While we were putting together this issue of The Stranger, and contemplating all the ways in which we could cover the upcoming Seattle International Film Festival now that we’re back in print, we started to think back to the old days, when The Stranger would pilfer the SIFF offices for weeks on end, grabbing all the VHS tapes and DVDs we could get our greedy hands on.
I worked at The Stranger through many a SIFF season (my first stint at the paper was between 2000–2013) and I loved SIFF season. I loved how jumping from one SIFF show to the next was an annual springtime tradition. I loved taking a chance on a movie I knew nothing about, save for the 100 or so works in a snarky alt-weekly. I loved getting to eat popcorn every day for two weeks.
While SIFF has continued going strong—51 years running!—it’s undeniable that things have changed. COVID-19, of course, had a profound impact on cinema. In 2023, the National Cinema Foundation reported that more than 2,000 movie theaters closed across the US during the pandemic. But even before that, Seattle was losing its treasures. Harvard Exit closed in 2015, the Seven Gables Theatre and Guild 45th closed in 2017, and more recently, we’ve lost AMC 10 (formerly the Metro). While both the Grand Illusion and the Egyptian haven’t closed, neither org is operating full-time—Grand Illusion was forced to relocate in February and the Egyptian is still under construction following last year’s busted pipe and flooding…