst of California's coastal redwood region, Green Diamond Resource Company continues to clear-cut redwood forests… Farmer, a direct action environmental activist in his late 20s, decides to tree-sit in the McKay Tract…. Among Giants begins three years into the McKay tree-sit. Atop his tiny platform a hundred feet up in the ancient redwood canopy, Farmer must battle the elements and avoid isolation as he fights for a sustainable future. "
USA/2011/14 min.
Shown with Big Boys Gone Bananas!
Day in our Bay
Director: Mary Katzke
Website
Friday, 3:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
Sunday, 9:15 a.m., Maritime Center Theatre
A Bristol Bay, Alaska, resident states that by receiving a video camera through this project, he could allow the local natural resources to speak. "We're going to voice them out!" "In October 2011, Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC) gave away video cameras to qualifying BBNC shareholders in the region who agreed to use them to take part in a region-wide, interactive, multimedia initiative. The camera giveaway was part of "Day in Our Bay," a community video event…to provide Bristol Bay's rural populations an innovative way to share their voices, views and values with the world."
USA/2011/16 min.
Shown with Smokin' Fish
Driving William 
Director: Joanna Higgs
Website
Friday, 9:15 a.m., Rose Theatre
Sunday, 6:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Sascha Archer, a 1993 Port Townsend High School graduate's most notable and life-altering work as an art therapist was with 12 year-old William, from a grape farming community in Worcester, a small town outside of Cape Town in South Africa. While searching for bird's nests with his younger cousin, William climbed an electricity pylon and was electrocuted, becoming a double arm amputee.
South Africa/2011/26 min.
Shown with Trash Dance
Ink & Paper 
Director: Ben Proudfoot
Friday, 6:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Saturday, 12:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
In downtown Los Angeles in 1929 there were 42 outlets for paper and 17 printers that specialized in letterpress. Today there are only two - McManus & Morgan Paper and Aardvark Letterpress – and they operate next to each other on the same corner. Times may have changed, but the passion and love for their professions drive the proprietors of these two establishments to hold on against crushing competition from the digital world.
USA/2011/9 min.
Shown with The Revolutionary
Julio Solis: A Moveshake Story
Director: Alexandria Bombach
Website
Saturday, 6:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Sunday, 12:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
Julio Solis grew up near Magdalena Bay in Baja, Mexico, where he hunted and sold the then-plentiful turtles. After being hired by a university researcher to be paid for capturing, studying, and returning the turtles to the bay, Solis decided to alter the course of his life and work. Inspired by what he saw and learned, he chose to become a leader – a "mover and shaker" - in Magdalena Bay's turtle conservation movement.
USA/Mexico/2012/9 min.
Shown with The Eyes of Thailand
Mr. Smith's Peach Seeds
Director: Stewart Copeland
Website
Saturday, 9:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Sunday, 12:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
In 1968 Roger Smith ate a peach during a break from work. When he was finished he took out a pocketknife and began carving the peach pit into a tiny pig. 43 years later the retired meter reader and cattle rancher from Culloeka, Tennessee has carved hundreds of peach seeds into hummingbirds, stingrays, gospel choirs, entire villages, and the entire 1992 lineup of the Atlanta Braves. "Given enough time," says Smith, "I don't think there is anything you can't make out of a peach seed."
USA/2012/12 min.
Shown with Beauty is Embarrassing
The Freedom Chair 
Director: Mike Douglas
Website
Friday, 9:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Sunday, 3:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
During training for the Canadian Junior Nationals in 2004, Josh Dueck tested one of the jumps and overshot the landing. Upon impact, he dislocated his back and severed his spinal cord, cutting the nerve endings. The former B.C. Freestyle Team member became a paraplegic, unable to feel and move below his waist. Dueck was determined to return to the sport that almost killed him, with the goal in mind of making the Canadian Para-Alpine Team, to qualify for the 2010 Vancouver Paralympic Games.
Canada/2011/15 min.
Shown with High Ground
The Love Competition
Director: Brent Hoff
Website
Friday, 9:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Sunday, 6:30 p.m., Uptown Theatre
Is it possible for one person to love more than another? Can it be measured? That's what The Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging and filmmaker Brent Hoff set out to understand when they hosted the 1st Annual Love Competition. Seven contestants, ranging from 10 to 75 years of age, took part. Each spent five minutes in an MRI machine, thinking deeply about the love of their life and allowing the imaging technology to measure the results.
USA/2011/16 min.
Shown with Big in Bollywood
The Majestic Plastic Bag
Director: Jeremy Konnor
Saturday, 9:30 a.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Sunday, 3 p.m., Rosebud Cinema
Narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons, the video details the journey of a single-use plastic bag as it survives perilous travails on the way to the sea where it can join millions of tons of other plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
USA/2011/4 min.
Shown with Otter 501
The Way Home
Director: Amy Marquis
Friday, 9 p.m., Rosebud Cinema
Saturday, 3:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Take a journey to Yosemite National Park with the Amazing Grace 50+ Club, a Los Angeles-based senior church group. "You shouldn't have to convince people to go to paradise," says Shelton Johnson, a Ranger at Yosemite National Park African Americans represent only about one-percent of the visitors to our national parks. Many think that their historical experience in the US has pushed them away from appreciating the natural wonders of the outdoors.
USA/2011/10 min.
Shown with The Girls in the Band
Txt 
Director: Josiah Bultema
Saturday, 3:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Saturday, 12:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema Sunday, 6 p.m., Rosebud Cinema
If you're a kid, does having a cell phone automatically make you cool? How would kids function without them? Why do they prefer texting to talking? Learn how a group of kids age 8 to 14 really feel about their cell phones. One girl tells us that her entire class flunked a state standardized grammar test. Is it any wonder?
USA/2011/8 min.
Shown with Brooklyn Castle & Qwerty
Water 
Director: Mari Pearlman
Friday 12:15 p.m., Rose Theatre
Saturday, 6:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
A rural Tibetan woman is responsible for most of her family's manual labor, including water-gathering. The woman observed in this film may be required to retrieve water as many as four times a day, carrying it for the good part of an hour in an 80-pound barrel strapped to her back. The work is heavy and grueling, but perhaps it is made somehow lighter through her Buddhist meditations.
USA/Tibet/2011/7 min.
Shown with Bitter Seeds
Shorts Program
How We Play Shorts Program (Adventure/Sports Program)
Saturday, 9:15 p.m., Maritime Center Theatre
Sunday, 9:30 a.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Our physical play may evolve from childhood exploration and simple games to sports, and then for many - extreme sports! How We Play explores the full range of the human physical play experience, with heartwarming stories, thrilling action, and amazing photography.
All. I. Can. JP Auclair St. Segment
Directors: Eric Crosland, Dave Mossop
Website
Cross-country skiing is often considered rather tame, but what if it were to include cross-house, cross-car, cross-stair, and cross everything else elements? Follow one avid skier from British Columbia as he traverses his favorite urban course, allowing no obstacle to hinder his delight in the sport.
Canada/2011/5 min.
Unicorn Sashimi 
Directors: Ben Knight, Travis Rummel
Website
Within the wide range of skiing variations there is, in Japan, the sport of "powder boarding." Filmmakers Ben Knight and Travis Rummel have stated they expected to see a unicorn in the dense mountainside forests where they filmed. Though they caught no unicorns, they did catch extraordinary snowboarders moving at breakneck speed through powder so dry, fine, and deep that the competitors risked sinking below the surface on every straightaway and turn.
USA/2012/5 min.
Into the Middle of Nowhere 
Director: Anna Ewert
An entire book has been devoted to examining "Nature Deficit Disorder" in children. Perhaps for some, but it's not an issue for these kindergarteners in Scotland's Secret Garden Outdoor Nursery! For them a walk in the woods can become an exciting adventure; an opportunity to stimulate their unbridled imaginations. Consider one girl's description of the very special experience with animals that the outdoor environment conjured up in her mind. "The lions like prowling around, so I give them prowling around lessons!"
Scotland/Germany/2010/15 min.
Moonwalk 
Director: Mikey Schaefer
Website
Cathedral Peak in Yosemite is the setting for this amazing film of the rising full moon. How this brilliantly photographed event was amazingly shot in realtime and synchronized with an extreme sports attempt reflects the genius of the filmmaker, but the results are beautiful and breathtaking!
USA/2012/4 min.
Obe and Ashima 
Directors: Nick Rosen, Peter Mortimer
Website
Obe is a former rock climbing star turned coach. Ashima Shiraishi is his nine-year-old, four-foot tall protégé. Together they work to develop Ashima's skill and competitive nature. She first tackled indoor climbing walls and then moved outdoors to attempt the advanced rock-climbing activity known as bouldering. To compete in this sport, Ashima must defy gravity by starting her climbs upside down at the base of a two-story boulder, and then continue to find holds as she moves across the bottom and then up the curved side before ever even nearing the top .Under the tutelage of her passionate coach, Ashima is crushing competitions and raising the bar for climbing's youth.
USA/2012/22 min.
Racing the End 
Director: Warren Kommers
We know and read about the runners who compete in big-city marathons. We know about the development of the urban bicycle culture. The intersection of the two has produced a new competitive sport – Marathon Crash Racing. In Racing the End, we follow one such event and one champion, as he and other LA renegade cyclists assemble at 3AM to run the marathon course on their bikes, and complete the course before the runners even arrive for the start, guerilla style.
USA/2011/11 min.
Of Souls + Water – The Nomad
Director: Skip Armstrong
For this young man, choosing to live on the street, assessing his relationships with others, wandering the Northwest, led to his finding ultimate rewards in solitude. One can only imagine the extreme skill and dedication required to attempt a fourteen-hundred-mile solo ski and kayak odyssey, but for this adventurer, such activities have become part of his spiritual life.
USA/2012/7 min.
Cold 
Director: Skip Armstrong
"This is where everyone dies!" That's how Cory Richards describes his team's descent from a twenty seven thousand foot summit in Pakistan's Himalayan Mountains, Gasherbrum II, also known as K4, the 13th highest mountain on Earth. After becoming the only American to ever reach this summit in winter, Richard and his two teammates are then forced to make their descent within just a day and a half window of forecasted sunshine. Attempting the near-impossible, they confronted temperatures that dropped to -44 degrees, a freak blizzard, a suffocating avalanche, and an encounter with death.
USA/Pakistan/2011/19 min.
Regional Tapestry Shorts Program
Friday, 9:30 a.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Sunday, 6:30 p.m., Peter Simpson Free Cinema
Consider the Ant 
Director: Ann Katsikapes
Consider what busy critters ants can be! We find them under our feet, at our picnics, and sometimes in our food! Consider how physically fit they are, compared to us! Consider how hard they work! They pull much more than their own weight. Have these dedicated communal residents and diligent laborers found an especially welcoming home in Port Townsend?
USA/2012/9 min.
Compassion Connects
Director: Tristan Stoch
Can traditional Chinese medicine provide healing and comfort and supplement traditional Western medicine in third-world communities where medical care is expensive and unavailable? Near Katmandu, Nepal, a team of five Portland-area acupuncturists have volunteered to overcome "…tremendous obstacles of poverty, in regions where the struggle to survive often usurps basic medical needs…Through the practice of healing, a connection between patient and volunteer emerges, transcending the physical and leading both parties into a relationship of human connection and compassion that creates long-lasting effects within their communities."
USA/Nepal/2012/29 min.
The Chinese Gardens 
Director: Valerie Soe
Website
In 1890 there were nearly 450 Chinese people living in Port Townsend. By 1910 they were gone! Despite expulsion, the Chinese experience in Port Townsend may have been less tragic than elsewhere. "The Chinese Gardens looks at the lost Chinese community in Port Townsend, Washington, examining anti-Chinese violence—lynchings, beatings, and murders—in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s and drawing connections between past and present race relations in the U.S."
USA/2012/15 min.
The Kawamotos of Lake Leland 
Director: Pamela Roberts
The Kamamoto family's ongoing farming experience in Jefferson County could hardly be any different than the one depicted in The Egg and I! This Japanese-American pioneer family was welcomed into the Quilcene community and schools, but then suffered the indignity of the World War II government-mandated expulsion. How they escaped the oppressive and stifling environment of the camps provides an unusual positive note to contrast with the sad endings of these so-often anguished family stories.
USA/2012/29 min.
It's a Ring Thing
Director: Alison Hiatt
Portland's development ordinances require preservation of the original iron rings imbedded in its sidewalks for securing horse-drawn carriages. They typically go unnoticed and ignored, except by the occasional child who tugs on one curious to learn what it is for. Scott Wayne Indiana is "an artist who builds community through experimental, collaborative play." You'll be delighted in the way Scott found to "Cause people to notice what was always around; what they had been missing – now they had found."
USA/2011/10 min.
Reviewers Choice
This year's Reviewers Choice program includes films with subject manner and language not appropriate for children.
The Miners
Director: Toddy Burton 
Against an unfolding radio news story of miners trapped underground, a young teenage girl must find a way to balance school, housekeeping, her first attempts at a social life, and caring for her acutely depressed father who is fascinated by the miners' story. The girl is taunted by a threatening male schoolmate who calls her a freak, but as she struggles to hold her life together, she is able to find understanding and self-confidence through a string of most unusual circumstances.
USA/2012/11m
Homecoming
Director: Gursimran Sandhu 
We can relate to the pain felt by a 14-year old girl whose father tells her that an "A" with a 96 score just isn't good enough. This well-off East Indian-American family struggles with the clash of Indian and American values, and the struggle is heightened when the girl is invited to her first homecoming dance and her father refuses to let her go. In the process of seeking her father's approval and permission, the girl is forced for the first time to confront adult values and the difficult choices that adults may face.
USA/2011/26m
The Birthday Circle
Director: Philip Lepherd 
What at first may appear to be a simple story of a childhood birthday celebration by two young brothers will likely give you pause when you listen closely to the dialog. When two adults appear at their party, these two British preschoolers assume much different roles. As you listen to the conversation unfold, you will find yourself reexamining how young and older family members relate.
United Kingdom/2010/5m
Little Horses
Director: Levi Abrino 
Post-divorce, she's beginning a new life with a guy who's just moved into the home in which she and her young son lives. Her ex is bitter about the divorce, and he tries to compete for the attention of his young son by buying the boy a pony for his birthday. The father's resources are few, but…
USA/2012/17m
Bear
Director: Nash Edgerton 
Jack's ex-girlfriend claims that he took things too far. He means well, and he has good intentions, but sometimes his judgment falters. Poor Jack, it looks like he may be in trouble with his new girlfriend over her birthday, so with all the best intentions he comes up with a really creative way to surprise her! Is he reaching too far once again?
Australia/2011/11m
Clean
Director: Jonathan Browning 
We know the drill! Someone important is coming, and the house is a mess! This needs to be picked-up; that needs to be hidden or put away! How could we allow anyone to be exposed to our sloppy habits? There is so much at stake for this couple who scramble to make things presentable. Will they pull it off in time?
USA/2012/4m
The Photographs of Your Junk (Will be Publicized)
Director: Ronnie Butler, Jr. 
In 2010, the New Statesman listed the poetry/song by Gil Scott-Heron, The Revolution will not be Televised, as one of the "Top 20 Political Songs." This performance video is homage to the older poem, but through new and insightful words it brings the hard-hitting political and social commentary up-to-date by putting it into the context of today's social media world.
USA/2011/5m
Dik
Director: Christopher Stollery 
- This film contains subject manner and language not appropriate for children.
Intentionally or not, properly or not, we try very hard to raise our children with appropriate gender orientation. We also take our children's art work very seriously! When an 8-year old brings home a piece of art that he did in school, with words that worry his father, and the color pink in all the wrong places, suddenly his father believes that he has cause to worry.
Australia/2010/10m
What's New in 2012
Opening Ceremonies
Back by popular demand-- Salmon Dinner!! At 4 pm on Friday Sept 21st, meet us at Haller Plaza! A parade of classic Raker's Club cars will deliver dozens of filmmakers and our honored guests, Chely Wright and the legendary Bruce Dern! Our Master of Ceremonies, Joey Pipia will have a few tricks up his sleeve and…..(spoiler alert) well, lets just say you will not want to miss what happens next. After celebrating opening night by officially "cutting the ribbon"-- film, of course, by our special guests, salmon dinner on Taylor Street is served!
NW Maritime Center
NW Maritime Center, 431 Water St. hosts our newest theatre venue, thanks to sponsors First Federal Savings and Mt. Townsend Creamery. Located on the 2nd floor of the building facing Hudson Point and Port Townsend Bay, this theatre seats 140 patrons. We are delighted to be increasing our seating capacity and improving the experience of our audiences. Elevator service and ample space for all!
Mt. Townsend Creamery
Speaking of Mt. Townsend Creamery, they wanted to add a bit more flavor to our filmmaker awards by establishing a special prize: The Big Cheese! One film that inspires and delights our cheesemakers will go home with not only a fantastic trophy, but also award winning, sumptuous cheese that is making a name for Mt. Townsend Creamery across the nation. Yes, we will ship it to the lucky filmmaker! Thanks to Matt and his crew for helping us honor the remarkable work you will see all weekend.
Jefferson Museum of Art and History
The value of your film festival pass just went up! Come and see PT in Hollywood! What do Herman Munster, Caribbean pirates, Ethan Hawke, Rudolph Valentino, the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, dead rubber horses, and the Sandworms of Arrakis have to do with Port Townsend? You can find the answers in the exhibit "Port Townsend Goes Hollywood" at the Jefferson Museum of Art and History, 540 Water Street. Explore the many connections between Hollywood and Jefferson County and select scenes to watch from locally-filmed movies including "Officer and a Gentleman" and "Snow Falling on Cedars." Visitors with a Port Townsend Film Festival pass receive half price admission.
New Partner
Film Movement is a full-service North American distributor of critically acclaimed award-winning independent and foreign films. Film Movement has released films from more than 50 countries and six continents, including top prize winners from Sundance, Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Berlin, Tribeca and many other prestigious film festivals. Film Movement subscribers receive one award winning film each month, before it is available to the general public and the DVD is yours to keep! PTFF is delighted to welcome Film Movement as our newest partner. To celebrate their support, watch for drawings for three-month subscriptions to their Film Club at Film Movement screenings. All pass holders at our festival will receive special discounted subscription rates for their DVD of the Month Club! For more information please visit click HERE.
Filmmaker Interviews
@ Undertown Coffee and Wine Bar, 211 Taylor Street. Want to sit in on a longer conversation about film and filmmaking? Stop by the Undertown noon until 4pm Saturday and Sunday to meet some of our filmmakers as we capture on camera interviews with them. Can't make it? Thanks to KPTZ 91.9 FM these conversations will be recorded, broadcast on the air and available on the PTFI website after the festival.
PTFF on Your iPhone
Download our program app from iTunes. The application is called "PTFilmFest." It's free, it's fun and we thank Steve Schauer for this great step forward. You can design your personal festival schedule, watch trailers and learn more about our films. But remember to check The Daily Reel, PTFF newsletter and our website for up-to-the-minute changes.
KPTZ
Radio KPTZ 91.9 will be broadcasting LIVE from the Port Townsend Film Festival. Tune in for interviews with our special guests, on-the-street commentary and up to the minute happenings at our vibrant celebration of the art of cinema. Thanks to the devoted technical wizards of the air, you can listen on-line by going to kptz.org and selecting "Listen now!" Isn't community radio astounding? Maybe you should become a volunteer...
