It's year three for the Vashon Island Film Festival (VIFF), and the president of the Vashon Film Institute Mark Mathias Sayre is ready for the audience to grab their seats. "It's an exceptionally busy time right now," says Mathias with a lively chuckle. "I'm very excited about it."
The idea remains the same as it was at the festival's inception in 2021: program major titles and award-winners from festivals from earlier in the calendar year like Cannes, Sundance, and Tribeca, showcase them at the historic Vashon Theatre, and let audiences (residents, visitors, press, guests, everyone and anyone) enjoy themselves.
"Yes," agrees Sayre, "we're still committed to curating notable and award-winning films, both features and shorts, from the preceding festival season. This year, we have films that won grand jury prizes at Sundance, Un Certain Regard at Cannes, took home top prizes at Tribeca, and a number that performed extraordinarily well, whether it was audience award winners or grand jury prizes or special jury prizes, at SXSW."
And what are some of those titles? Nicholas Colia's comedy Griffin in Summer starring Melanie Lynskey, Owen Teague, Abby Ryder Fortson, and Kathryn Newton. Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard award-winner Black Dog, directed and co-written by renowned Chinese filmmaker Hu Guan. Grand Jury Prize recipient at January's Sundance Film Festival and Golden Space Needle winner for Best Documentary at this May's Seattle International Film Festival Porcelain War. Jane Schoenbrun's critically lauded I Saw the TV Glow. SXSW Audience Award-winner Songs from the Hole. Those are just a few noteworthy features VIFF is bringing to the island.
"We also have a new screening section called The Local Spotlight," adds Mathias. "We have Inheritance from local filmmaker Rachel Noel James [who stars and co-wrote the screenplay] that will be screening, as well as The Sound, which is a pilot episode of a new series focused on First Nation people. Has a supernatural thriller vibe to it, which is very cool.
"We are also going to showcase some short films that have been submitted to us from [Vashon Island] locals in a new screening section that's kind of festival-within-the-festival called Shortcuts. It's like a little mini competition for local shorts."
But it's not only about bringing a variety of cinematic confections to Vashon for a celebratory weekend in early August. Mathias also views VIFF as a showcase for the island itself, one that could inspire filmmakers to make future features there. "Decker Sadowski, who's on our jury, who was one of the stars and producers of Juniper that was in the festival two years ago, she actually with her team just shot a new movie on the island earlier this year," he says with pride. "It's really awesome, because they found the island by going to the festival. They fell in love with it and then decided to shoot a movie for a million bucks [here]. You can see the success of the festival really spilling back into the local economy. It's great."
It's this aspect, non-resident attendees discovering the majestic beauty and everything it has to offer, that arguably excites the Vashon Island Film Institute president the most.
"That's probably the most exciting thing to me about the festival," says Mathias. "It's now become really representative of the other stuff that we want to do with the Film Institute, which can show how even celebrating indie film here is directly resulting in empowering people to make art, whether it's film or something else in the Pacific Northwest, here on the island more specifically. That was the goal from the beginning. At the end of the day, we knew we'd be most successful if we were able to engender the creation of more art. Seeing that already starting to happen as we go into year three of the film festival? It's super-duper exciting to me, and it puts motivation into all of us working at the Film Institute as we open up our new programs."
Some of those new programs include the Quartermaster Lag, otherwise known as "QLab," a collective of filmmaking programs decided to facilitate local productions, and VFIpresents, a sales, distribution, and release arm, which focuses on organizing community events outside of VIFF, such as a Night Market at the Backlot, an outdoor space at the Vashon Theatre scheduled to take place the first Friday of each month.
"We just had our first Night Market [on July 5]," says Mathias. "Where we had a variety of vendors selling antiques, vintage clothing, and handcrafted goods. We had a DJ play, a beer and wine garden, and all sorts of leisure games. I was just so pleased, especially for what we would call probably like a beta test without a ton of marketing. People just poured in. As soon as they saw what was going on, it was just a magnet for activity. I can only imagine how much that will grow.
"And then we have more big plans. We're talking about doing a music festival and a theater festival and all sorts of other stuff. I'm very excited for the immediate film festival, obviously, but also for everything that we have in the future at the Vashon Film Institute as well.
"I felt like we were onto something, and this community has always been such a big arts advocate. I knew if our goal was to empower artists and celebrate their art, we would have the community a hundred percent behind us and, certainly, we have been proved nothing but right on that front. Things are moving really even quicker than we probably anticipated."
Not bad for a festival originally imagined to be a way to help a local historical movie house out when it was struggling to get back to financial viability in a post-COVID world.
"That's really how the Institute was founded to begin with," Mathias explains. "I had been having conversations with [Vashon Theatre owner] Eileen Wilcott. I'm friendly with them, and we knew they would probably be having difficulties coming out of the pandemic keeping the doors open. So, the film festival's genesis really was as a special event coming out of COVID that we thought would increase the chances that people would come to the theatre, would come back to see independent film. And it's only grown from there.
The relationship between VFI and the Vashon Theatre now is so strong that we're partnering on multiple different events and projects, and I think we've really found this synergy where they can be a home base for us for events and activities. This lets us support them to help keep the doors open and to keep the community coming to an institution that for a ton of us is seminal. I mean, both my career as a filmmaker and now as a sales agent and distributor outside of VFI, I owe to the theatre. I also own and operate The Forge, which is a motion picture sales and distribution company. I do not think I would be doing what I am had I not gone to the Vashon Theatre as a child."
And what does Mathias envision for VIFF by the time of its 10th or 20th anniversary?
"I think in some ways we're limited to sort of the size and scope of how big the program can be," he candidly admits. "But we do have plans to expand to a couple of other venues where we can start putting on seminars, workshops, and lecture series during the festival, which will probably start to happen in the next few years. We're immediately very focused on continuing to try to attract as many off-islanders and out-of-staters as possible to get respect, awareness, and exposure.
"I think, what will come with that, is you will start to see in addition to the way that we curate the greatest hits that we will start to premiere a number of movies at this festival. I think that's where the program will grow. It'll start to be a launchpad for filmmakers who want to say to the world, 'We premiered at the Vashon Island Film Festival! We got in there!' I think that will mean something inherently positive.
"Mostly, I'm just so pleased with every filmmaker that we've had come to the festival has had nothing but the most positive things to say to me about their experiences. To me, that's the best metric of success you could possibly have."
The third annual Vashon Island Film Festival will take place at the historic Vashon Theatre Aug. 8-11. Ticket holders can form a queue one hour before each screening and will be admitted at the scheduled showtime on a first-come, first-serve basis. For a full calendar of events and ticket information, go to: https://vashonislandfilmfestival.ticketspice.com/viff24
Support the Seattle Gay News: Celebrate 50 Years with Us!
As the third-oldest LGBTQIA+ newspaper in the United States, the Seattle Gay News (SGN) has been a vital independent source of news and entertainment for Seattle and the Pacific Northwest since 1974.
As we celebrate our 50th anniversary, we need your support to continue our mission.
Your contribution will ensure that SGN remains a beacon of truth and a virtual gathering place for community dialogue.
Help us keep printing and providing a platform for LGBTQIA+ voices.
How you can donate!
Using this Link
Text "SGN" to 53-555
Or Scan the QR code below!