The Noir City Film Festival aids the Film Noir Foundation in their mission to preserve and create a theatrical audience for noir films
Noir City Film Festival started in 2016 and takes place in Alameda, CA
The 2020 incarnation of the world’s most popular Film Noir festival, Noir City, is returning to the legendary SIFF Cinema Egyptian February 14 through 20 for a weeklong excursion into darkness hosted by Eddie Muller, internationally renowned “Czar of Noir” and host of the popular Turner Classic Movies series “Noir Alley.”
Noir City, the world’s most popular Film Noir festival, returns to the legendary Egyptian theater in Seattle, Washington, from February 15 through 21, 2019 for a week-long indulgence of danger, desire, and despair. The 2019 festival presents 20 classic films covering the years 1949 to 1959, as they were experienced on their original releases, pairing a top-tier studio “A” with a shorter, low-budget second feature, or “B” film. Many of the films will be presented in glorious 35mm. Czar of Noir and host of TCM’s “Noir Alley,” Eddie Muller, will host the week-long Festival.
The Maltese Falcon[/caption]
The Film Noir festival, Noir City, returns to the legendary Egyptian theater in Seattle for the 2018 edition from February 16 through 22, with exceptional films from the most “noir” of decades, 1941 to 1951. The festival presents 18 classic films as they were experienced on their original releases, pairing a top-tier studio “A” with a shorter, low-budget second feature, or “B” film. All but two of the films will be presented in glorious 35mm.
The host of Noir City, Czar of Noir Eddie Muller, will also be back to delight audiences with twisted tales and anecdotes about each film. If you’ve seen his show “Noir Alley” on Turner Classic Movies, then you know what an incomparable master of the darkest corners of human motivation he is. Eddie is available for interviews via phone or SKYPE.
Opening Night the Egyptian will be transformed into a haven for gangsters, molls, vixens, and villains, with Noir-themed wine and a shadowy cityscape photo booth to capture patrons at their sinister best. Presented in 35mm, the Opening Night film, The Maltese Falcon (1941), John Huston’s remarkable directorial debut, sets the tone for this year’s stellar line-up. The As include The Blue Dahlia (1946), starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, which incredibly is making its first appearance in Noir City, and Flesh and Fantasy (1943), by renowned French director Julien Divivier and featuring a dazzling cast including Barbara Stanwyck, Charles Boyer, Edward G. Robinson, and Robert Cummings.
The Bs include Quiet Please, Murder (1942), a surprisingly racy film starring George Sanders as a cunning forger that must match wits with an equally cunning femme fatale (Gail Patrick), and Bodyguard (1948), a film that ironically stars real-life lawbreaker Lawrence Tierney as a lawman framed for a murder in a meat-packing plant. This breakneck-paced thriller is also distinguished by the co-writer, Robert Altman.
On closing night, the Film Noir Foundation’s latest restoration, an independently made noir crowd pleaser The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950), will have its Seattle premiere (the world premiere is only a couple of weeks earlier at the San Francisco Noir City). Thanks to the generosity of FNF donors, the Foundation was able to fully fund the restoration of this film. Starring Lee J. Cobb, this James M. Cain-style thriller gets maximum impact from its San Francisco locations, including a memorable climax at Fort Point.
“We are excited for this year’s Noir City to return,” says SIFF Artistic Director Beth Barrett. “The 1915 Masonic Temple building that houses the Egyptian has some dark shadows of its own. There’s definitely no better or more atmospheric movie palace to host Noir City in Seattle, one of the greatest movie-going cities in the nation.”