Why shoot film? These filmmakers celebrate the unique characteristics of the medium, in a range of techniques and styles. ** All film programs during Engauge 2021 include a virtual filmmaker Q&amp;A that is <a href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/8922398" target="_blank" class="ql-size-large">free to view through the festival’s Vimeo page</a>. Whether you experience the festival in person or at home, check in afterwards to hear from the filmmakers! **

SEA 404, an essay film inspired by the Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, questions the current fashion where people learn everything in the computer world and, in parallel with Sugimoto's criticism, asks how media has transformed and changed the way we see the world. Note: The first part of the film is silent; sound comes in later at 1:50.

SEA 404

Taking inspiration from Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, "SEA 404" questions the current fashion where people learn everything in the computer world.

Meditative journey through colour, form and sound. This music video was created for Toronto chamber music composer Frank Horvat. The musical composition is performed by Canadian percussionist Beverley Johnston. The animation is created by painting ink directly onto 16mm film.

Wood and Metal Bars

A meditative journey through colour, form and sound. This direct animation music video was created for Toronto chamber music composer Frank Horvat. The musical composition is performed by Canadian percussionist Beverley Johnston.

The cinema is a machine. Kopierwerk testifies to that, lets itself be carried by industrial rhythms, and in doing so, negotiates the analogue era, whose end meant also new beginnings, creative deviations. As a complement to digital mass culture, taking place before our eyes is a movement largely freed from the pressure to generate a profit, a niche revolution of sorts in analogue media. First, the newspaper printing process is illuminated in old, silvery glimmering black-and-white images: the reproduction of propaganda and enlightenment from the ghost of factory work. A spectacular montage sets off the very “shock effect” that Walter Benjamin so enthusiastically described. Stefanie Weberhofer, protagonist in the young Viennese analogue film scene, lays out Kopierwerk as a self-reflexive 35mm work compiled from found materials, trailers, advertising spots, and splinters of feature films. Already the printing prologue is fed from very different sources, the texture gives it away. From the factory, it moves to the wide-open space of Hollywood fantasies: Meryl Streep, Warren Beatty, and Jim Carrey handle newspapers and projection apparatuses; the meandering analogue photography is for the stars and the aura of the moment, indiscriminately capturing what is momentarily able to be captured. Film history, however, is not merely a glorious extravagance of prominence, but also one of material, a culture of secret pictures and messages found as printed inscriptions and instructions, as countdowns, codes, and numbers in the filmstrips themselves. The “highly dangerous” collective experience cinema can trigger panic, can do its work of destruction. But the film reels continue to turn. Kopierwerk thus mutates to an abstract game with the cinema’s physique, a dance of letters and the copier generation’s gray veil. In strictly manual production, for three years Weber worked on her film, which tells of the radical remodeling of the film industry and the (digitally multiplied) afterlife of analogue film images in the avant-garde. (Stefan Grissemann. Translation: Lisa Rosenblatt.)

Kopierwerk

The cinema is a machine. "Kopierwerk" testifies to that, lets itself be carried by industrial rhythms, and in doing so, negotiates the analogue era, whose end meant also new beginnings, creative deviations: as complement to digital mass culture, taking place before our eyes is a movement largely freed from the pressure to generate a profit, a niche revolution of sorts in analogue media.

The act of washing one’s hair and body serves as the touchstone for Wash Day – an intimate exploration into how private, domestic acts such as washing your hair, or putting on makeup become a significant re-acquaintance with the body, before and after navigating the politics of one’s outward appearance. As they get ready for the day, three young Black women discuss the public perception of their Blackness in its relation to their personal journeys in cultivating a strong sense of self.

Wash Day

An intimate exploration into how private, domestic acts such as washing your hair, or putting on makeup become a significant re-acquaintance with the body, before and after navigating the politics of one’s outward appearance.

A portrait of an island on the edge of Union Bay in Seattle. Moments accrued over time: morning light; birdsong; the pillars of highway 520; the clanging of Montlake Bridge; swimmers and drifting canoers; the blossoming of waterlilies; the dark cover of entangled willow branches. An uneasy, but ever-evolving juxtaposition of the human and the natural; the hard thrum of the highway and swirling churn of the wetland.

Marsh Island

A portrait of an island on the edge of Union Bay in Seattle. An uneasy, but ever-evolving juxtaposition of the human and the natural; the hard thrum of the highway and swirling churn of the wetland.

Our front window from inside and out.

In and Out a Window

Floral Yearnings

During the coronavirus lockdown, Seattle filmmaker Serge Gregory rummages through his work to create an ode to the lost art of shooting, editing and projecting film.

Analog Nostalgia

During the coronavirus lockdown, Seattle filmmaker Serge Gregory rummages through his work to create an ode to the lost art of shooting, editing and projecting film.

The story unfolds on the Eve of Midsummer: on the day when the threshold between worlds is porous, and an idle gesture can tempt fate. Inspired by Robert Kirk’s The Secret Commonwealth (1671), this work takes the outward form of a nature film. But observation gives way to illusion and the surface gives way to murky waters strewn with debris of those who have succumbed to its lures (the Lady of Shalott, Ophelia). They remain trapped; menacing reminders of the dangerous seduction of beauty, and anger of the elusive spirits who resent being examined.

Of This Beguiling Membrane

The story unfolds on the Eve of Midsummer: on the day when the threshold between worlds is porous, and an idle gesture can tempt fate.

This Beguiling Membrane

Sliding Scale

Northwest Film Forum1515 12th Ave.Seattle, WA 98122 No goods or services were provided in exchange for this contribution. We are a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and our tax ID number is 91-1702331. Please contact your employer to inquire about corporate matching.

Support Northwest Film Forum!

Gift Cards

These are all the passes tied to your account. Visit https://watch.eventive.org/engauge2021 to reserve tickets to the programs that interest you. You can access your tickets via {{my_tickets_link|"My Tickets"}} or via the PDFs attached to each ticket order confirmation email.

These are all your purchased virtual tickets. Unless you are a Hybrid Pass-holder, in-person screenings are ticketed entirely separately. Links to in-person screening tickets can be found on each virtual film program, as well as at bit.ly/engauge2021nwff

General Engauge 2020 Pass

NWFF Member Pass

Student Pass

Virtual-Only Pass (General)

Virtual-Only Pass (NWFF / SIFF / GI / PCNW Member)

Virtual-Only Pass (Student/Senior)

None available

Passes

Below are all of the film programs in the 2021 festival. On each virtual listing, you'll find a link to that program's in-person showtime at NWFF. Virtual programming will be available continuously from Oct. 28 – Nov. 8; in-person programming at NWFF runs Oct. 28–31.

Each Fall, Engauge Experimental Film Festival hosts screenings sponsored by Interbay Cinema Society in partnership with Northwest Film Forum. The festival screens ONLY work that originates on film, by filmmakers both local and international. 2021 marks their return to in-person screenings at NWFF!