SIFF has a dozen or so movies about food, or farming, or fruit, or wine, etc. this year, and of the ones that we were able to screen by press time, we REALLY liked four (good job, SIFF!).

DON'T MISS!
After Winter, Spring
Is there anything cuter than a farmer rubbing the fuzzy face of an hour-old calf, asking, "Is there anything cuter than this?" Yes: when the farmer and the calf and the question are all French, as is the case in this achingly lovely documentary about family farming in the Périgord. Shot over the course of a year, it's so pretty, it's ridiculous, and the people—from the idealistic couple starting a tiny organic operation to the 88-year-old vintner/philosopher—are marvelous. Facing tough times, they love their animals and their land with inspiring hope. Also featured: a famous foie gras farm, cast in a human and arguably humane light. (BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT)
Harvard Exit, Sun, May 19, 4 pm
SIFF Uptown, Mon, May 20, 8:30 pm

STAR!
C.O.G.
Inspired by reading The Grapes of Wrath and wanting to get his hands dirty, an overeducated white East Coast Yale grad heads out to Oregon to work in the apple orchards. Based on a David Sedaris essay from Naked, the story begins on the long-haul bus ride, where "Samuel" (his new identity) is accosted by a parade of weirdos. At the farm, he has trouble connecting with anyone and he is comically unprepared to exist in the real world. Will Samuel find happiness in the simple things instead of overanalyzing and sneering at everything? Or will he run back to his old life? Thanks to the film's wonderful performances and entertaining dialogue, you'll have a perfectly good (if not revelatory) time finding out. (GILLIAN ANDERSON)
Egyptian, Fri, May 24, 4 pm
Egyptian, Sun, May 26, 7 pm
Renton, Mon, May 27, 6 pm

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Tonight the Seattle International Film Festival invites you to get out of town, with a free, 15th-anniversary screening of Smoke Signals—the first feature film written, directed, and co-produced by Native Americans, with a script by Stranger columnist/Stranger Genius Award winner Sherman Alexie—tonight at Snoqualmie Casino. (Bonus: cast members Elaine Miles, Evan Adams, and Michelle St. John will be in attendance!)

Full info here.

(Much Ado About Nothing was the Opening Night Gala film selection at SIFF tonight. It won't be screening again during the festival, but it opens nationwide in New York and Los Angeles on June 7th and in Seattle on June 21st, so if you missed out tonight, you'll be able to see it soon.)

• Elsa Guillet-Chapuis
• Clark Gregg: This is the scene where he recruits Beatrice to join a super-team with Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and Lady Macbeth.

This movie is a classic example of the they’re-sure-having-fun-up-there concept of entertainment. It was filmed in a matter of days at director/adaptor Joss Whedon’s own house, with actors who are all his friends, in cheap black and white on digital cameras. (Whedon famously conducts after-work readings of Shakespeare with the casts of his television shows and films, so he had plenty of practice.) And you know what? Everybody sure does look like they’re having fun up there, to the point where you want to forgive the film’s obvious flaws just because you feel like you’re an invited guest at an intimate dinner party.

This horny, very funny staging of Much Ado About Nothing is set in an opulent modern-day estate during a wedding, when distant friends and family gather together because they have to. It’s a cozy affair, and the actors are all practically flirting with Shakespeare’s language (standouts include Clark Gregg, who wins this affable movie’s coveted Most Affable award; Nathan Fillion, who feasts on his small comic-relief role; and Amy Acker as a strong, confident Beatrice). There’s some silly physical comedy, willful deception on a large scale, and, because Much Ado is arguably the world’s first rom-com, every major player makes one asshole move that seems totally out of character. (Blame the writer for that last one.)

But it’s light and fun and funny and delightful—it’s so rare that a movie claps Shakespeare on the back like an old bud, rather than putting him up on a pedestal, like he’s in a museum. Who cares if some of the acting is a little hambone? (Alexis Denisof’s Benedick wavers between charming and cartoonish.) Or that the music, by Joss and Jed Whedon, is simply terrible? Or that a few directorial tricks—a whooshing white-out transition between scenes is more jarring than useful—seem more telenovela than feature film? Everybody is—all together now—having so much fun up there that you want to forgive them their trespasses. And so you do.

(This post has been updated since its original publication to reflect the correct release dates. I apologize for the error.)

They don't call SIFF America's biggest film festival just for kicks. Besides corralling 273 films (plus multiple shorts packages) from all over the globe, the 2013 Seattle International Film Festival is three and a half weeks long, which means you have almost an entire month to dive into SIFF, get sick of it and ignore it for a while, then dive back in all over again.

As ever, there's a ton of stuff worth seeing, from glorious art films to splashy documentaries to craptastic cult fare. The opening-night gala brings Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, which has been sold out since it was announced and will likely involve a hilarious mingling of speech-giving civic dignitaries and screaming Whedonistas. The centerpiece gala brings the much-buzzed-about documentary on backup singers Twenty Feet from Stardom. And the closing-night gala brings The Bling Ring, Sofia Coppola's ripped-from-the-headlines drama on Hollywood thieves. (The fact that it has a plot means it's already 10,000 times better than 2010's Somewhere.)

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. Among the non-gala film events that have The Stranger excited: Fateful Findings, a fledgling classic of brilliantly terrible cinema in the manner of The Room; The Punk Singer, Sini Anderson's revelatory documentary about Kathleen Hanna; Furever, a squirmy documentary about the pet-memorial business; and An Evening with Kyle MacLachlan, during which the Northwest native and beloved Hollywood star will submit himself to an onstage Q&A (complete with clip show!), then hang out and watch the classic pilot of Twin Peaks on the big screen.

Here is The Stranger's guide to every single film in SIFF 2013, featuring eyewitness reviews of more than 130 films and a half-dozen jokes in poor taste.