Movies - Seattle International Film Festival

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The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), held annually in Seattle, Washington, is purported to be the largest film festival in the United States and among the top film festivals in the world. The annual SIFF runs for three weeks and features a diverse assortment of predominantly independent and foreign films and, in recent years, a strong contingent of documentaries. The 2005 festival ran May 19-June 12, 2005.

The festival began at a then-independent cinema, the Moore Egyptian Theater (now back to its earlier name, the Moore Theater, and functioning as a concert venue). When the owners of the Moore Egyptian lost their lease, they founded the Egyptian theater in a former Masonic Temple on Seattle's Capitol Hill, which remains the prime festival venue to this day, although the festival now typically uses about half a dozen cinemas, the exact roster varying from year to year.

During the 1980s, SIFF audiences developed a reputation for appreciating films that did not fit standard industry niches, such as Richard Rush's multi-layered The Stunt Man
(1980). SIFF was instrumental in the entry of Dutch films into the United States market, including the first major American success for director Paul Verhoeven.

The festival includes a sidebar that is probably unique among major film festivals: a four-film "Secret Festival". Those who attend the Secret Festival do not know in advance what they will see, and they must sign an oath that they will not reveal afterwards what they have seen.

In general, SIFF has a reputation as an "audience festival" rather than an "industry festival". The first week of the festival overlaps the Cannes Film Festival, not a recipe for drawing the industry bigwigs.

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