Print  email 

tool name

close

tool goes here

Stars come out for film fest

OLYMPIA: Find myriad movies, chances to meet actors, creators at event

BY MOLLY GILMORE | For The Olympian • Published November 05, 2009

• Comments (0)

The program for this year's Olympia Film Festival looks a little different than those of the past few years.

“I try to make every film an event rather than just a screening,” said festival programmer Shade Rupe of Littlerock, who grew up in Washington and has worked for many years in the film industry. “We have visiting guests every day except for Wednesday.

“It’s fun and exciting to meet a filmmaker or meet a star,” he said. “And everyone’s going to be available to be talked to, and that was part of our goal, to increase the contact between Olympia filmmakers and Northwest filmmakers and filmmakers in general.”

The festival Web site (www.olympia filmfestival.org) is peppered with exclamation points: “Unavailable on DVD!” “Northwest premiere!” “Ultra-rare archival screening!”

In programming the festival, Rupe was motivated by his personal taste in films and by a desire to make sure the festival appealed to a wide audience.

Rupe came to Olympia last year to attend the festival and was surprised by how many of the films were serious documentaries. “I understand the importance of documentary, but at our first programming meeting, almost every film that was suggested was a documentary,” he said.

“I was interested in creating a fun, almost party kind of environment where people could see narrative features displayed and discuss them, too.”

The festival does include plenty of documentaries, including “Back to the Garden,” which documents the lives of people living off the grid, and “Rachel,” about Rachel Corrie, the Olympia woman who was killed in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah as she tried to block an Israeli bulldozer destroying a Palestinian home.

But it also has more frivolity than audiences might have come to expect, including a couple of versions of “Alice in Wonderland” in recognition of Tim Burton’s next project and a number of cult oddities.

“We’re throwing in some completely out-there films,” Rupe said. “We have ‘Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl’ and some other escapist ventures.

“I thought maybe we could have some fun instead of just learning about the poor children.”