The mission of the Port Townsend Film Festival (PTFF) is bringing filmmakers and film lovers together in a community celebration of the best cinema obtainable. It’s held over a three day period in late September each year. By providing a platform for independent voices, both contemporary and classic, PTFF engages filmmakers and audiences in a dialogue that brings people together in cultural exploration and understanding.
The Port Townsend Film Festival was created in 1999 by four local movie lovers who wanted to re-create the intimate experience of watching and discussing films they enjoyed annually at the Telluride Film Festival.
The motto “Port Townsend Film Festival: A film lover’s block party celebrating great films and filmmakers” has served as the guiding principle for the festival since its first event in September 2000.
Festival events are centered in historic, Victorian Port Townsend where a street is closed off in front of our showcase venues, the restored nickelodeon The Rose Theatre, and its newer companion house, the Rosebud Cinema. The closed street is used as an outdoor theater each evening with “family-friendly” films shown on a 35-foot high inflatable screen and seating on straw bales. Additional venues are the 350-seat Uptown Theatre and a 75-seat downtown community building located three blocks from the closed street. We also provide The Peter Simpson Free Cinema, named to honor one of our founders and director of the festival for six years, with seating for 100; content from the festival program and special features are screened at no charge, welcoming new audiences and students to independent film.
The Port Townsend Film Festival offers art house fare, foreign-language films, independent films, documentaries, cult films, and classics and shorts. In its first year, all films were invitational. In 2010, more than 96 films (features and shorts) were offered in 67 presentations. That’s more than three times the number of films screened the first year.
Panel discussions involving filmmakers in conversation with filmgoers were added to the roster in 2004 and their number has since tripled. The panels take place in a public, outdoor venue, so fans are able to meet and question film makers throughout the day, not just following their screenings.
An estimated 6,000 seats were filled during the 2010 Festival. Films and discussions were presented in five film venues plus a screening room, as well as a theatre/restaurant used for the short course, panel discussions, and other Festival events.
Each year the festival honors an actor whose films have become part of the canon of classic movies:
• Tony Curtis (2000): Some Like It Hot, Sweet Smell of Success
• Eva Marie Saint (2001): North by Northwest, All Fall Down
• Patricia Neal (2002): The Day the Earth Stood Still, Hud
• Shirley Knight (2003): Dutchman
• Jane Powell (2004): Two Weeks With Love, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
• Debra Winger and Arliss Howard (2005): An Officer and a Gentleman, Big Bad Love
• Malcolm McDowell (2006): A Clockwork Orange, If
• Elliott Gould (2007): California Split, The Touch
• Piper Laurie (2008): The Hustler, Carrie
• Cloris Leachman (2009): The Last Picture Show, High Anxiety
• Dyan Cannon (2010): Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Number One
The Festival hosts many filmmakers and industry guests (more than 90 attended in 2010) to engage with audiences in Q&As and formal and informal gatherings held throughout the weekend.
Now in its twelfth year, PTFF continues to strengthen its reputation for outstanding programming. About the 2009 Festival, Moira Macdonald of The Seattle Times wrote:
In Port Townsend last weekend, the leaves were golden, the sun was bright and the stars were everywhere. Cloris Leachman, delightfully uncensored, charmed the crowds all weekend. Robert Osborne, the debonair host of Turner Classic Movies, brought his encyclopedic knowledge of classic film. Lena Horne sparkled from the screen in the 1943 musical “Cabin in the Sky,” with her daughter Gail Buckley on hand to share stories. Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron whirled on the big outdoor screen in “An American in Paris,” below an indigo sky that glittered as if strewn with diamonds.