When COVID-19 forced Columbia City’s Ark Lodge Cinemas to shutter their doors in March, the sudden loss in revenue dealt a staggering blow to the South End’s few independent movie theaters. Owner David McRae quickly launched several fundraising strategies, and now new managing director Justin Pritchett brings Popcorn Weekends to the Ark. Pulling from his expertise in movie theater food and beverage operations, Pritchett has big plans for keeping the Ark afloat, now and long after the pandemic.
Two years ago, amid shifting trends towards standardized, “one-size-fits-all” approaches to testing and curriculum development, parents, students, and staff at Orca K-8 School brainstormed and launched a program called South End Stories. A dynamic and multi-faceted experience, South End Stories (SES) works within Seattle Public Schools to create safe spaces for students to share their own stories through film, dance, writing and performance.
Editor’s Note: We want to acknowledge that there remains disagreement in the martial arts community over who is properly credited as Bruce Lee’s senior-most student. In light of that fact, we’ve chosen to refer to Taky Kimura as Bruce Lee’s senior-most instructor.
Taky Kimura, Bruce Lee’s best friend and senior-most instructor, has been lovingly safeguarding Lee’s memory and legacy in Seattle for almost five decades. Many people know and admire legendary martial artist Bruce Lee, but few know about the close friend who helped Lee start his first martial arts school in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District (CID) and carried on Lee’s legacy after he tragically passed. Kimura turned 96 last month and Thursday, May 7, a new short film about his life and relationship to Lee, “Taky Kimura: The Heart of the Dragon,” will premiere online for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
Tommy Swenson and Casey Moore were obsessed with movies as kids. Growing up in Seattle’s University District in the 1990s only served to further that obsession.
“There were, like, five or six different movie theatres, and Scarecrow Video, and Cinema Books,” Swenson said. “I was really plunged into this movies incubator, where I had access to see so much and got such an education, just by watching a lot of movies.”
South Seattle has a new “traveling” pop-up film cinema that is unlike any other. Purple Reels Pop-Up Cinema is all about bridging intergenerational gaps and providing a space to not only watch movies, but to connect and discuss classic films for social change.
Tomasz Biernacki is a West Seattle photographer, documentarian, and former architectural graphic designer. His first film, Trickle Down Town, follows several different people who are experiencing or have experienced homelessness in the Seattle area. The film first premiered in October, and has since been shown around the Seattle area. The Meaningful Movies Project will screenTrickle Down Town at Centilia Cultural Center, 1660 S. Roberto Maestas Festival Street Jan. 8 at 7 p.m.
Biernacki spoke by phone with the Emerald from Camp Second Chance, where he was building tiny homes.
In eight minutes, Vivian Hua — writer, filmmaker, and executive director of Northwest Film Forum — unwraps Islamophobia in her crowdfunded short film “Searching Skies.” A Christian family has invited a Syrian refugee family to share Christmas dinner. The couple’s college-age nephew does not welcome the guests. The refugee father, Hamza (Kal Maleh), and his wife Amira (Nour Bitar) — both real-life Syrian refugees — suffer the hostility of the young man.
