Can you hear that? That’s the sound of the 52nd annual Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) fast approaching. Though it’s less of a roar and more of a wounded growl: far smaller than previous editions after a challenging year for the organization.

From May 7 – 17, there will still be a whole bunch of films to see. If you’re looking for a way to sort through it all, and want to treat SIFF like a ten-day marathon of both cinema and local exploration, let us guide you to the best films to see, pairing them with places to eat, drink, and party along the way.  

Behold, the CHUM News SIFF Challenge. (Not officially endorsed by SIFF.)

OPENING NIGHT

MAY 7: I LOVE BOOSTERS

Where and when to see: Thursday, May 7, at 7 p.m.

The Paramount Theatre (911 Pine Street)

I Love Boosters, the joyous new feature from writer-director Boots Riley, is a whole lot of movie. It’s an unabashedly anti-capitalist, pro-union, satirical heist film that takes a plunge into sci-fi, deploying more vibrant colors and sudden shifts in tone than most other mainstream studio releases would even dare attempt. It’s got stop-motion animation, sex demons, and the always great Keke Palmer leading the way as an undervalued fashion designer making ends meet by repeatedly shoplifting from the monochromatic stores of a callous industry titan played by Demi Moore. 

This description could sound like it’s all already quite a lot, but it’s only a small sliver of what Riley and his merry band of fashion bandits have in store. It’s an audacious film to see while wearing your own audacious outfit, and a great way to kick things off. You can forget about TheDevil Wears Prada 2: This is the true must-see fashion film of the season. 

Where to go after: Check out the opening night afterparty at Cannonball Arts (1930 3rd Ave). Or, if you want to authentically embrace the ethos of Riley’s film, try to crash it (joking! don’t do this).

MAY 8: DRUNKEN NOODLES

Where and when to see: Friday, May 8, at 3:30 p.m.

SIFF Cinema Uptown (511 Queen Anne Ave N)

A short and bittersweet film, though far from slight, Lucio Castro's queer drama Drunken Noodles regrettably passed too many by when it premiered as part of the Cannes ACID sidebar last year. Yet that only makes the quiet rhythms, both erotic and reflective, that it taps into all the more worthwhile to take in now. 

A gentle study of the lonesome fellow Adnan (a layered Laith Khalifeh) who is apartment-sitting and working for a small art gallery one summer in Brooklyn, Drunken Noodles then takes us back through the last year of his life, just as it explores where it may be going. The result is a film that’s both a relaxed hangout series of romantic encounters and also a boldly mirthful, wryly melancholic musing on the realities of modern life. When it takes one final big leap through time itself, you’ll only wish that you could go back through it all again. 

Where to go after: Swing through the erotic local arts space Gallery Erato (309 1st Ave S) to take in some art close to home that also grapples with sexuality, gender, identity, and more. 

MAY 9: THE FRIEND’S HOUSE IS HERE

Where and when to see: Saturday, May 9, at 2:15 p.m.

SIFF Cinema Uptown (511 Queen Anne Ave N)

An understated, yet no less deeply felt portrait of two women living in Tehran’s underground art scene, Hossein Keshavarz and Maryam Ataei’s The Friend’s House is Here is a work of art in its own right. It deserves all the praise in the world and then some. 

Starring the pitch-perfect duo of Mahshad Bahraminejad and Hana Mana as two best friends pursuing their respective creative endeavors, held together by their love for each other, The Friend’s House is Here patiently unfolds before us, while never hiding away from all the many painful realities of the world each is living in. 

Though the film’s title refers back to the late, great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami’s 1987 drama Where is The Friend’s House?, it’s far from derivative, proving reverential of cinematic history and its place in it, while finding its own new approach. It’s a work where the many quiet grace notes it uncovers, including in the meals where we catch a glimpse of an absolutely delicious-looking tahdig (a rice dish that's fluffy on the top and crispy on the bottom), are complicated by the acutely painful realities of government repression that hang over everything. Through it all, the film finds a balance that proves poetic, resonant, and true. 

Where to go before/after: Get some friends together and go enjoy tahdig together at Persepolis Grill (5517 University Way NE).

MAY 10: GHOST IN THE MACHINE

Where and when to see: Sunday, May 10, at 5 p.m.

PACCAR IMAX Theater at Pacific Science Center (200 Sue Bird Ct N)

Shifting to documentaries, you mustn’t sleep on Seattle-raised Valerie Veatch’s Ghost in the Machine. Yes, it’s a film about “artificial intelligence,” but it’s also about history, technology, racism, technofascism, culture, power, and so much more, asking urgent questions about what we even mean when we say “intelligence,” before putting the forces that are seeking to use AI to reshape our world under a microscope. 

What Ghost in the Machine finds is both fascinating and rather frightening, making it one of those rare documentaries about our present AI moment that trusts you to go with all the complex ideas it throws at you without watering anything down. As a result, it’s full of a lot of information and with many experts weighing in on the current state of our world. Relying on talking heads can make the film feel like a conventional documentary, but Veatch also brings a more radical, refreshing, and generally no-bullshit bite that cuts through all the hype of the tech bros. If there is one documentary to see about AI this year, it’s this one. 

Where to go before: Check out some other tech of yore at the Connections Museum (7000 E Marginal Way S), and reminisce on a simpler time where AI-driven enshittification wasn’t everywhere.

MAY 11: AGAIN AGAIN

Where and when to see: Monday, May 11, at 6:30 p.m.

SIFF Cinema Uptown (511 Queen Anne Ave N). Tickets are currently sold out, but some standby tickets may become available.  

Next, we look at the first of several intriguing, truly local films with director, writer, and star Mia Moore’s feature debut, Again Again. Shot in Aberdeen, Washington, where Moore grew up, it’s the sole narrative world premiere of the festival and is also executive produced by legendary director Lilly Wachowski. 

Again Again drops us in the midst of a ten-year time loop (shot in black-and-white with a quietly moving intimacy to it) that is soon about to be broken. Once it is, Aggie (Moore), who is described as a "foul-mouthed, pot-smoking trans woman," will have to find a way to work out what she wants her life to be. To complicate matters, she’s doing so with her best-friend-turned-potential-soulmate, Tess (Aria Taylor), leaving behind the RV they’ve been spending most their days in to get out and wander through their quiet town. 

It’s very much a first feature, both in how it's more than a little meandering and rough around the edges, though it also grows on you the longer you sit with it. With every stop they make, be it under a bridge or in a small record store, you find yourself getting swept up in the quiet rhythms of the area just as you do the way it then folds time in on itself. Hell, it may make you want to hop in an RV and go out to visit Aberdeen for yourself. 

Where to go before/after: Aberdeen is much too far to go to their record store, but you can bring the same vibe to Royal Records (8 West Roy Street). Just don’t get stuck in a time loop there.

MAY 12: ASSETS & LIABILITIES

Where and when to see: Tuesday, May 12, at 8 p.m.

SIFF Cinema Uptown (511 Queen Anne Ave N)

The undisputed most wonderfully, weirdly discomforting highlight of the festival this year is the longtime Tacoma-based writer, director, and star Zach Weintraub’s excellent new film, Assets & Liabilities. Shot in Tacoma and Olympia, it follows the mustached, gloriously dorky dad Zach (Weintraub). What is meant to be a freeing day away from all of his parental and tedious work responsibilities quickly spirals into an anxiety-driven suburban hell. What this entails is best left to the film, but prepare to feel a full-contact high of mortifying unease as Weintraub slyly tackles everything from generational and economic divides, to the terror of discovering that a day to yourself won’t be enough to outrun the rest of your life. 

At every turn, Assets & Liabilities is a film both scrappy and scathing, making you feel like you’re glimpsing a whole existence over the course of a single day, as Weintraub gives a genuinely great performance of delightfully rich layers. It’s a captivating work you can’t look away from, transcending what is often reductively boxed in as “cringe” comedy, capturing the unique anxieties of its central character and the malaise of his life. If the Tim Robinson joke “WHAT DID THEY DO TO US?!” became a movie, this would be it. 

Assets & Liabilities cements Weintraub’s status as Washington’s answer to Romanian provocateur Radu Jude (Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World), as the sharp filmmaker brings the same withering humor and attention to detail, making what already feels like a new local cult classic. 

Where to go before/after: Go see if you’ve still got the skating bug or are just too old to hang with the youths shooting TikToks at the Seattle Center Skate Plaza (5th Ave N and Broad St).

MAY 13: EIGHT BRIDGES

Where and when to see: Wednesday, May 13, at 8:30 p.m.

SIFF Film Center (167 Republican St)

Back to documentaries, settle in for James Benning’s Eight Bridges and get ready to really contemplate bridges (and life). Centering on eight shots of different bridges across the country, the images Benning captures are far from static. Rather, there is something constantly in motion, even if it's far slower than what we may expect from most films. Benning invites us to look deeper, contemplating the engineering of each bridge while we see how people are interacting with it. 

Be it at classic bridges like the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco or ones a bit closer to us like the more humble Astoria-Megler Bridge in Oregon, each deceptively simple shot in Eight Bridges becomes a living, breathing tableau that reveals something about our relationship to the world around us. Prepare for people to potentially walk out, but you best sit down to take it all in. 

Where to go before/after: Go make James Benning proud by (safely) sitting and observing your own favorite local bridge, tuning out the rest of the world to observe it all gently passing you by.  

MAY 14: THE LIFE WE LEAVE

Where and when to see: Thursday, May 14, at 6 p.m.

SIFF Cinema Uptown (511 Queen Anne Ave N)

Continuing on with documentaries (though now back to local ones), J.J. Gerber’s The Life We Leave, which premiered at SXSW in March,is a film of many complex parts. In one part, it’s a profile of the first Washington company, Return Home, to begin offering human composting to people whose loved ones have passed on. In another, it’s a frank look at death, yes, but also life and the way the funeral rituals we’ve created have evolved over time, just as the end of our own existence here remains an inevitable, eternal part of it for all of us. 

The experience of watching Gerber’s documentary is unshakably painful, but it’s also a cathartic, honest, and often quite beautiful one, never shying away from the challenges that Return Home must navigate before grappling with mortality itself. As its CEO goes from mostly wanting to become the dominant player in a new market to seriously reflecting on the part they play in the lives of all who use their services, Gerber uncovers something reflective and moving on the way. The film confronts the big existential questions, and taps into something eternal all its own. 

Where to go after: There’s no better place to go get a bite or drink following a documentary about death than the Pine Box (1600 Melrose Ave), which was itself formerly a funeral home. 

MAY 15: I WANT YOUR SEX

Where and when to see: Friday, May 15, at 9:15 p.m.

SIFF Cinema Downtown (2100 4th Ave)

Next, we turn from small films about death to big ones about, as the French call it, the “little death.” That’s right, we’re now talking about the new film from longtime indie cinema icon Gregg Araki, I Want Your Sex, which premiered at Sundance in January. 

Part sex comedy and part erotic thriller, the film stars Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde (more on her other film shortly) as a duo whose sexual escapades are messy right from the jump. Hoffman plays a naïve young fellow who begins working for Wilde — a famous artist with social power even as her relevance is fading — only to find that his job will require him to give his time, and his body. As Wilde’s artist begins to take more and more from him, what initially felt like a fun fantasy becomes something a bit darker, throwing in enough deception, depravity, disappearances, and hints of death to make even your favorite erotic thriller writer blush. 

For all the messiness, Araki remains (mostly) light on his feet in how he teases this all out, playfully needling the younger generation about how they aren’t having sex anymore while he has a laugh at his own generation’s expense. It’s far from his best work, but even a lesser Araki film is still a good time.

Where to go before/after: Folks so inclined can peruse the historic Fantasy UnLtd (1510 1st Ave) or your favorite sex shop to see if there is anything you want to give a go at from the film. Cheers! 

MAY 16: POWOW PEOPLE

Where and when to see: Saturday, May 16, at 2:30 p.m.

SIFF Cinema Downtown (2100 4th Ave)

Back to local documentaries: We have one of the best films of the festival, if not the last several years, in Sky Hopinka’s Powwow People. Shot at Seattle’s Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in collaboration with powwow participants, including the veteran emcee with a voice of gold, Ruben Little Head, and the many organizers, the film invites you in but critically never holds your hand in the process. 

Patiently observational while also proving poetically reflective, Powwow People ponders the history of this tradition, and how it may continue to change in the future; it’s a flooring film that deserves far more attention here, where it was shot. 

It’s not as experimental as some of Hopinka’s past film work, namely his outstanding shorts like Kicking The Clouds (which is showing as part of a program the day prior at Northwest Film Forum), and is a bit more grounded. However, it’s still a bold, often breathtaking work that is worth dropping everything to go see. Trust me when I say that witnessing it play on what is now one of the biggest remaining screens in the city has the potential to be something quite special. 

Where to go before/after: If within their hours and the weather is nice, going out to the actual Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center (5011 Bernie Whitebear Way) to see where Powwow People was filmed is a great way to learn more about the Indigenous world that the documentary invited us into. 

CLOSING NIGHT

MAY 17: THE INVITE

Where and when to see: Sunday, May 17, at 7 p.m.

SIFF Cinema Downtown (2100 4th Ave)

Last but definitely not least is director Olivia Wilde’s The Invite, her scintillating, bittersweet, and far more successful second feature after 2022’s hit-and-miss Don’t Worry Darling; it serves as one final film that SIFF scooped up from Sundance’s leftovers. 

Boasting a uniformly excellent cast of Wilde, Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, and Penélope Cruz, as well as a sharp script by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, The Invite is technically a remake of the 2020 Spanish film The People Upstairs,taking us through the broadly similar narrative beats of two couples having a dinner party where secrets come pouring out. However, this is no simple cinematic cover with nothing new to say, and instead proves superior to its predecessor, finding plenty of more emotionally affecting notes that sneak up on you. It’s a fittingly buzzy film to close out SIFF 2026, embodying the fest writ large: going down easy, with far more bite to it lurking around the margins. 

Where to go before/after: There is no closing-night party this year due to “budgetary concerns,” but don’t let that stop you from celebrating the end of the festival! I recommend making like a bunny and bouncing over to The Rabbit Box (94 Pike St) for a cocktail, a bite, and a heated discussion over the film. If you’re a couple, maybe you’ll fittingly find another duo to go home with — who knows.