“THIS IS REALLY SHOWING OFF what Bremerton is,” says Blake Yarbrough, president of the Roxy Theatre Association. The historic Roxy Theatre is situated on the east end of Fourth Street surrounded by shops, just a short walk away from the ferry terminal. Outside on the first Friday of August, it was bustling with life. That weekend, downtown Bremerton would be home to the West Sound Film Festival, which would bring together filmmakers from Kitsap and beyond.
Downtown Bremerton didn’t always have the life it has today.
I grew up just up the hill from the shipyard and have watched the area grow. For a long time, there were many empty storefronts. In recent years, it has grown into a place for weekend fun, shopping, and tourists. I attribute many of these changes to Seefilm, which opened back in 2012. At the time it was described as “bringing the neighborhood cinema back to the Puget Sound area.” The theater brought more people into downtown, which encouraged new businesses to open up. Seefilm was a part of the festival this year. The festrival screened movies of many different genres from feature dramas to short documentaries.
The West Sound Film Festival was started in 2016 by Amy Camp and Nick Taylor. It was originally held in Port Orchard. However, in the past few years it has been held in Bremerton at both Seefilm and the Roxy Theatre. The Roxy has been open since 1941, which makes it more than 80 years old! “It’s wonderful to be able to have the festival in historic sites which help us appreciate how film has impacted us through the years,” says Amy.
Independent films offer opportunities to share stories that otherwise would go untold. Film festivals like this offer the perfect space for filmmakers to share them. The West Sound Film Festival showcased many different local films that shared those untold stories, such as “Fantasy A Gets a Mattress,” and “Kings of Gorst Creek.”
“Fantasy A Gets a Mattress” was a particularly striking story to me. It followed an autistic rapper in Seattle on a quest for fame, struggling through predatory group home managers, homelessness, and flakey friends who take advantage of him. “There are a lot of stories that can only be told through independent film. I cannot imagine pitching a film starring a lead actor with autism playing himself to a major studio and walking away with Avatar bucks.” Co-Producer David Lewis says.
While this sounds like a serious film, it’s actually a comedy.
Another producer of the film, Safiye Şentürk, said that they really just set out to make a comedy, but many audiences have connected with the deeper story that the film portrays. At the audience Q&A, the star of the film, Fantasy A, said, “It helps people understand my life, and what I’ve been through.”
While he himself has never been homeless, the storyline following the predatory group home manager of the story is based on a real part of his life. The Seattle homelessness crisis is at an all time high. Stories such as this demonstrate part of the reason why the crisis is so bad.
Portraying that through comedy helps audiences connect better with the plot. Art, and in particular film, has the power to give us access into the minds and lives of those who are different from us. Which then leads us to better understand a group or situation.
Understanding is a key theme in ‘Kings of Gorst Creek’ as it documents the reasoning behind the use of gillnets in Sinclair Inlet. The documentary starts with the story of director Andrew Wright growing up fishing with his grandfather next to tribal fishermen. He remembers feeling frustrated coming back with nothing when he saw the tribal fishermen collecting tons of fish using gillnets. Many people villainize tribal fishermen because they do not understand why nets are used and why salmon are not being allowed to go up Gorst Creek to spawn. But the reality is the fish being collected in the gillnets are not native to Gorst Creek.
For over forty years the Suqamish tribe has been working to improve salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest using hatcheries and rearing facilities. Every year, they release almost three million Chinook, Chum, and Coho Salmon. Then, later in the year when salmon come back, they then use gillnets to catch the fish. It is a common misconception that the tribal fishermen are catching native fish and hurting the population. When the reality, according to this film, is they are just catching fish that they bred and released for this exact purpose. The film describes it as being “no different than a farmer raising a cow to be killed and eaten.”
The videography for this film was particularly stunning. It documented the process that the salmon go through. Although it was at times gruesome, the images remained beautiful. The process of capturing these eye-catching videos was described as ‘just grabbing what I saw,’ letting the magic of post production do its job. Director Andrew Wright went to college for film right here in Bremerton at Olympic College. When he started at OC, there was not a documentary program, but there is one now, and he graduated from that program.
Overall what Kings Of Gorst Creek was able to capture was the complexity of the salmon situation here in the Pacific Northwest. While I, and many others, sincerely care about the salmon population, we don’t all understand the issues that fuel it. The key to better understanding is through sharing stories such as these.
As Wright said, “we are all in this battle for salmon together.”
From new faces, to new perspectives, independent films offer what big budget Hollywood movies can’t. Creating spaces for these stories to be shared openly without restriction is more important than ever. Art is about leaning into unique perspectives. While not everyone is committed to creating space for those perspectives to be shared, the organizer of the film festival, Amy Camp, is. She says, “Having new and different perspectives on the screen is only possible if we create an environment that is open to everyone.” The West Sound film festival is that environment, and it was a beautiful weekend to witness. // KEELY RIGGS
SOME PEOPLE WONDER ‘How do these film festival things work?’ I can’t afford a three-day pass for hundreds of dollars. I probably couldn’t sit and watch movies for three days straight if I tried. But it looks like there’s some cool stuff on the schedule. Do I have to buy the whole pass for that one thing I wanted to see? What if I wanted to see just that one and another one? Short answer: each festival is different. Check the websites, find something that sounds interesting and go see something you’ve never seen before…
FRANK BUXTON SILENT FILM FEST
Sept 16-17 / biartmuseum.org
PORT TOWNSEND FILM FEST
Sept 21-25 / ptfilmfest.com
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND FILM FEST
Sept 22-24 / bifilmfest.org
GIG HARBOR FILM FEST
Sept 21-24 / gigharborfilm.org
MANHATTAN SHORT FILM FEST
Sept 28-Oct 6 / manhattanshort.com
POULSBO FILM FEST
Oct 13-15 / poulsbofilmfestival.com
