Riotsville, U.S.A.
Playing at Pickford Film Center91 minutes, USA, In English, Documentary Rated NR: _ Directed by: Sierra Pettengill
Welcome to Riotsville, USA–a point in American history when the nation’s rulers–politicians, bureaucrats, police–were faced with the mounting militancy of the late-1960s, and did everything possible to win the war in the streets. Using training footage of Army-built model towns called “Riotsvilles” where military and police were trained to respond to civil disorder, in addition to nationally broadcast news media, director Sierra Pettnegill connects the stagecraft of “law and order” to the real violence of state practice. Recovering an obscured history whose effects have shaped the present in ways both insidious and explosive, Riotsvile, USA is a poetic and furious reflection on the rebellions of the 1960s–and the machine that worked to destroy them.
Marcel the Shell
Playing at Pickford Film Center90 minutes, USA, In English, Comedy Rated PG: Some suggestive material and thematic elements OCAPDirected by: Dean Fleischer-Camp
Marcel is an adorable one-inch-tall shell who ekes out a colorful existence with his grandmother Connie and their pet lint, Alan. Once part of a sprawling community of shells, they now live alone as the sole survivors of a mysterious tragedy. But when a documentary filmmaker discovers them amongst the clutter of his Airbnb, the short film he posts online brings Marcel millions of passionate fans, as well as unprecedented dangers and a new hope at finding his long-lost family. A beloved character gets his big-screen debut in this hilarious and heartwarming story about finding connection in the smallest corners.
OCAP: All screenings are open captioned.
Make People Better
Playing at Pickford Film Center83 minutes, English, In DOC-Science/Medicine, Doctober Rated NR: _ Directed by Cody Sheehy
In 2018, Chinese scientist Dr. He Jiankui disappears after developing the first HIV-resistant “designer babies” (who also disappear), shocking the world and the scientific community. Director Cody Sheehy rightly asks some important questions: how could such a monumental breakthrough be the work of a lone scientist? What would governments gain from such genetic controls? Playing like a thriller, the film illustrates a gulf between the hunger for some scientists to push boundaries and the public who assumes that a greater degree of restraint controls those impulses.
The Thief Collector
Playing at Pickford Film Center93 minutes, USA, In English, Documentary Rated NR: _ Directed by Allison Otto
Co-presented by Eartha Kitty’s Estate Sales
This hugely entertaining film, which has great fun using re-enactments, details one of the most audacious and puzzling art thefts of a generation: in 1985, Willem de Kooning’s seminal work, Woman Ochre, was sliced from its frame and stolen from the walls of an Arizona art museum, disappearing into the desert. More than thirty years later, the now-valued $160 million dollar painting was rediscovered in the unlikeliest of places: behind a door in a house in Silver CIty, New Mexico. Come and meet the Alters, a couple like you’ve not met before.
See How They Run
Playing at Pickford Film Center98 minutes, USA, In English, Thriller Rated PG-13: Some violence and a sexual reference CCAPDirected by: Tom George
In the West End of 1950s London, plans for a movie version of a smash-hit play come to an abrupt halt after a pivotal member of the crew is murdered. When world-weary Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and eager rookie Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) take on the case, the two find themselves thrown into a puzzling whodunit within the glamorously sordid theater underground, investigating the mysterious homicide at their own peril.
After Sherman
Playing at Pickford Film Center88 minutes, USA, In English, DOC-Social/Racial Justice Rated NR: _ DoctoberDirected by: Jon Sesrie Goff
A meditative examination, After Sherman is a story about inheritance and the tension that defines our collective American (and especially Black) history. The director’s personal exploration of coastal South Carolina as a site of pride and racial trauma through Gullah cultural retention (the particular plantation enslavements of the lower Atlantic Coast) and land preservation, is interrupted by the tragic shootings at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC.
Today
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Riotsville, U.S.A.
2:45pm 5:25pm -
Marcel the Shell
3:00pm -
Make People Better
5:15pm -
The Thief Collector
7:25pm -
See How They Run
7:35pm
Saturday
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Riotsville, U.S.A.
5:15pm -
Marcel the Shell
12:30pm 7:35pm -
See How They Run
2:45pm -
After Sherman
11:45am -
My Imaginary Country
1:55pm -
Master of Light
4:00pm -
Exposure
6:05pm -
The Pez Outlaw
8:40pm -
American Movie (1999)
10:00pm
Sunday
Full List of Showtimes
Thank You To Our Funders
The Pickford Film Center acknowledges that we are residing on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Lummi People. The Lummi People are the original inhabitants of Washington’s northernmost coast and southern British Columbia. They lived in villages throughout this territory and continue to have an ongoing relationship with these areas. Since Time Immemorial they have celebrated life on their land, water ways and on the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of their People to perpetuate their way of life. Please join us as we honor their ancestors and as we acknowledge the past, present and future Lummi People as the original inhabitants of this land
Pickford Film Center is supported in part by a grant from The National Endowment for the Arts in response to the Covid 19 pandemic