The North Bend Film Festival returns in-person to the historic North Bend Theatre August 4 – 7, 2022. This year’s strong and diverse lineup of feature length and short films offers unique voices and compelling perspectives that the festival has become known for. The event takes place in the iconic town that David Lynch shot Twin Peaks. The four day event has returned to completely in-person.
Opening the festival in outrageous fashion is the Patton Oswalt starrer, I Love My Dad. Writer/director James Morosini stars opposite Oswalt in this shockingly autobiographical story, in which a desperate father catfishes his estranged, suicidal son in order to stay in touch with him. The Closing Night film is up-and-coming filmmaker Amanda Kramer’s vibrant musical Please Baby Please featuring a star-studded cast including the iconic Demi Moore, Andrea Riseborough, Harry Melling, and Karl Glusman. Set in 1950s Manhattan, it explores themes of sexual identity and emotional fragility, accompanied by a wild neon aesthetic and hyper stylized, choreographed performances.
This year’s first Centerpiece film comes from filmmaker Mali Elfman, who is also the recipient of the festival’s Dulac Vanguard Filmmaker Award. In Elfman’s directorial debut feature Next Exit, a scientist proves the existence of an afterlife, causing two deeply tormented strangers to travel cross-country together to take part in the study and voluntarily end their lives.
“Elfman has gifted us with a compassionate work of genre fiction, taking a bold premise and balancing terror, humor and empathy with a graceful hand,” says Senior Programmer Joseph Hernandez. “Dedicating her career to a love of genre film, championing female filmmakers and building a separate body of work in the medium of immersive experiences, Mali Elfman is the kind of multi-disciplinary artist that completely embodies the spirit of North Bend Film Festival. We’re elated to award her the second-ever Dulac.”
While Elvis is currently making a splash in mainstream cinema, the North Bend Film Festival will celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Don Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep, the real story (or is it?) of Elvis and John F. Kennedy This totally bizarre cult-comedy is proudly presented at the festival for attendees to discover or rediscover on the big screen.
The shorts programs are once again highlighted by three different blocks; Home Transmissions, featuring shorts from filmmakers in the PNW, Something Strange, bolstering short films that are wonderfully weird, and Cinema Vista, which highlights genre-bending shorts. On the events side, the popular Strange Storytelling Hour returns, hosted by Seattle-based storyteller, comedian, and weirdo Emmett Montgomery. For those looking for something more on the spooky side, there is Ghost Hunting 101, an introduction to paranormal investigation, ghost hunting with local area haunts also explained.
The North Bend Film Festival badges are now on sale HERE
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