Seattle International Film Festival: Three Films You Won't Want to Miss

Seattle International Film Festival: Three Films You Won't Want to Miss

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Still from Handmade with Love in France: A love note to the artisans of the independent Parisian ateliers dedicated to haute couture. Photo: courtesy SIFF.

Each May, a host of directors, actors and film buffs from around the world descend upon Seattle, taking over the city's theaters as part of SIFF, the Seattle International Film Festival. For 25 days, more than 450 shorts, features and documentaries are shown from more than 80 countries, highlighting a multitude of genres from the best comedies to innovative art-house films.

The festival has featured new and established talent from around the world for more than 40 years, including three of our favorites from this year's lineup: the tale of a Ugandan teen navigating the bike gangs and backstreets of bustling Kampala, an intimate portrait of the independent haute couture ateliers in Paris and their uncertain future, and a culinary road trip with the staff of one of the world's most notable restaurants.

Handmade with Love in France: The workshop of Bruno Légeron, whose family has been creating silk flowers and plumes for designers since 1880. Photo: courtesy SIFF.

Handmade with Love in France (Le Temps Suspendu) is a thoughtful look into a small but dwindling group of Parisian artisans who craft intricate handmade pieces for the likes of Chanel, Dior, Kenzo and other designer brands-from elaborate pleats to silk flowers and the wooden hat blocks created to make custom couture hats.

"They're passionate about their work and their struggle," explains director Julie Georgia Bernard. "They're independent and don't work for any company, or group, or brand-all of them were given from mother to daughter, father to son, and have been around for years."

Gérard Lognon's pleat-making workshop has been in existence for four generations since his great-grandmother worked under Napoléon III. Each family member has passed along the same techniques that have been used since the 17th century and continue to be used today-most recently, to create pleats for Chanel.

"That one is very important to me," Bernard says. "He has no one to take over since he has no children."

Without a successor or enough business, the independent ateliers are more likely to be taken over by a luxury brand, Bernard explained. Chanel and Dior have already bought several, including a recent purchase of one that specializes in embroidery.

"Their skills will be saved because the luxury brands need to have these in their couture collections and cannot let them die, but when you go inside these dusty little shops where the skills were transferred from great grandfather to father to son, there is something alive in these ateliers that isn't alive anymore in these big groups," she says. "These guys are so passionate and amazing and fun. They show a very specific way of being French-very Parisian, and I could tell they were getting old and that someday they wouldn't be around anymore. I want people to remember them."

Cooking Up a Tribute: Indulge on a tour gastronomique with the owners and staff of a Michelin-starred restaurant. Photo: courtesy SIFF.

Cooking Up a Tribute follows the Roca brothers, owners of the renowned Catalonian restaurant El Celler de Can Roca, as they take their entire staff on tour through the United States, Mexico, Colombia and Peru to explore local food traditions and invent new dishes inspired by the regional ingredients, recipes and cultures.

"It's a film about discovering what is the real reach of each country," explains Luis González, codirector of the documentary. "Cuisine is not just a recipe. In Peru, it's a political issue-cuisine is used as a national movement. Kids in Peru don't want to be football players, they want to be chefs. When we were shooting, people would say 'If you see Gastón Acurio [Peru's most famous chef], tell him he needs to run for president.'"

The documentary presents a unique take on the power of food, traveling through Houston, Dallas, Mexico City, Monterrey, Bogota and Lima to capture the local flavor of each area.

"You learn so much with these guys-they're amazing. They used different approaches to the recipes they're doing, like sense of humor or memory," González explains. "They try to understand the memories of the places, like what the Mexicans used to eat when they were kids and how to represent a memory with taste and smell."

One of the biggest challenges González and co-director Andrea Gómez faced when making the film was trying to represent the sensations involved with an exhilarating culinary experience.

"People need to understand what's on the table but you only have images-you can't smell or taste, so we had to reinforce the images with the soundtrack to try to convey everything," González says.

The other challenge was keeping up with the Boca brothers in the kitchen. "They go so fast and they have this idea of 'Done is better than perfect.'"

The Boda Boda Thieves: a wild ride through the backstreets of Kampala, Uganda's bustling capital. Photo: courtesy SIFF.

In his fictional story based in Kampala, Ugandan director Donald Mugisha delves into the East African subculture of boda bodas (bicycle and motorbike taxis) and organized crime, and explores the tension between materialism and idealism faced by Ugandan youth.

"The Boda Boda Thieves examines what we called the ME phenomenon versus the WE phenomenon. The greatest percentage of Africa's population is youth and many struggle to choose 'materialism' (me) over 'humanism/idealism' (we)," Mugisha explains.

After his father's bike is stolen, 18-year-old Abel must navigate the gangs of Kampala and his own moral terrain as he decides how to get back the bike his family relies on. With a recent influx of migrants from rural Ugandan villages and an increasing divide between rich and poor, the congested city is rife with contradictions.

"Kampala is very cosmopolitan, with people from all the neighboring countries like Congo, Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi calling it home. The privileged and the less privileged work in the same companies and live side by side, so it's not uncommon to find a mansion sitting right next to a ghetto," Mugisha says.

As a filmmaker, Mugisha likes to focus on social issues. He says the film was inspired in part by Vittorio De Sica's 1948 film The Bicycle Thief:

"Me and my colleague James Tayler were watching The Bicycle Thief right after we had completed one of our films and we realized how many similarities post-war Italy had with Africa now-more specifically, in the resilience of the people, and in our case, it's the resilience of the African youth."

SIFF runs May 14 through June 7.

-Deidre Crawford

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