This last weekend was the Best of SIFF showings, and I got to see a film I really wanted to see during the festival but it sold out (I was literally five minutes too late - tickets went from 'selling fast' to gone while I was on the website trying to buy one). It sold out this time too, but I was quicker!

The Last Suit. A Polish Jew who survived the Nazis emigrated to Argentina after the war. Seventy years later, at almost ninety years old, he decides to return to Poland to look for the friend who saved his life in 1945.

This story of a cantankerous, ill and scared old man travelling through a Europe completely different from the one he remembers was everything I had hoped it would be. It's both funny and utterly heartbreaking, and I really must remember to take tissues with me when I go to see films like this! 9/10

Trailer for the 'The Last Suit' here.

Well, it turned out I only went to see one more film. I had planned to go and see a Pakistani road trip film on Thursday, but the day was so beautiful I spent it out in the sun instead. Saturday I missed a film I really wanted to see because I had to work :-(

Racing Extinction is a documentary on the rate at which species are currently going extinct, and the different ways in which human activity can cause it. It focuses on a number of different species to illustrate its points, andn particular on the attmpts to the get the manta ray listed on CITES Appendix II.

The main problem with this documentary is that it tries to cover too much. Illegal fishing, climate change, ocean acidification - each one of these would fill a documentary on its own, and in spreading itself too thinly, everything remains rather superficial. There's no real depth to the coverage of most issues, there was no information here that I didn't already know, and I felt it could have done more if it had tried to do less. It finally made an impact towards the end with a focus on one specific action that really showed how people reacted to being informed. 7/10

I've only watched two more films since the last report. I did intend to see another, a drama about a transgendered person, but there was a major accident and after taking 25 minutes to travel two miles, it became clear I wasn't going to make it, so I turned around and went home.

( The last of 2014 )

It's the 40th year of the Seattle International Film Festival, and we're off again. I know, I know, I want to get out and see the world in the sunshine, and I also want to shut myself inside darkened cinemas. It's a contradiction. If only I was one of those people who could dedicate myself to one interest, instead of wanting to do everything.

( Behold, the films so far )

The SIFF bonanza began on Friday, and yesterday I went to see two films to kick off my festival.

( The film madness begins. )

Three more films this time - a Spanish werewolf romp, a drama about the battle for native rights in Brazil, and a documentary about the Texas State Board of Education.

( Keeping things all mixed up! )

5 more days, 5 more films! I've already surpassed my total number from last year, when I was feeling apathetic. Details below, since nobody reads these but me anyway.

( All Kinds of Atrocities )

The Seattle International Film Festival came and went again this year. I actually saw very few films this time around. Partly that was because I had a lot of work scheduled during the festival, and partly it was because I just wasn't grabbed by many of the films as I browsed the listings.

Another influence was the traffic. The very first film I attempted to see was a documentary on the Earth Liberation Front - I allowed over 90 minutes to make what is usually a 25 minute drive outside rush hour and still didn't get there. After that, I decided I wasn't prepared to spend 2 hours sitting in the car to watch any film that started between 5pm and 8pm, and vetoed the lot. (As it happened, I wouldn't have seen the documentary anyway, because that showing was stopped due to a bomb scare, but the principal of the traffic stood.)

( So for my own filing system, and anyone else who might be remotely interested, here are the 5 films I did see. )

Three more films for my almost-last entry of SIFF 2010 - the latest Jackie Chan film, a drama about gay Neo-Nazis and an Icelandic thriller.

( Variety is fun! )