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Holiday 2005 Newsletter

Contents
  1. PTFF Gift Memberships
  2. PTFF stocking stuffers
  3. Peter's and Nancy's favorite films of the year
  4. Our Holiday Wish List
  5. Year-end Giving
  6. Casting Call
  7. Vincent Schiavelli passes
  8. PTFF to move to bigger quarters
  9. The New Year

1. PTFF Gift Memberships

Need a last minute, easy gift idea? A Port Townsend Film Festival membership both supports the film festival and gives your loved-one many exclusive benefits:

PTFF Memberships start at $25/year for the Film Buff level. Gaffer level memberships ($50) include a free PTFF glass mug. Cinematographer level memberships ($100) include the mug and two free tickets to the Rose Theatre. Call our office: 379-1333 or order your gift memberships online.

2. Stocking Stuffers

We still have mugs, long and short sleeve T-shirts (X-large only), fleece vests, denim shirts, Garbo second day cover stamps and posters available at sale prices. The sale ends 12/31/05. Order online.

3. PTFF Holiday Wish List

Monica, Nita, Luke and Robert (Thank you!) are busy helping us get our new office prepared. The walls and ceilings are getting a fresh coat of paint and the windows frames are being cleaned and stained with supplies donated by Henery's Hardware. It looks like we have some furniture and decorating issues to tackle, so we have made a PTFF holiday wish list:

If you have something you would like to donate, please call 379-1333 before bringing anything down. Then stay tuned for details on our new year/new office open house.

4. Peter's and Nancy's Favorite Films of the Year

Of course the year isn't over and it will be months before all the official 2005 films make it to Port Townsend if indeed all of them do, but we thought we'd put our favorites out there anyway. Since none of it really matters, why not?

So, here are Peter's picks, listed in alpha order, with a few comments on each:

Ballets Russes. The all-but-lost history of the genesis of dance in America with contemporary interviews and archival footage artfully choreographed by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine. Latest box-office gross: $281,043. Now playing in Seattle, and one day will come to the Rose.

Good Night, and Good Luck. The 1950s revisited in a sharp and short portrayal of paranoid America. Awesome and scary, and I can't believe we smoked that much. Some things have changed, fortunately.. Latest box-office gross: $21,031,448

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Sleeper of the year. Violent, funny, inventive, literate, with performances to match by Robert Downey Jr and, surprise!, Val Kilmer who plays a gay private eye (Heath Ledger has nothing on Kilmer). Based in part on the novel, Bodies Are Where You Find Them, by Brett Halliday, with screen story and screenplay by Shane Black. Latest box-office gross: $3,790,852.

Peas at 5:30. The story of two blind people surrounded by some of the most gorgeous cinematography seen in years. The irony is intended. Box office information unavailable, but 374,372 people saw it in Germany in 2004, plus 419 in Port Townsend and Bainbridge Island who saw it during the 2005 Port Townsend Film Festival and A Moveable Fest. We had hoped to arrange play dates at the Rose and the Lynwood on Bainbridge Island, but the right connections never got made. The film has no US distributor.

Yes. Sally Potter's daring, thumb-your-nose-at-movie-conventions story about America and the rest of the world as portrayed by Joan Allen, Simon Abkarian, and Sam Neill and as observed by personal maid Shirley Henderson, who knows everything. The dialog is in iambic pentameter. Latest box-office gross: $396,035

And Nancy's favorites, without comment:

Ballets Russes
Before Sunset
Dogville
Peas at 5:30
Yes

Is this great minds at work, or what?

NOW, SEND US YOUR FIVE FAVORITE FILMS OF THE YEAR, AND WE'LL POST THEM IN THE NEXT eNEWSLETTER.

5. Year-end Donations Update

To date we have had $1,350 in donations toward our end-of-the-year fund drive to provide resources for special projects. This is short of the goal we hoped to reach to fund critical key projects, including a comprehensive data base program, that will free up both time and resources for festival programming, airfare for visiting filmmakers, screening fees, and more. Please, if you can make a donation, consider giving to PTFF. Who else brings you Going Through Splat, Born into Brothels, Peas at 5:30, Hank Williams, First Nation, and other great educational and inspirational films?

Contributions of any amount are appreciated and are tax deductible within the constraints of the law. Visit us online or call 360-379-1333.

6. Casting Call.

James I. Jennings III will be shooting a no/low budget short film within the next month and has inquired of the PTFF casting office if we know of two men who would like like to act in it? The first character is a chubby "nerd- looking" type in his mid 30's and the second character is a very distinguished-looking man in his mid- to late-50's. The film is called "The Genius" and it is a comedy. Mr. Jennings can be reached at quantummail@hotmail.com . Here's your chance, gents.

7. Vincent Schiavelli passes.

2001 PTFF guest and actor in the festival film, AMERICAN SAINT, died at his home in Sicily on Monday, December 26. The character actor appeared in more than 150 film and television productions and was best known for his appearances in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975) and GHOST (1990). He was born and raised in New York, studied acting at New York University's School of the Arts ,and undertook a 30-year career that kept him busy and visible with performances in such other films as FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (1982), AMADEUS (1984), BATMAN RETURNS (1992), THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT (1996), and TOMORROW NEVER DIES (1997).

Schiavelli died at age 57 in the Sicilian village where his grandparents grew up. He was raised mostly by his grandfather whom he credited for his love of Sicilian cooking about which he wrote three books. Late Monday, the village's major, Salvatore Glorioso, described Schiavelli as "a great friend, a great chef, and a great talker. With a smooth, witty conversation, he would make everything look more colorful. I've lost a brother."

While in Port Townsend in September of 2001, Schiavelli entranced audiences not only with discussions of his road movie, AMERICAN SAINT, but also crowds at The Green Eyeshade where he read from his most recent book, "Bruculino, America: Remembrances of Sicilian-American Brooklyn, told in Stories and Recipes," and told stories of his Sicilian family. The film, directed by Joe Castelo, is available for viewing by PTFF members.

8. PTFF to move to bigger quarters.

By Sunday, January 15, 2006, the Port Townsend Film Festival office will have moved to the third floor of the Mount Baker Block Building at 211 Taylor Street in new quarters that offer three times the current space. The new office can be reached by turning left at the top of the stairs (or upon leaving the elevator), going through the arch, and we're the first door on the right. No. 33. The phone number will remain the same: 360-379-1333.

From all of us at the Port Townsend Film Festival, we wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Fabulous Kwanzaa, Wonderful Solstice and Bright Beginning to the 2006 New Year.

Peace

This eNewsletter is sponsored by

Henery Hardware

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