We are very excited and honored to host these 2011 Northwest Movie Premiers at the 28th Annual Olympia Film Festival!

Saturday, November 12 10:30 pm
Crazy Horse
Northwest Premiere
2011 / USA/France / 134 min / HDCam
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Featuring: Philippe Decouflé

Celebrated documentarian Frederick Wiseman, the man critic Philip Lopate called “the greatest American filmmaker of the last 30 years,” has meticulously documented a wide range of institutions since his 1967 debut: juvenile detention centers, a boxing gym, a zoo, a hospice, the Parisian ballet. Now, in his 39th film, due for theatrical release in 2012, he turns his attentions to the nudie club. This isn’t your average neighborhood strip club—it’s a Parisian institution. The Crazy Horse is a cabaret that has embodied burlesque chic since 1951. Through Wiseman’s lens we discover what makes The Crazy Horse tick: elegance, perfectionism, and a grueling schedule of 15 shows a week. The film follows rehearsals and performances for a new show, including the dancers’ backstage preparations and the nitty gritty of the club’s day-to-day operations. Colorful and wild, this is “the most entertaining movie that [Wiseman] has ever made,” says Cinema Scope editor Mark Peranson.

Sunday, November 13 12:15 am
Vacation!
Northwest Premiere
2010 / USA / 90 min / Blu-ray
Director: Zach Clark
Writer: Zach Clark
Cast: Trieste Kelly Dunn, Lydia Hyslop, Maggie Ross, Melodie Sisk, Michael Abbott Jr.
Music: Glass Candy

Vacation! is an existential beach party movie about life, death, sex, drugs, and other crap that totally screws you up. Candy-colored and featuring a soundtrack of original songs by synth-pop heroes Glass Candy, the film follows college friends Lorelei, Donna, Sugar, and Dee-dee as they reunite for a fun-filled weekend at a beach house on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Determined to enjoy themselves, but finding that they really don’t have all that much in common anymore, they gradually amp up the debauchery level. It’s all fun and games until you’re dumping your friend’s body in the ocean. With bright colors, non-heteronormative sexuality, light surrealism, and a deep-set sadistic streak, director Zach Clark (Modern Love is Automatic) creates a peppy hybrid of François Ozon and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times raves, “I for one will never look at a blender the same way again.”

Monday, November 14 11:30 pm
Invincible Force
West Coast Premiere
2011 / USA / 131 min / VHS
Dan Schneidkraut and Drew Ailes will be in attendance.
Director: Dan Schneidkraut
Writers: Dan Schneidkraut, Andrew Martin
Cast: Drew Ailes, Anissa Siobhan Brazill, Chris Bakke

A classic midnight movie in the making, this “anti-mumblecore” feature is many things: a dark comedy about a man’s descent into testosterone-driven madness, a true life Cronenbergian body horror, a maddeningly unique exercise video, and a piece of conceptual art with a budget of $0.00. Filmed over the course of 90 days using only outdated technology that was found, borrowed, or stolen, Invincible Force follows Drew, a slovenly metalhead who enrolls in a video fitness program in hopes that it will give him a new direction in life. And a new direction in life is, horrifyingly, exactly what he gets. Although the film is meticulously scripted, with not a word or action improvised, Drew’s physical transformation is completely real (his body mass index went from .27 to a shocking .085 over the course of filming).Presented in glorious VHS, the medium of the future!

Tuesday, November 15 8:45 pm
We Need to Talk About Kevin
2011 / UK/USA / 112 min / 35mm
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Writers: Lynne Ramsay, Rory Kinnear
Cast: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller, Siobhan Fallon

“The scariest film about parenting yet made,” writes critic Fiona Williams about this, the extraordinary Scottish director Lynne Ramsay’s first feature since 2002’s Morvern Callar. Adapted from Lionel Shriver’s best-selling novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin features a riveting performance by a never-better Tilda Swinton as a frazzled mother in the aftermath of her son’s Columbine-style massacre, trying to piece together where exactly it all went wrong.

This film arrives straight from screenings at festivals in Cannes, Telluride, and Toronto, where it has won unequivocal five star raves. “There are so many great things happening on almost every level of this movie” says Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir. Due to the special nature of this screening, we are only allowed to admit 250 people, so show up early to see tomorrow’s Oscar winner today.

NO PASSES will be accepted for this special screening. Only 250 admitted!

Tuesday, November 15 11:30 pm
Klaus Kinski: Jesus Christ Saviour
Northwest Premiere
2008 / Germany / 84 min / Blu-ray
Director: Peter Geyer
Cast: Klaus Kinski
In German with English subtitles

Notorious German actor Klaus Kinski (Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre: The Wrath of God) stands alone under a stark spotlight in front of an audience of 5000. For the next 80 minutes, all hell breaks loose. Painstakingly assembled from the scant existing footage of Kinski’s doomed 1971 “Jesus Christus Erlöser” tour, in which his attempts to perform a monologue about Jesus (“Wanted, Jesus Christ; crime, seduction, anarchistic tendencies….”) were met violently by audiences who suspected that he related a little too closely with his subject. The performance hypnotically degenerates into a furious back and forth between the outraged Kinski and an audience feeding off of his anger, as Kinski alters and personalizes the text to label the audience as Pharisees. Jesus Christ Saviour is both a portrait of a great performer at the height of his powers and a mesmerizing real-life tragicomedy. Make sure to stay through the credits for the punch line!

Thursday, November 17  8:45 pm
The Color Wheel
Northwest Premiere
2011 / USA / 83 min / HDCam
Alex Ross Perry will be in attendance
Director: Alex Ross Perry
Writers: Carlen Altman, Alex Ross Perry
Cast: Alex Ross Perry, Carlen Altman, Bob Byington, Kate Lyn Sheil

The Color Wheel is a misanthropic comedy from co-writers/co-stars Alex Ross Perry and Carlen Altman, two of the most distinctive new voices in American cinema. Artfully filmed in black-and-white 16mm, and featuring a lead actress who really knows how to wear a “Who Farted?” shirt, this is a comedy of pettiness and failure that ultimately sneaks in a hefty emotional wallop.

JR, an aimless post-collegiate with vague ambitions toward being a TV newscaster, has just been dumped by her professor/lover. With no one else to turn to, she asks her estranged, contemptuous brother to provide moral support while she picks up her stuff. Both failing in different yet complementary ways, they irritably embark upon a weekend of sibling bonding that neither would have ever expected. Extremely funny and filled with characters who are simultaneously broad and deep, The Color Wheel pulls off many tonal and stylistic balancing acts. In the words of critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, it is “schooled in film history but not beholden to it, treating style as expression rather than a given, taking its ambitions seriously, willing to explore unexplored or marginalized territory: the cinema of the future, I hope.”

Wednesday, November 16 10:45 pm
Kill All Redneck Pricks: A Documentary Film about a Band Called KARP
US Premiere
2011 / USA / 89 min / Blu-ray
William Badgley and surprise guests will be in attendance.
Director: William E. Badgley

Featuring: KARP, Kathleen Hannah, King Buzzo, Calvin Johnson, Kimya Dawson
We are proud to present the U.S. premiere of the long-awaited feature documentary about legendary, doomed local heroes KARP.  An epic story of the rise and fall of the most hormonally overloaded band of punk-metal geeks to ever emerge from the mossy woods of Thurston County, Kill All Redneck Pricks takes you from the high school corridors and soggy chicken coops of Tumwater, WA, to the dizzying heights of punk rock stardom, only to make a shockingly painful crash landing. The players are real, and the stakes are life, death, and the inspired dreams of youth. King Buzzo, Justin Trosper, Kathleen Hanna, Kimya Dawson, and Calvin Johnson are just a few of the legion of friends and heroes that narrate the history and comic brutality of KARP. This is a vital story of the Pacific Northwest, loud music, and fragile humanity.

Saturday, November 19 8:15 pm
The Turin Horse
Northwest Premiere
2011 / Hungary/Italy / 146 min / 35mm
Director: Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky
Writers: László Krasznahorkai, Béla Tarr
Cast: János Derzsi, Erika Bók, Mihály Kormos
In Hungarian with English subtitles

An iconic master of the long take, Béla Tarr brings gorgeous black and white photography and formalist aesthetic rigor to The Turin Horse, self-declared to be his final film. Springing from the possibly apocryphal story of Friedrich Nietzsche, on the cusp of the madness in which he would live out his final decade, jumping to the defense of a mercilessly whipped horse, Tarr speculates on the events that may have led horse and farmer to that dramatic brush with history. Utilizing only 30 edits over a 146-minute running time, The Turin Horse is visceral and apocalyptic, unblinkingly capturing the protagonists going about their daily routines while an unceasing windstorm rages outside. Hauntingly hypnotic and rewarding for those with the patience to be absorbed in its particular rhythms, Tarr’s swan song is without question one of the cinematic events of the decade. The Olympia Film Festival is proud to showcase this contemporary masterwork in an exclusive Northwest engagement.

Saturday, November 19 5:45 pm
The White Shadow
1924 / UK / 30 min / 35mm
Director: Graham Cutts
Writer and Assistant Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Betty Compson, Clive Brook, Henry Victor

On August 3, 2011, news of the first three reels of this early Alfred Hitchcock silent picture, thought to be lost, turned up in the bowels of the New Zealand Film Archive, making international news.  We are proud to present only the 4th international screening since its original release 87 years ago!  Although the director credit officially goes to Graham Cutts, the 24-year-old Hitchcock served as screenwriter, assistant director, editor, and production designer. A supernatural melodrama about identical twin sisters—one good, one evil—forced to share the same body, it bears many hallmarks of the master’s later works.

Following the screening, Portland-based collector Dennis Nyback will present The Vinegar Syndrome, an entertaining program of shorts rescued from various stages of disintegration and decay. Among the selections: No More West, a 1934 adventure starring Bert Lahr (The Wizard of Oz’s Cowardly Lion), which has been preserved at the wrong aspect ratio, creating a bizarre funhouse mirror effect; and On With Your Life, a 1970s educational film recovered from a Seattle Dumpster, featuring Mission Impossible’s Peter Graves in a visit to the proctologist!=

Sunday, November 20 6:30 pm – Closing Gala
The final glistening moment of the 28^th Annual Olympia Film  Festival, closing night becomes a Celebration of the Silver Screen.

After ten days of cinematic festivities, come to indulge on sumptuous hors d’oeuvres, to herald Olympia’s silver screen award, to scrutinize a Turkish tapestry, and to etch into your memory the treasure you have helped create.  Join us, before the lid to the treasure chest shuts tight on this year’s festival!

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia 7:15 pm
Northwest Premiere
2011 / Turkey / 150 min / 35mm
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Writers: Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Ebru Ceylan, Ercan Kesal
Cast: Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Firat Tanis
In Turkish with English subtitles

We are proud to present the Northwest premiere of this Turkish crime drama, fresh from its Grand Jury Prize win at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Confirming his stature as one of the most unique and methodical directors on the current international film scene, Nuri Bilge Ceylan weaves the hypnotic story of the search for a dead body in the countryside of the Anatolian region of Turkey. Described by Indiewire as “a noir rendered in oil paints” and by The Hollywood Reporter as “a deep and haunting work that lingers in the memory,” Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is a slow-burning mystery where important puzzle pieces are hidden inside seemingly insignificant conversations. Tense and thought provoking, this is a gorgeously cinematic film that rewards patience and close attention, and we are excited to include it as our closing night selection.

Sunday, November 20 11:30 pm
Kill List
Northwest Premiere
2011 / UK / 95 min / HDCam
Director: Ben Wheatley
Actors: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Michael Smiley
Print Source: IFC

Ben Wheatley, director of 2009 Olympia Film Festival favorite Down Terrace, is back with another genre-bender. Switching tone as often as genre, Kill List ultimately places itself alongside The Wicker Man and Blood on Satan’s Claw in the pantheon of great English horror. This genuinely disquieting film begins as a domestic drama—married couple Jay and Shel are squabbling over their increasing lack of funds.

Jay is a semi-retired hit man, much to his wife’s dissatisfaction. One evening, his old partner makes an offer over dinner: kill three very deserving victims and make a bundle. So why are his intended victims so pleased to meet him? And what’s with the strange symbol that his partner’s new girlfriend carved behind their bathroom mirror? No average hit man flick, this film is a puzzle that rewards close attention between flinches. As Sound on Sight’s Emmet Duff writes, “if you are the type that relishes the feeling of leaving a theatre shaken and disconnected from reality, listen: I’ve got a film for you.”