North Bend Film Fest opens with Timur Bekmambetov’s captivating computer-screen thriller PROFILE, hosts the World Premiere of surreal tale MODEL HOME, offers a stellar lineup of immersive VR and celebration of multi-reality storytelling
Festival Badges on sale now!
Submissions for shorts and features still open until June 14!
Winning short films receive a free Vimeo Pro Account!
Tuesday, June 12th, 2018 -- The North Bend Film Festival is proud to announce the first wave of titles for the inaugural edition of our destination event in North Bend, Washington, taking place from August 23rd to the 26th, and excited to unveil our haunting poster from Pacific Northwest artist Zachary Schomburg, featuring the region’s scenic slopes and ghostly pines.
Best known as the original shooting location for Twin Peaks, the festival will take place in the beautiful historic North Bend Theatre, embracing the classic diner and eerie woods that once gave David Lynch & Mark Frost so much inspiration, just a couple of miles away from the iconic Salish Lodge!
The festival seeks to spotlight innovative means of storytelling, while exploring surrealism as well as highlighting multi-dimensional stories and one-of-a-kind experiences. Introducing a new structure in nonfiction form, Khalik Allah’s sophomore documentary BLACK MOTHER offers us insight into daily life in Jamaica, unfolding like a historical mixtape that immerses the audience in a sensorial journey in space, time and culture. Building from coinciding social constructs, Patrick Cunningham’s debut film MODEL HOME is a surreal, free-wheeling take on the ostracization of the lower middle class. Blurring the line between dreams and reality, Mitzi Peirone’s BRAID feels like a fever dream by way of Sofia Coppola. A classic at first glance and shocking with every twist, Timur Bekmambetov’s PROFILE uses a minimalist visual setting, a computer screen (familiar to Bekmambetov from 2014’s hit Unfriended, which he produced), to tell a larger than life story about an ISIS investigation gone too deep and too far, all based on true events.
North Bend Film Festival’s focus on crossover storytelling includes the not-to-be-missed World Premiere of the immersive and intimate art performance from Ava Lee Scott (Sleep No More), ANNABELLEE, a mixed-media art experience using tarot reading, immersive theater and live-VR to enthrall and enchant. Navigating new ways of telling stories, the festival will also venture into linear virtual reality territory with five unique titles, each one bringing their own approach to molding new narratives.
Appreciating cinema as an art form, and trying to understand it, involves having the right keys. For our first year, we are thrilled to host a short film program dedicated to exploring the inspiration behind David Lynch’s work as an artist and filmmaker, called “THE EXTRA ORDINARY,” for which Jonathan Marlow of Camera Obscura has curated four influential films that speak to Lynch and his work, ranging from 1966 to 2000.
Profile (West Coast Premiere)
Cyprus, Russian Federation, UK, USA | 2018 | 103 Min | Dir. Timur Bekmambetov
Amy, a struggling freelance journalist looking for her next big story, pitches her editor on investigating the recruitment of European women by ISIS. Pretending to be recently converted to Islam and using an alias, she creates an incriminating Facebook profile where she begins to like and share posts themed around islamic extremism. It doesn't take long for Bilel, a Jihad fighter in Syria, to set his eyes on this seemingly vulnerable prey.
From the producers of UNFRIENDED, this breathtaking socio-political thriller takes place entirely through the perspective of a computer screen. Director Timur Bekmambetov transcends the format to create a sense of tension and suspense that even Hitchcock would admire. Sometimes we find vanguard filmmaking hidden in the simplest visual aesthetics; something that this sure-to-be iconic catfish thriller achieves tenfold. North Bend is proud to open with such a tour-de-force that pushes the boundaries of filmmaking in a powerfully topical and unique way.
From the producers of UNFRIENDED, this breathtaking socio-political thriller takes place entirely through the perspective of a computer screen. Director Timur Bekmambetov transcends the format to create a sense of tension and suspense that even Hitchcock would admire. Sometimes we find vanguard filmmaking hidden in the simplest visual aesthetics; something that this sure-to-be iconic catfish thriller achieves tenfold. North Bend is proud to open with such a tour-de-force that pushes the boundaries of filmmaking in a powerfully topical and unique way.
Black Mother (Pacific Northwest Premiere)
USA | 2018 | 77 Min | Dir. Khalik Allah
As BLACK MOTHER begins, like something out a dream, you’re thrust into some of the most intimate areas of Jamaica. What you’re met with volleys from educational to surreal. A large swath of folks ranging from religious leaders to sex workers and wide-eyed children engage with you directly; sonically, deeply introspective narrations from unidentified speakers are constant, with voices and unwieldy visuals sometimes totally out of sync with each other. Breathe easy, though: you’re in the hands of documentarian Khalik Allah, an emerging master of the form.
Equal parts haunting travelogue and tone poem, BLACK MOTHER is a uniquely engrossing look at Jamaican culture and identity that no history book could ever deliver. It’s pure cinema. Inspired by Allah’s mother’s heritage, the director’s remarkable second feature, following his Harlem-focused 2015 debut FIELD NIGGAS and cinematography work for Beyoncé’s LEMONADE, is in a class all its own.
Braid (West Coast Premiere)
USA | 2018 | 82 Min | Dir. Mitzi Peirone
