Sean Parker
The second annual Make Believe Film Festival kicks off in Seattle on March 21, celebrating the fantastic, the macabre, and the just plain strange. The festival’s second year comes with a very intentional theme, with Make Believe’s founder and creative director, Billy Ray Brewton, saying, “Make Believe’s theme for Year two is ‘Coming of Age in Genre.’ Our programming highlights stories and experiences that speak to the child in all of us while also dabbling in the lightness, darkness, and rebellion that forms the DNA of who we all are while finding ourselves.”
Make Believe’s lineup includes thirty-eight programs, ranging from narrative features, documentaries, and short blocks to repertory screenings, podcasts, Q&As, events, and more. World premiering at the festival are two features, Christian Hurley and Ben Oliphint’s ultra microbudget feature A Most Atrocious Thing and Graham Skipper’s The Lonely Man with the Ghost Machine. One US Premiere, For Night Will Come (En attendant la nuit). Plus, nine others make their West Coast debut at the fest, including Andrew Adams’ American Meltdown, which took home Best Feature Film at last year’s Chattanooga Film Festival.
Opening on March 21 at Capitol Hill’s Erickson Theatre, Make Believe opens this year’s festival with Lisa D’Apolito’s documentary, Shari and Lamb Chop. Chronicling the magic and wonder of Shari Lewis’ Lamb Chop’s Play-Along, D’Apolito also catalogs Lewis’ ups and downs as a Singer, dancer, and the ventriloquist creator of Charlie Horse, Hush Puppy, and obviously, Lamb Chop. Filmmaker Lisa D’Apolito is scheduled to attend the screening as well.
Attendees are then invited to continue the kickoff celebration as Make Believe’s Opening Night Yacht Rock Party gets underway. With a selection of tiki-inspired cocktails, an array of shrimp, a “Build Your Own Ascot” station presented by Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and DJ Trent Von dropping your favorite Jimmy Buffett adjacent hits, Make Believe will have you yacht-rocking like a boat on the high seas!
Two centerpiece screenings will accent the Make Believe festival’s offerings, emboldening their thematic “coming of age” story. First up, the world premiere of A Most Atrocious Thing on Friday, March 22. Made on a microbudget of only five thousand dollars by Chapman University students who needed a creative outlet during the pandemic, A Most Atrocious Thing is a “Don’t Go in the Woods” movie with a fun twist. When a group of friends eat tainted deer meat during a weekend getaway, they start turning into bloodthirsty creeps. As a fan of indie zombie features like Flesheater and The Dead Next Door, this one definitely has my attention.
At perhaps the alternative end of the spectrum from their first centerpiece offering, Bonus Track (Screening on March 23) is a delightfully warm imported British rom-com and the directorial debut of Julia Jackman. The film is being touted as Sing Street meets Netflix’s Heartstopper and features The Crown’s Josh O’Connor. Bonus Track centers on a musician named George who dreams of making it big, though no one else in his small town seems to think so. That is until Max, the son of an ultra-famous musical duo, starts attending George’s school. Max is quickly interested in George’s talent, and the two team up to win the school’s talent show.
Make Believe wants you to know that, although they specialize in genre cinema, they were founded to create and present a more diverse and inclusive offering by expanding on the narrow definition of what makes something a “genre” film. Over half of the movies in the festival are directed by women, and more than 35% are made by BIPOC directors, celebrating an assortment of voices from all over.
A Native American Showcase programmed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Colleen Thurston has been curated for Make Believe Seattle. Thurston is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, an Assistant Professor at the University of Oklahoma, and a project producer for Native Lens, an Indigenous digital series for Rocky Mountain PBS and KSUT Tribal Radio.
“I’m inspired by stories that lean into what some may consider fantastical possibilities of Indigenous cultural teachings,” says Thurston. “Our stories and legends are rooted in belief and knowledge that expand beyond Western boundaries of explanation, and the medium of film provides a platform to combine this traditional knowledge with humor, unnerving narratives, vivid imaginaries, and audacious anti-colonial criticism to create on-screen experiences such as those in this program.”
The Native American Showcase will include Gush, a meditation on the impact of sexual violence and healing that’s woven together by over a decade’s worth of archival footage to form an experimental stream-of-consciousness experience. Fox Maxy’s debut has been described as intimate, personal, poignant, and exhilarating.
“Our Ancestors’ Wildest” is a program of short films featuring the titularly captivating Dear Stephen King, Instead of Using Indian Burial Grounds in Your Books, Have You Thought of Using European Burial Grounds? and The Handsome Man starring Academy Award nominee Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon).
Eight additional Make Believe short film programs will continue highlighting diverse imagery and voices working today. The “Silent Scream” block contains an extensive compilation of dialogue-free films from across the globe, proving the universal language is fear. The queer short film block “Masks We Wear” will traverse themes of gender, identity, and sexuality. The “Unknown Forces” block will champion the creativity of Black filmmakers and the stories they feel driven to tell, from the comedic to the horrific to the profound. Other shorts programs focus on horror, documentaries, animation, directors from outside the US, and, simply put, the weird, wild, and wonderful.
Sci-Fi fans and George Lucas lovers (separated in the event those are mutually exclusive) will get their fill with the unbelievable documentary I’m “George Lucas”: A Connor Ratliff Story. In 2014, Connor Ratliff created an improv comedy event called “The George Lucas Talk Show,” where Ratliff, dressed as Lucas, hosted a talk show with his co-host Griffin Newman and producer Patrick Cotnoir. Well, what started as a joke snowballed into something that caught the eye of Seth Meyers, Weird Al Yankovic, Kevin Smith, Whoopi Goldberg, and others. The film captures Ratliff’s live performances over the course of a year as he struggles with the show’s future in the wake of its growing popularity. After the show, Ratliff, Newman, and Cotnoir will present a live episode of “The George Lucas Talk Show.” It’s an event that shouldn’t be missed for Star Wars fans.
Closing the festival on March 24, festival darling Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person. The directorial debut from Canada’s Ariane Louis-Seize has racked up an abundance of nominations and wins at film festivals across the globe, including the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, and The Palm Springs International Film Festival. When the parents of a sensitive vampire who doesn’t like the idea of killing people for food decide to cut off her alternative blood supply, their daughter Sasha is forced into an uncomfortable position. Enlisting the help of the suicidal Paul, who’s willing to give his life to save hers, Sasha sets out on a quest to fulfill Paul’s bucket list before daybreak.
Additional festival highlights include director Richard Elfman’s Bloody Bridget, a music-centric horror-comedy with a score by Danny Elfman. Queen of the Deuce, a documentary about Chelly Wilson, a Jewish grandmother and proud owner of a porn theater empire in 1970s New York; the West Coast premiere of Lost Soulz, the debut feature from Katherine Propper, about a young rapper who leaves everything behind to embark on an odyssey of self-discovery, music, and friendship in the heart of Texas; the kids’ matinee of Disney’s 1983 classic Something Wicked This Way Comes; and the world premiere of The Lonely Man with the Ghost Machine written, directed and starring genre icon Graham Skipper (Suitable Flesh, The Leech).
Check out the complete program listings on Make Believe’s website.
Make Believe Seattle will present jury awards for Best Feature, Best Mid-Length, Best Short, and the Mindbreaker Award (given to the film that best breaks the brain.) These jury awards will receive a $500 cash prize. Additional jury awards for Best First Feature, Best Animation, and the Programmer’s Award will be given. These awards will receive a $250 cash prize. Audience Choice awards will also be awarded for favorite feature, mid-length, and short film. The recipient of each of these awards will receive a $250 cash prize.
The festival takes place from March 21-26. Screening venues include Erickson Theatre, Northwest Film Forum, and Grand Illusion Cinema. VIP Festival Passes are $250 and are limited to only 25 available. They include all screenings and events, plus access to the filmmakers’ lounge. Festival Passes are $150 and include access to all film screenings and events. Day Passes are available for $50 and include all screenings for the selected day of purchase (Saturday, March 23, or Sunday, March 24 only). Event passes are $25 each and include the opening night party, the Albert Pyun tribute, and entry to an exclusive invitation-only event at the festival. Individual tickets are $12 for mid-length films and short film blocks, $15 for features, and $20 for opening and closing nights, and are on sale at Make Believe’s website.
