PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend Film Festival will unveil the 2016 festival poster today.
The public reception at 5:30 p.m. at the film festival office at 211 Taylor St., Suite 401-A, will include a briefing on the films that will be shown at this year’s festival, planned Sept. 23-25.
The poster is designed by Port Townsend graphic artist and set designer Terry Tennesen.
Tennesen also drew the 2015 poster, which contained images of all of the 15 special guests to date.
Because no special guest has yet committed to appear at this year’s event, Tennesen’s poster takes on a simpler tone.
It includes a film strip drawn in charcoal and contact information for those who want to attend the festival, which will be at venues in and around downtown Port Townsend.
Each year, an acting or directing star is invited to be the special guest at the festival.
The Port Townsend Film Festival has not yet secured a special guest for this year’s event — its 17th — causing both anxiety and optimism.
“We have a good tuna on the hook but haven’t reeled them in yet,” Force said of the prospect, who traditionally is referred to as a fish to avoid speaking the name before the big reveal.
“It won’t be until mid-July until we hear, and it’s making me crazy,” Force said.
Should this particular fish slip out of the net, there are many other possibilities, she said.
“Everyone we’ve contacted is working, which is a great thing, but we’ve had to wait for confirmations,” she said.
“Our fear was that we’d end up with multiple special guests and couldn’t afford to pay for all their appearance fees and first-class airfare.”
The festival had a special guest double scoop last year with Beau Bridges and Chris Cooper, following John Sayles, Karen Allen, Bruce Dern, Buck Henry, Dyan Cannon, Cloris Leachman, Elliott Gould, Malcolm McDowell, Debra Winger, Patricia Neal, Jane Powell, Shirley Knight, Piper Laurie, Eva Marie Saint and Tony Curtis.
Force said the festival will not lack a guest. The search has been in progress since November.
The Guess the Guest contest has been discontinued this year, Force said.
In past years, the festival has sponsored the competition, in which three sets of clues to the special guest’s identity are published throughout three weeks.
The person who made the first correct guess would win the opportunity to have a photograph taken with the guest during the festival.
The time crunch interfered with the contest this year, although Force said “it was something we were going to discontinue anyway.”
The delay has prompted Force to rethink the festival’s objective.
“It made me look at the real purpose of the work we do,” she said.
“Our mission is to connect audiences with films, introducing them to random views and voices they didn’t know about before.”
The festival screens about 80 movies, with each feature paired with a short film and shown three times so participants don’t need to make tough choices.
The selection process is always in motion, with previously rejected films reconsidered.
“Three weeks ago, I had no interest in screening a film about a mass shooting,” Force said of “Tower,” an account of a shooting at the University of Texas in 1966.
“I said no then, but our recent social situation made me re-evaluate.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, there had been no decision on whether to screen the film.
Even without a special guest, this year’s event is already special.
Allen, an actress and director who was the special guest of the festival in 2012, will return to Port Townsend to screen her latest film.
Charlie Soap, the director of “Cherokee Word for Water,” which the festival screened this winter, is returning, with his film scheduled as the Friday night outdoor Movie on Taylor Street.
Actor and producer Andrew Perez, who appears in “My Scientology Movie,” will screen the film three days before its national release.
“We have 60 or more film professionals attending,” Force said.
“Unlike metropolitan festivals, the audiences actually rub shoulders with the artists and can talk with them one-on-one about their craft.”
For more information, go to www.ptfilmfest.com.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
