PORT TOWNSEND — The 18th annual Port Townsend Film Festival will fall on the same weekend as the annual Jefferson County Farm Tour, and instead of competing, the film festival will help promote the farm event.
This year’s film festival was originally scheduled to run the third weekend of September, but festival staff decided to change the date to avoid running during the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, according to Janette Force, executive director of the festival.
Instead, the festival will run Sept. 15-17, coinciding with the Jefferson County Farm Tour, which runs Sept. 16-17.
The film festival will show promotional material for the farm tour and will screen the animated children’s movie “Chicken Run” as the Sept. 15 Friday movie on the square as a nod to the farm tour’s mascot for 2017, a chicken named Louisa.
“That’s how we work together and that’s how we build community,” said Force during a Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce luncheon Monday.
Community outreach has always been a focus for the film festival, according to Force.
Since the festival started in 1999, Force said, organizers have tried to find ways to get the community interacting with the film professionals who attend each year.
That started with an assembly at Port Townsend High School. Three years ago, the film festival changed that to a salon where students and hundreds of community members fill the high school’s auditorium to listen and ask questions of visiting actors and directors.
This year, the film festival is expanding its reach, Force said.
Chimacum High School will host a salon in its auditorium at the school at 91 West Valley Road, as well as a screening of the film “1-800-GiveUsYourKidney.”
Force said the festival is paying for a school bus and a substitute teacher to transport students from Quilcene High School to the salon in Chimacum.
“We’re always trying to expand our outreach to students and the community,” Force said.
The Jefferson County Library will host screenings, which means 800 more seats will be available this year.
Force showed for the first time at the chamber luncheon this year’s “sizzle reel,” a preview of a few of the 87 films that will be screened this year at theaters around Port Townsend.
This year’s films come from 14 countries, including the festival’s first Cambodian film, and more than 100 film professionals will be attending.
One of those professionals is special guest Morgan Neville, an Academy Award-winning producer, director and writer. Neville’s film “The Music of Strangers, Yo-Yo Ma &The Silk Road Ensemble” will be screened Sept. 15 at 6:30 p.m. in the American Legion theater.
Tickets are on sale at the Port Townsend Film Festival website at www.ptfilmfest.com and vary in price from the $40 one-film pass to the $1,500 Patron Pass.
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Jefferson County Editor/Reporter Cydney McFarland can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 55052, or at cmcfarland@peninsuladailynews.com.
