VENUES
SIFF CinemaUptown
Located at 511 Queen Anne Avenue North, opens 1/2 hour before the first show

SIFFFilm Center
Seattle Center, Northwest Rooms (formerly the Alki Room), opens 1/2 hour before the first show


SIFF 2012 Award Winners

The Golden Space Needle Award winners were announced at a ceremony on Sunday June 10. More than 88,000 ballots were cast by SIFF audiences to determine the winner in six categories: Best Film, Best Documentary, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Short Film.

Also presented were three juried Competition Awards: Best New Director, Best Documentary, and the FIPRESCI Award for Best American Film.

Short film jury prizes were awarded for Best Narrative, Documentary, and Animated shorts and youth filmmaking was recognized with the FutureWave Wavemaker Award for Excellence in Youth Filmmaking, the FutureWave Shorts Audience Award, and the Youth Jury Awards for Best FutureWave & Films4Families Features.

143
Puerto Rico, 2011, 8 min.
Winner: FutureWave Shorts Audience Award SIFF 2012
Two anonymous-to-each-other graffiti artists converse back and forth through their mutual manipulation of an image as an artistic romantic courtship. …

Any Day Now
USA, 2012, 97 min.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Winner: SIFF 2012 Golden Space Needle Audience Award for Best Film and Best Actor
Any Day Now deftly addresses gay adoption issues with humor and grace as two strong-willed men fight the system and prejudice to adopt a teenager that no one else wants in 1970s Los Angeles. …

Beasts of the Southern Wild
USA, 2012, 91 min.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Winner: SIFF 2012 Golden Space Needle Audience Award for Best Director
Feature Engagements at SIFF Cinema Six-year-old Hushpuppy refuses to leave her home in the Louisiana Delta as an environmental apocalypse descends in this surrealistic tale from first-time filmmaker Benh Zeitlin. …

Before The Music Ends
USA, 2011, 10 min.
Winner: WaveMaker Award for Excellence in Youth Filmmaking (Grand Jury Prize) SIFF 2012
Internationally acclaimed Jazz singer Greta Matassa shares her life, both on and off stage. …

CatCam
USA, 2012, 16 min.
Winner: SIFF 2012 Golden Space Needle Audience Award for Best Short Film
When his newly adopted cat Mr. Lee disappears for days at a time, his owner Jurgen designed a camera to fit on his cat's collar, opening a fascinating window into feline existence. …

Eden
USA, 2012, 98 min.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Winner: Lena Sharpe Award for Persistence of Vision; Seattle Reel NW Award; Golden Space Needle Audience Award for Best Actress SIFF 2012
Local director Megan Griffiths shines a light on a sinister corner of the American experience with this highly emotional and harrowing true-life story …

The Extraordinary Life of Rocky
Belgium, 2011, 14 min.
Winner: Grand Jury Prize for Narrative Short SIFF 2012
Everyone Rocky loves dies in a freak accident, turning him into a pariah; then, he meets the suicidal Angie. …

Five Star Existence
Finland, 2011, 84 min.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Winner: Documentary Films Competition Grand Jury Prize SIFF 2012
With the world at our fingertips, does technology make us freer or happier? This is the core question of Sonja Lindén's beautifully shot, contemplative essay on the intertwining of man and machine. …

The Great Bear
Denmark, 2011, 73 min.
Winner: Films4Families Jury Prize SIFF 2012
After discovering a magical 1,000-year-old bear in a forbidden forest, two kids must match wits with a crazed hunter to save both the bear and his forest home. …

The Invader
Belgium, 2011, 95 min.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Winner: New Directors Competition Grand Jury Prize SIFF 2012
An illegal African worker in Brussels sees a possible thrilling opportunity for advancement-or at least good sex-with a Belgian businesswoman. When their liaison goes south, his disintegrating situation leads him into an escala …

The Invisible War
USA, 2012, 95 min.
SIFF Cinema Uptown ACTION! Cinema
Winner: SIFF 2012 Golden Space Needle Audience Award for Best Documentary
This investigative and powerfully emotional documentary discusses the profound social consequences of the epidemic of rape of soldiers within the U.S. military. …

Paradise
USA, 2012, 10 min.
Winner: Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Short SIFF 2012
Window washers in Chicago consider otherworldly ideas from their lofty perspective. Tribeca Film Festival 2012, Best Short Film Documentary …

Sin Bin
USA, 2012, 101 min.
Winner: Youth Jury Award for Best FutureWave Feature SIFF 2012
An inexperienced teen loans out his van to his friends for their sexual exploits in this raucous comedy about the first time and how we get there. Ages 15+. …

This Is My Life, Brother
USA, 2011, 6 min.
Winner: WaveMaker Special Jury Prize SIFF 2012
In a video letter, Jawara Drigo tells his brother, who lives on the island of Dominica, about his life in New York City. …

Welcome To Pine Hill
USA, 2012, 80 min.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Winner, FIPRESCI Prize for Best New American Film SIFF 2012
Best of SIFF 2012 Shannon Harper (playing himself) gives a remarkable performance as a former drug dealer-turned-claims adjuster who makes a transformative journey from the streets of New York to the verdant slopes of the Catskills. …

Zergüt
USA, 2011, 6 min.
Winner: Grand Jury Prize for Best Animated Short SIFF 2012
It's moldy food vs fresh food. Warning: eggs lose their lives. …


Our Mission

SIFF's mission is to create experiences that bring people together to discover extraordinary films from around the world. It is through the art of cinema that we foster a community that is more informed, aware, and alive.

About SIFF

Founded in 1976, SIFF creates experiences that bring people together to discover extraordinary films from around the world with the Seattle International Film Festival, SIFF Cinema and SIFF Education.

Recognized as one of the top film festivals in North America, the Seattle International Film Festival is the largest, most highly-attended film festival in the United States reaching more than 150,000 annually. The 25-day festival is renowned for its wide-ranging and eclectic programming presenting over 250 features and 150 short films from over 70 countries each year.

SIFF Cinema exhibits premiere theatrical engagements, repertory, classic, and revival film showings 365 days a year on four screens at the SIFF Film Center and the historic SIFF Cinema Uptown, reaching more than 100,000 attendees annually.

SIFF Education offers educational programs for all audiences serving more than 11,000 students and youth in the community with free programs each year.



SIFF Year-Round Staff

Deborah Person
Managing Director

Jodie Levey
Director of Operations

Nancy Kennedy
Director of Strategic Partnerships

Renee O'Donnell
Director of Individual Giving

Holden Payne
General Manager of Theatre Operations

Phoebe Hopkins
Special Events Manager

Tom Kozaczynski
Corporate Relations Manager

Kristine Towne
Information Systems Manager

Natalie Chhim
Development Coordinator

Catherine Muth
Financial Administrator

Lisa Brown
Volunteer / HR Coordinator

Brady Bekker
Community Relations Officer


Carl Spence
Artistic Director

Beth Barrett
Director of Programming

Jason Dittmer
Director of Marketing and Communications

Dustin Kaspar
Educational Programs Manager

Clinton McClung
SIFF Cinema Programmer

Sarah Loritz
Programming Coordinator

Arianne Garden Vazquez
Film Center Education Coordinator

Maria Rodriguez Abad
Marketing Manager