Seattle Office of Film + Music

MAYOR ANNOUNCES $500,000 INVESTMENT IN ARTS EDUCATION

Today the Mayor announced that the city of Seattle will deepen their partnership with the school district to invest in arts education.

Investment dollars will ensure that every student in the Central Pathway of Seattle Public Schools receive a minimum of two hours per week of arts education programming, as well as support the purchase of instruments and other art supplies for classrooms. The Central Pathway, which consists of schools in and around Seattle’s Central District, was chosen due to strong existing partnerships with community-based arts education organizations. The eventual goal of the program is to expand the program each year until all students at Seattle Public Schools receive two hours per week of arts education programming by 2020.

This investment was made possible by higher than expected admission tax revenue, primarily due to the new cultural facilities Chihuly Garden & Glass at Seattle Center and the Great Wheel on the waterfront. City bylaws require that 75 percent of admissions tax funding be dedicated to arts-related programming, allowing the city to invest $500,000 in arts education programs over the next two years.

“This investment will allow us to deepen our existing partnership with Seattle Public Schools to improve access to arts education for all students in our community” said Mayor McGinn. “Arts education has been consistently shown to improve educational outcomes, increase attendance rates and decrease discipline rates.”

Studies have found that Seattle students do not have consistent access to arts education, and access can be predicted based on ethnicity, English-language-learner status or free-and-reduced-lunch status.

This investment builds on the innovative partnership between the city of Seattle and Seattle Public Schools (SPS), now called The Creative Advantage.  In 2011 the city and SPS received a Wallace Foundation planning grant of $1 million, which provided for the creation of a comprehensive K-12 arts plan that ensures that every student will receive 120 minutes of arts instruction per week. This investment kick-starts the implementation phase of the Creative Advantage.

“Our community has spent the last two years developing and writing this plan, and the time is now to make it a reality,” said Superintendent Jose Banda. “Our first investment area is the Central Pathway.”

“Furthering our work in arts education is the most important thing I can do in this job,” said newly appointed Director Randy Engstrom, Office of Arts & Culture. “This initiative will change the way nearly 50,000 of our city’s young citizens engage with their community and think about the world. This investment is a major turning point.”

 

MAYOR’S OFFICE LAUNCHES STARTUP SEATTLE INITIATIVE TO SUPPORT LOCAL TECH STARTUP COMMUNITY GROWTH

Leaders of Seattle’s startup community and the city of Seattle have teamed up to launch Startup Seattle, an initiative to support the growth of the Seattle technology startup community and establish Seattle as an internationally recognized home for emerging technology companies. Today, Mayor Mike McGinn hosted a press conference to announce the group’s action plan at the downtown Seattle headquarters of Zillow, one of Seattle’s most successful startups in recent years.

“Startup companies are an important part of Seattle’s innovative local economy,” said McGinn. “That’s why we are working hard to support startup businesses that could turn in to the next Microsoft or Amazon. I thank all of our partners in this work to help support our local economy, which is growing faster than the rest of the region, state and country.”

“Economic recovery doesn’t happen all on its own and this initiative is consistent with Council’s economic recovery resolution calling for actions that make it easier to do business in Seattle,” said Councilmember Richard Conlin.

During the next year, the City plans to hire a startup business sector liaison, re-launch the resource website startupseattle.com, form partnerships with local organizations such as Code.org, Startup Weekend and Student RnD to increase access and connect high school students with local technology opportunities, and develop a marketing campaign to help attract talent to Seattle from across the country. In addition, the City will continue to support “innovation hubs” that make neighborhoods more attractive to early-stage technology companies and initiate a market assessment of real-estate needs for startups that will be used to guide new transit-oriented development in the University District.

To learn more about StartupSeattle, visit: startupseattle.com,

To read the full press release, visit: http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/press/newsdetail.asp?ID=13643

PUBLIC FORUM ON SPECIAL EVENTS MAY 17

“Special Events – Success in Seattle” is a public Forum about the Special Events Process put together by the Washington State Liquor Control Board. The Forum will take place from 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. on Friday, May 17 at City Hall’s Bertha Knight Landes Room.

This public Forum will jointly guide community partners through the State and City regulations and processes.  Agency representatives will be available from 12 p.m.-1 p.m. and directly after the Forum to meet and greet attendees, answer individual questions, and provide useful handout information. The Forum will take place from 1 p.m.- 4 p.m. with ample opportunity to take the questions from the floor.

Chris Swenson, Film + Special Events Program Manager, will be present to answer questions about the Special Events permitting process that the City of Seattle requires.

Space is limited, so please RSVP here.

For more from the Seattle Special Events Office, visit http://www.seattle.gov/specialevents/

‘NORTHWEST CONNECTIONS’ SHOWS LOCAL FILMMAKING TALENT AT SIFF

SIFF

Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF)’s Northwest Connections program will highlight products of filmmakers from the Puget Sound region. With eight narrative features, six documentaries, and 34 short films screening, this is a fruitful year for the Northwest filmmaking community.

Seattleites see more films per capita than the residents of any other American city, and a growing number of these selections have their roots in the fertile Pacific Northwest film community. Each year, SIFF honors the many ways in which the Puget Sound region contributes to the world of cinema, whether it acts as an evocative location for outside filmmakers or as inspiration for local filmmakers ready to strut their stuff.

Here is the full list of Northwest Connections films for this year’s festival:

Alive and Well 

Barzan 

Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton

Dead Meat Walking – A Zombie Walk Documentary

Evergreen: The Road to Legalization in Washington 

Finding Hillywood

Her Aim Is True

Improvement Club

Middleton

The Otherside

The Punk Singer

Shadowed

Scrapper

Touchy Feely

Unhung Hero

Seattle is also featured in the Fly Filmmaking Challenge 2013, with Seattle’s most iconic neighborhood locations supplying the backdrop of an incredibly entertaining program. With only three days to shoot, five days to edit, and three days of post-production, the most promising local educational filmmaking programs highlight the creativity of Washington’s filmmaking community. Fly Film Producer Washington Filmworks partnered with the City’s Only In Seattle campaign to coordinate filming in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, Georgetown, International District, and Fremont Neighborhoods. Participating filmmaking programs in this year’s program are the Art Institute of Seattle, Seattle Central Community College, Seattle University, and Shoreline Community College.

Here are short profiles of the eight Fly Filmmaking Challenge 2013 films, scheduled for May 27 and June 05 at Egyptian Theatre and SIFF Cinema Uptown, respectively:

A Gift

A Gift introduces Samuel Green, Washington State’s first poet laureate, whose poetry inspired The Only Time We Have. Samuel uses poetry to make sense of his life experiences as well as to better understand others.

Breathing in Wartime

Breathing in Wartime is a circular narrative that elides the transformation of an industrial district with the uncertain progress of its citizens.

Golden Silence

Inspired by a goldfish while attending a Humanities Conference, Derek Sheffield crafted a poem based on duality and symbolism which strongly inspired Curtis Taylor’s Breathing in Wartime.

It’s Music, People!

A glimpse into the world of Samantha Boshnack, an eclectic musician and diverse composer whose work provides the foundation for Ben Andrews’ The Three Stars.

The Only Time We Have

What does it mean to be the last in a lineage? The Only Time We Have explores the day in a life of an elderly man who reflects back on a sliver of time that changes the course of his life forever.

The Rhythm of Inspiration

Jovino Santos Neto, the artist who inspired Lulu Gargiulo’s Two Friends, details his journey through the transformative power of music, its link to nature, and the sounds that surround our everyday lives.

The Three Stars

Amid an atmosphere of mounting cultural and economic tensions, an innocent stopover brings a elderly shop owner, a business man, and his wife together in an unexpected and powerful tale of prosperity, longevity and good fortune.

Two Friends

Two Friends is a day in the life of Bobby, a gregarious 80-year-old nursing home resident and his caregiver Solomon, a shy African immigrant. In this unlikely relationship, we see that there’s more than one way to care for a friend.

NFFTY 2013 KICKS OFF THIS THURSDAY, SHOWCASES LOCAL TALENT

NFFTY 2013

NFFTY 2013 is finally here and tickets are selling fast. This year brings with it another outstanding lineup of films from the world’s most promising young filmmakers, including the work of many talented young Seattle artists. A notable number of international young filmmakers will be joining the festival this year as well representing countries including Egypt, Denmark, Greece, South Africa, United Kingdom, Norway, India, and more.

The four day festival is jam-packed with films but also includes opportunities to meet and mingle with the filmmakers, attend panel discussions with experts in the industry, and vote for your favorite high school competitors in the 48 hour film-off, just to name a few of the festival’s events. Below are some of the ways to engage with the inspiring opportunities that this festival brings to Seattle’s film scene.

Highlighted Events of NFFTY 2013:

NFFTY 2013 begins this Thursday, April 25 with their opening night gala. This red carpeted event includes an outstanding lineup of short films and is a great opportunity to meet and mingle with Seattle’s finest, Hollywood industry and the young filmmakers of NFFTY 2013.

Here is just a sampling of some of the local talent highlighted in this year’s festival. Check out all screenings here.

• Leo Pfeifer, 14:  This local filmmaker as 2 films in the festival this year, both great documentaries.  This year his film “74″ deals with Referendum 74 and it’s passing.  His films are featured in the Be Yourself screening on April 28.

• Chase Crittenden, 16: Chase’s film, “Lost and Found” is in the Centerpiece screening. This professional young filmmaker has had great success and is negotiating big deals for his next feature film.

• Andrew Mitrack, 22: A UW Student, his dark romantic comedy “One Way Single” is in the Closing Night screening.

In addition to the many films, the festival also includes a competition of films that participated in the 48 hour film-off. Participants included nine local high schools who are competing for $1500 in cash for their school’s film program. This Saturday, you can watch all the films  and cheer on your choice school.

This year’s festival includes three filmmaking panel discussions:

A Web of Content: Filmmaking in the Digital Age

Create A Career: Life After NFFTY

Masterclass: Documentaries The Danish Way

These panels offer young filmmakers a chance to engage with experts in the filmmaking field, including filmmakers, corporate brand leaders, digital distribution expert, as well as NFFTY alumni who are now editors, cinematographers, writers, production designers, and costume designers. Discussions will help any young person looking to go into a career in the filmmaking industry a sense for how to navigate their own path to success.  You can find more information on these panels here.