SIFF 2025: Seattle’s premier film festival returns in challenging times

The Seattle International Film Festival is back for its 51^st edition, in a climate that’s become increasingly difficult for the experience of moviegoing.

The fest is significantly shorter than it was in its prepandemic years, and its presenting organization, SIFF, is facing the same pressures felt by all exhibitors in the era of streaming: “the incredible challenge of people’s couches,” said SIFF Artistic Director Beth Barrett. It’s been an up-and-down year for the organization, which welcomed an iconic local screen to its fold in December 2023 but had to temporarily close another one last year.

But nonetheless, the annual festival perseveres, this year offering 245 films from 74 countries, screening May 15-25 at multiple venues downtown, on Queen Anne, and in Shoreline, with digital access May 26-June 1. Many of those screenings will feature guests and postfilm conversations; all will offer the camaraderie that being in a roomful of film lovers provides. Festivals like SIFF, said Barrett, are “very, very focused on bringing community together, because that is the thing you cannot do in your house.”

At this year’s SIFF, for example, you can meet special guests in the festival’s cINeDIGENOUS program, which celebrates Native filmmakers around the world. The program features films ranging from the documentary “Free Leonard Peltier,” about the Indigenous activist whose life sentence for the 1975 killing of two FBI agents was commuted this year (Peltier has always maintained his innocence), to the epic Maori-language drama “Ka Whawhai Tonu: Struggle Without End,” depicting a 1864 battle as a tribe defends its land from invading British forces.

You can sit in a packed theater and watch Edward G. Robinson in a 1953 film noir, “The Glass Web,” in newly restored 3D. You can see an assortment of films made by your own neighbors here in the Pacific Northwest, from Jared Briley’s coming-of-age road trip “Evergreens” to Sarah Hoffman’s documentary about the reintroduction of wolves into Washington forests, “Wolf Land.”

And you can attend a couple of good parties, too. Opening night, which features the Irish comedy “Four Mothers” (it’s “extremely sweet,” said Barrett), will be May 15 at the Paramount Theatre, followed by a party at the theater and outdoors on Ninth Avenue. Closing night is May 24 with filmmaker/actor Eva Victor on hand to introduce her film “Sorry, Baby” at SIFF Cinema Downtown, followed by a party at the Museum of History & Industry.

This year’s festival, Barrett said, has a special emphasis on independent voices — the majority of this year’s films are by first- or second-time directors, and most do not currently have theatrical distribution. “It very much goes back to the heart of SIFF,” she said. “The kinds of films that the festival has always brought to Seattle have been those films that you might never see again.” She noted that streaming services, though plentiful, do not always focus on international films or challenging independent films. “SIFF really remains that place for discovery, and for those voices.”

It’s been a rough few years for the film industry in general, which has had to deal with multiple blows: the pandemic, union strikes, and devastating fires in Los Angeles that affected film and TV production workers. “The industry is still in a little bit of flux,” Barrett said. “While there wasn’t an intentional design to come up with films that didn’t have distribution, the films that we all loved and that we all felt passionately about didn’t have distribution. We’re hoping that being part of the festival brings some attention to them.” As an example, Barrett cited the documentary “The Librarians,” about a group of librarians fighting book censorship in Florida and Texas. “It’s so timely, so well done,” Barrett said.

If you’re counting carefully, you might notice that SIFF has slightly fewer films this year (245, compared to 261 in 2024), and that there is no tribute event this year. That’s due to a development that nobody at SIFF anticipated or wanted: the sudden loss of the SIFF Cinema Egyptian, which had to close abruptly last November after a significant pipe leak caused damage to the theater and the entire building, which is owned by Seattle Central College. Repairs are ongoing, and Barrett said SIFF hopes to reopen the theater later this year, but as of now there’s no reopening date.

It seems unthinkable to hold SIFF without the Egyptian, which has been a key part of the festival for many decades — and the traditional home of the Secret Festival and the SIFF midnight screenings. But when a door (temporarily) closes, another opens: SIFF Cinema Downtown, aka the former Cinerama, will house those events this year — “those films are going to look great on the Downtown screen,” Barrett said — as well as numerous other screenings during the festival. (Note that during SIFF, the Downtown’s usual policy of reserving seats upon purchase will be suspended; all seats, as is traditional during SIFF, will be first come, first served.)

The Downtown is just in its second year as part of SIFF’s collection of year-round screens, which include the three-screen SIFF Uptown on Queen Anne and the SIFF Film Center on the Seattle Center campus. Though the Downtown’s massive screen frequently displays the latest Hollywood blockbuster, SIFF has programmed an assortment of offerings there throughout the year, including a number of restorations (recent offerings included “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” “Dune” and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”).

It’s all part of SIFF’s evolving focus on year-round exhibition, which began in 2007 with the organization programming films in the auditorium at McCaw Hall. The plan then, Barrett said, was “to allow us to be a film festival year-round” — to give a home to international films and independent films. As SIFF acquired more screens over the years, “balancing it with a smaller footprint for the Seattle International Film Festival really allows us to invest the rest of the 350 days of the year in keeping that film festival year-round feeling.”

Tom Mara, SIFF’s executive director, added that SIFF demonstrates commitment to festivals in general, citing the recent partnership with the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY), the 18^th edition of which SIFF hosted last month. “These festivals are the feeder ground for year-round cinema,” he said, “so it’s not one or the other — it’s really championing the discovery of film. The premise is, life is better with a great presence of film in your life.”

As movie theaters still struggle to recover from pandemic losses, SIFF is still with us: smaller than before, but nonetheless a major presence in Seattle’s arts scene. Barrett acknowledged that many of us have fallen out of the habit of regular moviegoing. “I think it’s important, as communities that support arts and culture, to get back into that habit,” she said. At SIFF, “the stories that we have that you can engage with, especially around a festival, are so important right now, at a time when people are trying to separate us.”

Mara added that the combination of the film festival and year-round cinema has a cascading effect: People see a film they might not otherwise have seen, and then pass along that discovery. “It’s infectious, in a way,” he said. “Our guests who come in to the cinema are playing a role in our discovery mission as well — sharing the love of film and getting more people to enjoy them.”