PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend Film Festival will host six well-known names from the world of film as special guests next weekend.
Among those attending the festival, planned Sept. 23-25, will be actress Karen Allen, actor and director Andrew Perez, director and composer Alexander Janko and director Charlie Soap.
Also in attendance will be Pixar animator David Tart, who worked on such films as “Toy Story,” “A Bug’s Life,” “Finding Nemo” and “Monsters Inc.”
Emmy-winning producer Bill Borden will return to Port Townsend after 35 years. He was last in town as the location manager for the movie “An Officer and a Gentlemen,” which was filmed at Fort Worden State Park and in downtown Port Townsend.
This is the 17th year for the Port Townsend Film Festival, which will screen 97 films throughout three days in venues throughout Port Townsend.
Allen — named one of the world’s most beautiful women in the 1980s — is returning to the festival after attending in 2013.
Screenings of Allen’s new film “Year by the Sea,” based on a memoir by Joan Anderson, are planned, said Jan Halliday, the communications director for the festival. After the screenings, Allen will be available to answer questions.
Joining her will be Janko, who wrote the screenplay for “Year by the Sea,” as well as directed it and composed its music.
Janko has composed and orchestrated the scores for more than 65 films and won BMI’s Film Music award for his original score of the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”
Soap will return to the North Olympic Peninsula for a screening of “The Cherokee Word for Water,” a film he directed.
During his last visit in January, there was standing-room-only in the theaters screening his film, said film festival officials.
“The Cherokee Word for Water” will screen twice during the festival. Soap is full-blood Cherokee, speaks the Cherokee language fluently and is married to the Cherokee leader Wilma Mankiller, officials said.
Actor and director Perez will attend screenings of his film “Bastards y Diablos,” a film he both wrote and stars in, which was filmed in Colombia in South America.
Allen and Perez will conduct a session with Port Townsend High School students the afternoon of Sept. 23.
The festival will begin at 9 a.m. Sept. 23 with the first screenings at the Starlight Room and Cotton Building and end after 9:30 p.m. Sunday with screenings of the jury prize-winning films.
Movies will range from outdoor films to documentaries, narratives and shorts.
During the festival, each of the theaters in downtown Port Townsend will screen more than 42 feature films each day.
Pass prices range from $15 rush tickets, which are cash only and can be purchased 10 minutes before any film screening that still has seats available, to the $1,500 pass, which comes with guaranteed seating to unlimited films as well as entrance to invitation-only events.
Passes can be purchased at www.ptfilmfest.com.
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Jefferson County Editor/Reporter Cydney McFarland can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 5550, or at [email protected].
Charlie Soap
Karen Allen
