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PASSING SHIPS
by Ann Horton
Today my brother Peter Horton was in town filming for "Grey's Anatomy". I watch him "realize" his dreams. His canvas is a television show. He expresses his dance through a story that others tell. Like a conductor his art is to get everybody playing the same song at the same time. His obvious talent is thrilling, but his expansive kindness to all is the heart of what he does. The guy works at a breakneck pace, but never at anyone else's expense. He learns from everyone as he creates while staying within reach of his own vision. He leads sensitively, allows people to trust him and so they follow his direction. I follow him everywhere all day long like I used to in the woods when we were children.
As we move along, I feel deeper and deeper levels of this visit. There is a "Fairy Tale" celebratory quality to Peter's return to Seattle. Like yesterday when the crew was filming a scene on Queen Anne Hill at Kerry Park, and Mayor Greg Nickels made time to appear in person to greet and offer support to the project. Peter has lived and worked in California since he was ten. I think to myself, "In how many cities in the world would the Mayor come to welcome you home after you've been gone for 40 years?" What a great city !!
At one point we are down at the waterfront in Seattle. And for just a few moments we walk off alone and he says, "Isn't it amazing that we are here today, standing together in this place where we are from?" We look at old historic pictures on a wall as pictures from our past flood us. Images from our childhoods and stories from our parents and grandparents. All of us born and raised in Seattle. This place has a deep echo today. The old train goes by singing an ancient lullaby. The one we could hear in the distance from our house when we lay in our beds at night as kids. The deep currents here sweep through us on this blustery Seattle day. Like tributary rivers, we have different life pathways now, but we definitely come from the same mountain top. And we know it without speaking.
Soon we board a ferry and spend the rest of the day riding it back and forth between Seattle and Bainbridge Island while they film take after take for hours. Arriving over and over at both destinations without ever getting off (either an image of reincarnation, or we are in an episode of the Twilight Zone). At one point Peter actually got off and boarded a helicopter and was zooming and circling the ferry shooting footage. I was down below taking my own pictures of him while he filmed. My daredevil brother, "Spiderman". I flashed on my father, how he would have adored watching this. How much he has missed of our lives. He would have loved to have been here this day watching his BOY flying up there directing the universe, like Icarus, typically way too close to the sun. In the midst of these reflections out of nowhere a gigantic ship filled with containers of cargo (my father's passion and career were the shipping business) came into view right below the helicopter and just filled my lens. It was actually shocking and I put my camera down looking to see if it was really there in the water or just in my head !!!
It jolted me and made me think, It's probably something that simple. Father and Son never apart. Only fractured and separated by my mind in the limits of it's perceptions. For just a moment I got that, and a sweet sense of peace came with it. The feeling of Joy that comes when you run into something "True". And maybe you don't even fully understand it, but you know you are somewhere very near your "True Home". Somewhere restful. Somewhere familiar.
Then as the helicopter veered off and the ship moved on, the biggest wave I have ever felt on a ferry hit us. I mean you had to hold on to a wall to not tip over. And that made me laugh!!
Then the scene changed and the light was different. The sun went down in an orange glowing robe of light that guided the little ferry to shore. Finally we went ashore and "poof" everyone just disappeared and the curtain closed on this production. It felt like the "circus" had suddenly left town.
The next thing I knew I was sitting on a bench in some ferry terminal in Seattle. Just my brother and me (on our cell phones to our children, of course) thinking, "What a story this day has been. What a story inside a story inside a story?" A story in all ways about coming home.
THE END
"SEATTLE EARNS A DOUBLE TAKE AMONG TODAY'S SHOWING"
Robinson Devor's film based on Charle's Mudede's weekly "Stranger" column, "Police Beat" premiers at SIFF.
For more information, please visit
- Seattle PI 6/9/05
"FOOLS FOR SIFF: NOTHING GETS BETWEEN THEM AND FILM FESTIVAL"
"'Fool Serious,' is a group of inveterate film lovers who forgo sleep, laundry and family during the 25-day-long cinematic orgy that is the Seattle International Film Festival."
For more information, please visit
- Seattle PI 6/8/05
"FILM BUFFS GO A LITTLE 'PSYCHO' AT SIFF MOVIE POSTER AUCTION"
"Psycho" poster fetches big bucks at exciting SIFF auction.
For more information, please visit
- Seattle PI 6/13/05
"SEATTLE OFFERS ALTERNATIVE MOVIEGOING EXPERIENCES"
"Moviegoing has become a pretty generic experience, with fans lining up to see much-hyped, overproduced, underachieving, would-be Hollywood blockbusters in partitioned-off, boxlike auditoriums of sterile multiplexes. But Seattle can offer the film fan something different: a unique array of true alternative moviegoing experiences."
For more information, please visit
- Seattle PI 5/18/05
"NORTHWEST FILM FORUM: SEATTLE'S CULTURAL FOCAL POINT"
"With film at its center, the forum is a hub that draws from visual art, theater, dance and music communities, recognizing what the forum's Adam Hart calls the fluid new reality of contemporary art."
For more information, please visit
- Seattle PI 4/15/05
"DOING THE SUNDANCE: SEATTLE FILMMAKERS IN WHIRL"
Seattle film, "Police Beat," is screened at Sundance.
For more information, please visit
- Seattle Times 1/27/05
"LOCAL NON-PROFIT FILM STUDIO PREMIERES ITS FIRST FEATURE"
Read more about the Northwest Film Forum's new non-profit film studio called "The Film Company."
For more information, please visit
- Seattle Times, December 9, 2004
"SUNDANCE ACCEPTS SEATTLE FILM"
Robinson Devor's made-in-Seattle drama "Police Beat" is one of 16 films chosen for the dramatic competition of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.
For more information, please visit
- Seattle Times, November 30, 2004
"URBANWORLD"
Local independent film by Malik Isasis of Sankofa Studio, recently completed filming in Seattle. The film features Ishmael Butler (Butterfly of the Grammy award-winning group Digable Planets), Sir Mix-A-Lot, HBO's Def Jam Poet Laura Pierce Kelley, up-and-coming fashion designer Wai Ching Lueng and members of Maktub and UrbanScribe in a gritty urban tale of consequence.
For more information please contact Malik Isasis at malik2@earthlink.net.
ACTION! FILM FORUM'S OPERATIONS CENTER IS UP AND RUNNING
"When construction started inside 1515 Twelfth Ave. early this year, it was little more than a big, empty warehouse. Come Thursday, a grand opening will show off a fully integrated operations center for film exhibition, production and education."
- Seattle PI October 4, 2004
THE FILM SCHOOL
Five well-known Seattle-area filmmakers, film advocates and teachers have partnered with Cinema Seattle (organizers of the Seattle International Film Festival) to create The Film School, a unique conservatory focused on the art of storytelling for the cinema.
WINTER SESSION, FEBRUARY 5 - 26, 2005
THE CORE 3 WEEK WRITING AND DIRECTING SESSIONS. Three intensive weeks studying six days and five evenings a week with leading filmmakers and teachers. It's all about story - how to write it and how to direct it.
The mission is to encourage the individual voice, excellence in dramatic writing, and the illumination of the human condition.
For more information visit www.thefilmschool.com or call 206.709.2555.
HUMANITIES WASHINGTON offers DOCUMENTARY FILM & VIDEO GRANTS
Humanities Washington administers a pooled fund to support documentary filmmaking. Eligible documentaries may take up many different kinds of stories and themes as long as they are rich in humanities content and analysis.
The next grant application deadline deadline will be announced in January 2005.
For more information, please visit www.humanities.org/grants/mediagrants.php
SEATTLE CHANNEL Features TV Series Focusing on Film -
"The American Avant Garde"
Airing on the Seattle Channel (cable 21) twice on Thursdays (7:30pm + other time TBD)
Groundbreaking 30-minute TV show provides a riveting look at cinematic innovation - an independent film festival in your own living room.
For more information, please visit www.theamericanavantgarde.com
LITTLE THEATERS ARE BACK
Boutique Art Houses Are Sprouting Up All Over Seattle, to the Delight of Movie Buffs
- Seattle PI June 10th, 2004
KCTS LOCAL SERIES SHOWCASES WORKS BY NORTHWEST INDEPENDENT FILMMAKERS
For more information, please visit www.kcts.org
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