Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg are on a film set telling stories about witches. Technical problems and psychotic outbreaks gradually plunge the shoot into chaos. From writer/director Gaspar Noé (INTO THE VOID).

** This film contains extended sequences of flashing lights that may impact people with photosensitive epilepsy. **

“A vibrant essay on respect for beliefs, the actor’s craft and the art of filmmaking.” Cannes Film Festival

“Though it transcends categorization, the new film from the director of Irreversible is as dark and distressing as great horror films can be.” Chloé Gold, Dread Central

Presented in split screen, VORTEX tells the story of an aging couple in a Paris apartment. As the mother (Françoise Lebrun) faces advancing dementia, the father (legendary horror director Dario Argento) tries to care for her while dealing with his own declining health, and their son (Alex Lutz) does his best in spite of his own significant personal problems. With this film, Director Gaspar Noé (Enter the Void, Climax, Irreversible) delivers a career best, finding a level of compassion and tenderness that sacrifices none of the visual excitement that has marked his best work.

“Noé’s most mature film, an unabashedly and audaciously experimental work.” Screen International

“A relentlessly realistic horror story, and its primary horrors are the infirmities and indignities of old age.” Richard Brody, New Yorker

“CRITIC’S PICK! It’s a blunt reckoning with the inevitability of loss, including the loss of memory. We dream for a while, and then we sleep.” A.O. Scott, New York Times

“In terms of scope, ambition and execution, it’s one of the finest pictures [Noé’s] made.” Xan Brooks, Guardian

TEEN ZOMBIE THRILLER!

Archie is a brainy nerd who's obligated to work in his uncle's mortuary after school. In love with a cute grease-monkey tomboy and constantly tormented by his peers, his life seems pathetic and hopeless. When the popular twerps who always made fun of him die suddenly in a car crash, he's gotta pull an all-nighter to clean them up and get them looking presentable for the services. However, in the dead of night a lightning storm reanimates those preppy jerks and turns them into hungry teenage zombies... Now Archie has to run for his life! One night only! Never released on DVD! Only $3! ONLY ON VHS!

Ninja Thyberg’s debut feature film PLEASURE is a journey into the Los Angeles porn industry through the lens of newcomer Bella Cherry (Sofia Kappel). Strong, self-confident and determined, Bella embarks on a mission to become the best at any cost. PLEASURE is written and directed by Thyberg with a stunning first time performance by Kappel, who anchors an ensemble of adult industry actors.

“Grounded in years of meticulous research into the porn scene and cast with actors drawn entirely from that world except for Kappel herself, Pleasure is very persuasive in its evocation of the milieu.” Leslie Felperin, Hollywood Reporter

“Kappel’s jaw-dropping and fearless performance blurs fiction and reality.” Carlos Aguilar, RogerEbert.com

“CRITIC’S PICK! …engages feminist issues like a woman’s agency while making you laugh, freaking you out and prompting you to squirm… It’s a smart, gutsy, wholly unexpected movie.” Manohla Dargis, New York Times

Freakscene - The Story of Dinosaur Jr. is an homage to one of the loudest and most influential American indie rock bands. It is also the story of the eloquent and eccentric guitarist and bandleader J. Mascis, bassist Lou Barlow, and drummer Murph—a band that insanely does not talk to one another and communicates exclusively through music. Featuring interviews with the band members, as well as Kim Gordon, Henry Rollins, Bob Mould and Thurston Moore.

“A grounded glimpse behind the scenes of one of the more mysterious legends in alt-rock.” NME

“Beautifully balances the giddiness of a fan and the warmth of a close friend.” The Guardian

In a faraway future, on a wild and untamed planet, a lonely teenager, Roxy, releases an assassin from the sands she was buried in. As soon as she’s free, the criminal sparks death all around. Roxy and her mother Zora are held accountable, banished from their community and forced to track the murderer down. They start a long journey pacing the supranatural territories of their filthy paradise. Co-presented with the Seattle Erotic Cinema Society and Three Dollar Bill Cinema.

"Mandico is one of the most daring, exciting filmmakers working today. Part of a new wave of boundary-pushing queer French filmmakers which includes his frequent collaborator, Fantastic Fest alum Yann Gonzalez (KNIFE + HEART), Mandico is consistently expanding the definitions of genre, both stylistically and plotwise." Lisa Dreyer, Fantastic Fest

Co-presented with the Seattle Erotic Cinema Society and Three Dollar Bill Cinema.

“Erotic lesbian acid trip is like The Love Witch set on planet Annihiliation… Dripping with dirty eroticism, much like the goo that oozes out of many unknown holes, After Blue is as tactile as film can get.” Indiewire

“…the kind of camp sci-fi lesbian western you never knew you needed in your life.” Backseat Mafia

“…suffused in a feverish ecstasy, that wild excitement that comes from watching one world crumble and another jutting into being from scratch, a vision of a clean slate in which everything—and everyone—can be reinvented, and every norm challenged.” The Film Stage

Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist sci-fi punk musical. It's a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs that Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing. Co-directed with his partner, the Rwandan-born artist Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place amidst the hilltops of Burundi, where a collective of computer hackers emerges from within a coltan mining community, a result of the romance between a miner and an intersex runaway. Set between states of being—past and present, dream and waking life, colonized and free, male and female, memory and prescience—Neptune Frost is an invigorating and empowering direct download to the cerebral cortex and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends.

Co-presented with Black Cinema Collective, a group of multicultural artists and scholars who examine and celebrate works of African and Afro-diasporic filmmakers.

“The future of Black cinema. Utilizes everything the medium has to offer.” Jourdain Searles, The Hollywood Reporter

“Visionary. A journey of visual ecstasy.” Valerie Complex, Deadline

“A sensory delight… bursting with life and ingenuity.” Jude Dry, Indiewire

“Hauntingly beautiful and deeply enigmatic.” Lisa Kennedy, Variety

One Night Only! Experience live projections of 100% straight, gay and beyond reels from vintage adult films. This multi-sensory experience will feature a grab bag of silent super8 reels from the 1960s to the 1980s. These short dirty films will be fleeting and effervescent, just like pleasure itself. One-and-a-half hours of non-stop pleasure! Live flesh ON SCREEN.

The ambience will be provided by DJ Disco Domina with her collection of vintage disco and synth grooves that will make you feel like walking the night, looking for action. Music featured in vintage adult film will be showcased. Will you submit to DJ Disco Domina's music desires?? Feel the hot vinyl LIVE and in-person.

Presented by the Seattle Erotica Cinema Society.

Event includes depictions of non-simulated sex. Must be 18+ to attend.

Winner of two Academy Awards for The Return of the Jedi and Jurassic Park, Phil Tippett is a groundbreaking stop-motion animator, designer and filmmaker who has given life to a legion of unforgettable cinematic creatures throughout his career, from iconic characters like Star Wars’ Jabba the Hutt to the giant alien bugs of Starship Troopers. But beyond this amazing Hollywood resume lies an inspired and idiosyncratic artist who spends most of his days feverishly constructing wild creations in his workshop out of anything and everything he can find. With exclusive and unlimited access to the collections and archives of Tippett Studio, Mad Dreams and Monsters explores the unique art and legacy of Phil Tippett, from his work with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Paul Verhoeven to more personal movies like Prehistoric Beast and Mad God.

MAD GOD is a fully practical stop-motion film set in a Miltonesque world of monsters, mad scientists, and war pigs. In 1987, legendary visual effects and stop-motion craftsman Phil Tippett embarked upon an ambitious personal project, fabricating and animating a darkly surreal world in which the creatures and nightmares of his imagination could roam free. Phil produced dozens of environments and hundreds of puppets for the project, filling notebook after notebook with thousands of detailed sketches and storyboards. Decades after the success of Tippett Studio forced production into stasis, a group of animators at Tippett Studio came upon boxes of shelved props and puppets. After viewing the original footage, they convinced Phil to resurrect the project. The small group began volunteering their weekends to MAD GOD, and before long it had snowballed into a crew of more than 60 artists, funded by a wildly successful KickStarter campaign.

CYBORG VS. CYBORG BATTLE NIGHT

Welcome to the future, where it's cyborg against vampire-cyborg in a battle to enslave humanity!

EVIL VAMPIRE CYBORG: Massive mechanical claw arm. Gratuitously excessive salivation. Scarlet helper parrot.

VS.

MESSIANIC CYBORG ASSASIN: Mega martial arts skills. Protective leathery skin. Sexy helper human.

WHO WILL INHERIT THE EARTH?

One night only! Never released on DVD! Only $3! ONLY ON VHS!

Winner of the Cannes’ Directors' Fortnight Award and a rising voice of Italian cinema, filmmaker Jonas Carpignano continues his exploration of the intricacies of life in contemporary Calabria with this compelling character study of a teenager, Chiara, who gradually comes to discover that her close-knit family is not all that it seems. In this furiously paced drama, Chiara investigates her father’s disappearance just one day after her oldest sister’s birthday. As she gets closer to the difficult truth about her mysteriously missing father—and the crime syndicates that control her region— Chiara is forced to decide what kind of future she wants for herself. A coming-of-age chronicle like no other, A CHIARA is both an intimate and universal family story.

This film, directed by avant-garde jazz luminary William Hooker, is an effort to elaborate on the history of the many musicians of the 1970s whose music has gone unrecognized by a larger audience. Most of these artists have international followings and continue to perform, record, and document their art and their lives. Some of the musicians, entrepreneurs and listeners featured in the documentary include Michael Thomson, Ken Filiano, Larry Roland, Ras Moshe, Ted Daniel, Dick Griffin, On Davis, Steve Dalachinsky, Craig Harris, Hilliard Greene, Michael Dorf, Richard Berger, William Parker, Sarah Manning, Steve Swell, Newman Baker, Iconoclast, Patricia Parker, Jackson Krall, Andrew Lamb, Marc Edwards, and many more.

Presented by Bat City Cinema and the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA), with additional support from the Sprocket Society.

AGFA's Head Archivist (and former GI programmer) brings his Bat City Cinema show to the Grand Illusion for an explosion of evil on 16mm like no other! Two ultra-rare slices of Satanic Panic-era madness, plus trailers, cartoons and shorts that we're 99.9% sure you've never seen before. Be there or be forever square!

SATAN WAR (1979) – Invisible groping hands, hard-to-clean evil goo, and a crucifix that just won’t stay upright await you in this stoned mix of THE ENTITY and THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. One of only two prints in existence!

SPECTRE (1977) – One of the weirdest TV movies ever made! This Gene Roddenberry penned mash-up of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Strange will leave you bewildered with its mystifying G-rated Satanic orgies and rubber-suit monsters!

In this acerbic teen comedy, a funeral becomes a battleground between best friends Carrie Lowstein (Madeline Grey DeFreece) and Hannah Rosen (Rachel Sennott, breakout star of SHIVA BABY). When their former Hebrew school classmate commits suicide, the two girls attend her funeral as well as the "Teen Talk-back" session hosted by their synagogue, designed to be an opportunity for them to understand grief through Judaism. Hannah, more interested in impressing her crush Tristan (Daniel Taveras), convinces Carrie to practice kissing with her, unlocking feelings that turn Carrie's world upside down. Emotions heightened, the scene develops into a biting depiction of unrequited crushes, toxic friendships, and wavering faith, which ComingSoon calls "one of the most original films in the coming-of-age subgenre in a long time."

WINNER: Directorial Feature Debut Black LGBTQ+ Filmmaker Award, NewFest
WINNER: Special Mention, Outfest

“Unfurling compellingly more or less in real time, director Olivia Peace and screenwriter Jess Zeidman-both making impressive feature debuts-establish an acerbic, The Breakfast Club type atmosphere” James Kleinmann, The Queer Review

“That Peace and Zeidman can take this funny, catty, high school comedy of immature kids and transform it into a weighty drama with authentic consequences is no small feat.” Jared Mobarak, The Film Stage

“A must-watch. It’s a sharp dark comedy with fantastic lead performances from Madeline Grey DeFreece and Rachel Sennott. It’s a unique debut, and with poignancy shows the importance of growing into ourselves and out of toxic relationships.” Sara Clements, AwardsWatch