Between Portlandia, Leverage, and Grimm, Portland is getting a welcome reputation as a welcome place for TV producers to film their shows. But let us not forget the many filmmakers who have used the Rose City as a backdrop or a central character in their narratives or documentaries.
And if we do let that slip our minds, the good people at the Northwest Film Center will be there to jog our memory as they do every year with their Northwest Filmmakers' Festival.
From November 11 to 20, the event will highlight some of the best young directors in our region while also paying heed to the groundbreaking auteurs who have proven the Northwest to be such a rich pool of talent.
While there's hardly enough space to talk about every film, there are some standouts that should be noted on your calendar. Chief among them is a screening of Gus Van Sant's latest work, Restless, a complex story that tracks relationship formed between a young man obsessed with death and a girl facing a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Another film that has already generated a great deal of attention at the Sundance Film Festival is the documentary How To Die In Oregon, which looks at the emotionally wrought issues surrounding assisted suicide.
Other highlights include Faded: Girls + Binge Drinking, a documentary that focuses on four young women struggling with alcohol; the "psychic mystery" cooked up by experimental filmmaker Calvin Lee Reeder entitled The Oregonian; and a short subject called 12 Takes that sets seven filmmakers loose to capture the working methods of a dozen artists from British Columbia, including author Douglas Coupland and musician Carl Newman.
