The 26th Olympia Film Festival

 The curtains part yet again as Olympia Film Festival host several concert-worthy guests including Dame Darcy and Death By Doll and a very special visit from Steven Severin of the famed Siouxsie and the Banshees in his ONLY Northwest performance with his original score for the classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. With generous support, in the form of a $5,000 grant from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, we have been able to increase our capacity to create stronger relationships between filmmakers and the Olympia community, bringing many exciting guests.

Several Northwest premieres are spotlit on the Capitol’s mighty big screen, including the adorable story of Etienne!, as a man takes his terminally ill pet hamster on a bicycle trip up the California coast; the British crime comedy Down Terrace featuring cast members from the original The Office; and the ‘lost’ feature Shut Yer Dirty Little Mouth starring Glenn Shadix of Beetlejuice and Heathers.  

Contemporary documentary cinema shakes the house with Henry Rollins biting hard on American waste-ism in H for Hunger; Jennifer Maas unveiling ‘60s and ‘70s Seattle soul musicians with Wheedle’s Groove, and the colorful creation Sissyboy, based on the legendary Portland performance troupe, who are gearing up for their first-time-ever reunion at the Capitol Theater! Of special note for Olympians is Simone Bitton’s somber documentary, Rachel, an investigative report into the untimely passing of peace activist Rachel Corrie..  

Cinema classics both lost and revered are here with a 60^th Anniversary fully restored presentation of Orson Welles in The Third Man, and our opening night Gala event featuring Saturday Night Live’s Tom Schiller honoring the 25^th Anniversary of his long-lost classic Nothing Lasts Forever starring Bill Murray, Imogene Coca, and Eddie Fisher. More unreleased-on-DVD gems include the daring Barry Gifford adapation Perdita Durango featuring James Gandolfini, Rosie Perez, and Academy Award–winner Javier Bardem; Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi starring in the 1932 classic Island of Lost Souls; two celebrations of Lewis Carroll with Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer’s Alice and the 1933 Paramount production of Alice in Wonderland, featuring Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, and W.C. Fields; and Paul Newman’s bold translation of Ken Kesey’s tale of Oregon loggers in Sometimes a Great Notion.  

Fans of challenging cinema will not want to miss the special 3-D presentation of Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein in 3-D presented by star Udo Kier, nor our ultrarare screening of Ken Russell’s confrontational classic, The Devils, the longest-known print in the world. And of course, there’s All Freakin’ Night 2009!