Seattle Area Families: Check out Great Family Programming from SIFF

Jun 14, 2011 By Sharon Feliciano in cool stuff, seattle

Sadly, this year’s SIFF has ended. But if you have Littles that you’d like to take to a festival film (and you should take them!), you are still in luck.

Being Elmo: A Pupeetters Journey (Winner SIFF 2011 Lena Sharpe Award for Persistence of Vision, Presented by Women in Film/Seattle) is back at SIFF Cinema on Saturday June 18, 2011 at 11:00 AM. Please go see this film. We absolutely loved it, and this could be a truly life-changing experience for the older kids in your household.

The Winner of the SIFF Films4Familes Youth Jury Award for 2011 was Circus Dreams. Circus Dreams follows the talented kids of Circus Smirkus, the only traveling youth circus in the US. This movie was chosen as a winner by a jury of kids, so your children are bound to enjoy it. It plays on Sunday June 19 at 11:00 am.

Also of note is Life in a Day. I recently learned that 35 hours of footage is uploaded to YouTube every minute. So what is uploaded? A lot of it is people just doing their everyday thing. Director Kevin MacDonald carefully selected 300 clips that all show people around the world on the same day (July 24, 2010) and wove it into the first collaborative user-generated feature film. This one may be a little boring for the younger ones, but everything I’ve read leads me to believe it would be a fine film for older kids. Sunday June 19 at 3:30 PM.

All of the Best of SIFF films screen at Siff Cinema located at:
321 Mercer St
at 3rd Avenue, McCaw Hall
Seattle Center

There is plenty of easy pay parking around. Tickets can be purchased here.

Seattle Area Geeks: Lego Build for Children’s Hospital

Feb 4, 2011 By Sharon Feliciano in cool stuff, seattle

This is sooooo cool! A Seattle-area kid named Ethan is hosting a Lego Build fundraiser for Children’s Hospital this Saturday. For a $20 donation each participant gets a 100 piece Lego set and the opportunity to build for prizes! The most creatvie entries (as judged by a Boeing Engineer!) get prizes.

Lego Build for
Seattle Children’s Hospital
Date: February 5, 2011
Time: 10am – 11:30am
Doors open at 9:30 am for registration
Entry fee: $20
Location: (map)
Christ the King School gymnasium
415 N 117th St, Seattle, WA 98133
Open to ages: 5 – adult
(age groups to be judged separately)
5-8 yrs, 9-12 yrs, 13-16 yrs, 17-adult
Prizes awarded to the winners of each age group category. All participants walk away with a lego kit!

You can get more information (including Ethan’s inspiration for organizing the fundraiser) here.

I think every fundraiser I hold from now on will be a Lego build. What a fantastic idea, Ethan!

Seattle Kids: Children’s Film Festival

Jan 18, 2011 By Sharon Feliciano in media, movies, seattle

From January 28th – February 6th the Northwest Film Forum is hosting the Children’s Film Festival Seattle. From their website:

Northwest Film Forum is getting ready to roll out the red carpet for Children’s Film Festival Seattle — the largest international festival of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. This year’s 10-day extravaganza will include more than 125 films from 29 countries — a mind-blowing blend of live performances, animation, features, shorts, historical films and fantastic hands-on workshops, all crafted with care to appeal to the next generation of movie lovers.

I’m pretty excited about this. They are hosting some special events including an opening kick-off party with Parenting Geekly favorite, Caspar Babypants, a viewing of the silent-era Mary Pickford film “The Little Princess” with a live score, a screening of animation from China and a Pancake/short film smorgasboard.

For more information please visit the festival’s website here.