PORT TOWNSEND — Going to the Port Townsend Film Festival, which starts Friday and runs like a freight train through Sunday, isn’t much like moviegoing the rest of the year.
Instead, it’s a whirl of sensations.
That’s what hit Bobby Whittaker, son of famed mountaineer Jim Whittaker of Port Townsend, when he first saw one of this weekend’s documentaries, “Return to Mount Kennedy,” on a big screen.
“You laugh and you cry. It’s pretty intense,” Bobby said in an interview this week.
The 19th annual Port Townsend Film Festival opens its downtown hospitality center today at the Northwind Arts Center, 701 Water St., so from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m., patrons can purchase and upgrade passes, pick up free programs listing all of the films and events and have cups of free coffee.
The Rose Theatre has a front-row seat for the Taylor Street activities during the Port Townsend Film Festival this Friday through Sunday. (Diane Urbani de la Paz/for Peninsula Daily News)
“Mount Kennedy” is about two families, the Whittakers and the Kennedys, as in Robert F. Kennedy and his son, Chris. In 1965, Jim Whittaker and his friend RFK climbed a 13,944-foot peak in Canada’s Yukon, after the mountain had been named after assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
Fifty years later Bobby Whittaker — named after his father’s friend — was busy with his career in the rock music industry.
But he and his much younger brother Leif decided to get together with Chris Kennedy, the eighth of RFK’s 11 children, and go for a climb.
Filmmaker Eric Becker tells the tale, creating a movie about finding one’s own path in life. He introduces us to Bobby, who as a young man didn’t follow his father into mountaineering. He worked at Sub Pop Records in Seattle, worked as the band REM’s road manager and became good friends with rockers such as Eddie Vedder.
So “Mount Kennedy” has the snowy ascent, yes, but it also has brand-new, original music by Vedder plus tracks from Mudhoney and REM.
“It’s part rockumentary … it’s amazing,” said Bobby, who in addition to his work in the Seattle music scene runs Ferry County Rail Trail Partners. The nonprofit organization has built non-motorized trails across the northeast Washington county where Bobby now lives.
“It’s sort of me coming back to the family passion,” he said, though “I’m not putting flags on summits. I’m more of a through-hiker.”
The film is “more about public land, thinking local and acting local … it’s a trip. [Becker] braided my experience in there. He brings it in for a landing.”
This movie is prime festival fare, a documentary that takes viewers far — and high — afield, then brings them back down to earth for a chat with the people who made the movie.
Becker as well as Bobby and Leif Whittaker will attend both screenings of “Mount Kennedy” this weekend: at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and noon Sunday.
This is another aspect setting the film festival apart: engaging in conversation after the movie’s credits roll. Of the scores of screenings Friday through Sunday, 52 will have filmmakers — directors, performers, producers — on hand welcoming questions.
The movies start bright and early at 9 a.m. Friday in the Starlight Room above Taylor Street with “Yasuni Man,” a documentary that takes us into the Andes and Amazon wilderness.
Over in the Cotton Building theater on Water Street at 9 a.m., it’s “Something Useful,” the story of two women, a poet and a nursing student, who meet on the train and discover they’ve important things in common.
Three days straight, the movies roll on, morning till night. Among the last shown Sunday is “All the Wild Horses,” an 89-minute documentary about the Mongol Derby horse race; it screens at 6:30 p.m. at the American Legion theater along with “The Mirnavator,” an 11-minute short about teacher, mom and endurance runner Mirna Valerio. Director Sarah Menzies plans to come for a discussion after the screening.
Festival passes start at $40 and rush tickets at the theater doors are $15, but the weekend brings dozens of free movies. Three free classics flicker on the Taylor Street outdoor screen, from “The Lion King” on Friday night to “A Hard Day’s Night” on Sunday. Show time for those is 7:30 p.m.
At the Key City Playhouse at 419 Washington St., aka the Peter Simpson Free Cinema, a full slate of no-charge films will screen, while the Jefferson County Library, 620 Cedar Ave. in Port Hadlock, will present its own slate of free movies Friday through Sunday. For times and titles, see www.JCLibrary.info or call 360-385-6544.
The central party happens downtown at six theaters, some already outfitted for movies and some transforming into cinemas just this week. Altogether there are more than 1,000 seats waiting for people to see 23 feature documentaries, 20 narrative features and 40 short films.
Most of the shorts, ranging from two to 25 minutes, are shown right before the feature-length movies, while others are grouped into programs. “The Artist’s Journey” program, for example, includes six, including “The Human Face,” about mask sculptor Kazuhiro Tsuji, and “Smithy & Dickie,” an Irish film about love letters that have survived since the 1940s.
When it comes to accomplished guests, 2018’s film festival has it going on. Danny Glover, known for the “Lethal Weapon” series and for community activism, has two appearances planned for Friday.
First he’ll participate in a “Community Conversation” with World without Hate founder Rais Bhuiyan at First Presbyterian Church, 1111 Franklin St., at 1:30 p.m. Audience members are urged to come early to the free event.
“A Special Evening with Danny Glover” takes place at the 250-seat American Legion theater, Water and Monroe streets, at 6:30 p.m. Friday. Pass holders will see “To Sleep with Anger,” the 1990 drama Glover suggested for the event.
Glover will receive the Port Townsend Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award honoring his work for social justice around the world.
“To Sleep with Anger” was directed by Charles Burnett, the Oscar-winning filmmaker also coming to Port Townsend this weekend. He’ll present his newest documentary, “The Power to Heal,” at noon Sunday in the Starlight Room.
Yet another director, New Zealand-born Dame Jane Campion, plans to be here too, along with her producer Tanya Seghatchian. Campion, winner of the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or for her 1993 film “The Piano,” will be seeing movies and strolling downtown like the rest of the cinemaphiles.
Janette Force, queen cinephile and executive director of the festival, is feeling grateful — and girding for the unexpected.
“This is my ninth season,” she said.
“Every year is so wildly different. You never know how all of it will unfold.”
Information is abundant at www.PTFilmFest.com, while the crew takes calls at 360-379-1333. A guide to festival events will appear in the Arts & Entertainment section of Friday’s Peninsula Daily News.
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Diane Urbani de la Paz, a former features editor for the Peninsula Daily News, is a freelance writer living in Port Townsend.
