SIFF News: The Oscar winners are coming!

If you haven't heard, things got a little out of hand back in November—November of 1999, that is. WTO protesters, cops, anarchists, turtle-costumed marchers, and the Oscar-winning Charlize Theron all figure in the SIFF-opening Battle in Seattle next Thurs., May 22 at McCaw Hall. It was shot partly in Seattle, but mostly in Vancouver, B.C. (I'm not sure what that says about globalization and low-cost labor markets).

• Irish writer-director Stuart Townsend is expected at SIFF with Theron, one of the Battle ensemble. Scheduled for September release, the film will likely sell out in advance (as much for the party as the politics), so there's no point in withholding an assessment until our SIFF guide next Wednesday. SW contributor Robert Wilonsky recently saw the film at the AFI fest, and wrote in The Dallas Observer:

"Battle in Seattle is a sort of tear-gas-drenched version of Crash, a gritty evocation of a tumultuous moment all but erased from recent memory. The film is a multilayered and unexpectedly thrilling retelling of the 1999 riots that engulfed Seattle during the World Trade Organization's meetings, which were cut short by protesters who ranged from righteous activists to hell-raising anarchists."

• Another Oscar winner, Ben Kingsley, will visit SIFF to introduce the new Elegy and the old Sexy Beast. (He also appears in the Sundance fave The Wackness, in which he infamously locks lips with Mary Kate Olsen.)

• SIFF is less super-sized than usual, having retreated from the Eastside and U District this year and shrunk its menu of features and docs by about 13 percent to a projected 248 titles over 25 days. Pass prices have increased slightly from last year, while tickets for your regular screenings are up a buck to $11 ($9 if you join the SIFF cult); special events are always more.

• Still the largest film festival in the U.S., SIFF is bookended this year by globalization: A protest against it in 1999, and a wine-tasting competition in 1976 that advanced it. The enjoyable festival-closing comedy Bottle Shock relates the (mostly) true story of how upstart Napa Valley vineyards wowed them in France; with the door thus opened, wines from our own Yakima Valley and beyond reached the international marketplace. (And not long after—Starbucks, Microsoft, and Amazon, making Seattle less the one-company town.)

It's not a bad analogy for SIFF's 34th year. When founded in 1976, the thoroughly international fest had only one U.S. entry among its 26 titles (George A. Romero's political horror flick The Crazies). Films were stamped "West Germany," since that country was still divided. And the festival itself was something of an import, created by two refugees from Vancouver, B.C.: Darryl Macdonald and Dan Ireland. (The latter, now a director, will debut his Jolene this year.) SIFF '08 now expects to welcome films from 69 countries—unless there's another riot to stop them.

bmiller@seattleweekly.com