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.
