Friday Harbor Film Festival will host an inspiring double feature

||| FROM ELLEN ROBERTS for FRIDAY HARBOR FILM FESTIVAL |||

Friday Harbor Film Festival’s Best of the Fest returns on Friday, April 24 at 7 PM with a special double feature — two inspiring documentary films from the 2025 FHFF program, screening simultaneously and free of charge at the San Juan Island Library and Lopez Center for Community and the Arts.

Following the screening of From Sea to Shining Sea, director John de Graaf will join audiences at the San Juan Island Library in person for a live Q&A. Lopez Island audiences at theLopez Center for Community and the Arts will be able to participate in the conversation via Google Meet — bringing both islands into the discussion in real time. Bring your questions. No ticket or RSVP is required. Details are available at fhff.org.

Sitka’s Hidden Wonders
The evening opens with Sitka's Hidden Wonders (43 min), a stunning nature documentary by award-winning wildlife filmmaker Ben Hamilton. After nearly two decades filming for National Geographic, BBC, Discovery, and Smithsonian Channel across 36 countries, Hamilton returns to the place where it all began — Sitka, Alaska — to make sense of what that wild coastal ecosystem has taught him about nature, time, and attention. Humpbacks feed in nutrient-rich waters, bears wander temperate rainforests, seabirds emerge only under moonlight, and bioluminescent plankton spark life from the deep. Filmed over a decade in and around Sitka Sound, the film is an invitation to slow down, look closer, and truly see the world around you.

From Sea to Shining Sea
The second film of the evening, From Sea to Shining Sea (37 min), turns its lens on one of American history’s most compelling and underappreciated figures: Katharine Lee Bates — poet, professor, and social reformer — best known as the author of “America the Beautiful.” As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, director John de Graaf brings Bates’ story vividly to life through hundreds of archival photographs, period film clips, watercolors, and contemporary footage. Bates was a woman ahead of her time — she fought for immigrants, women’s suffrage, workers rights, and world peace — and her famous lyrics, inspired by a view from the summit of Pikes Peak in 1893, carried both a love of country and an unflinching call for justice.

The Best of the Fest Series
Each month through September Best of the Fest presents award-winning documentaries along with Q&As with the films’ directors and subjects. Programs begin at 7 pm. All Friday Harbor programs will be at the San Juan Island Library. Lopez Island programs will be at the Lopez Island Grange, Lopez Center for Community and the Arts, or at the Lopez Island Library.

Since they’re on Fridays, they are a great “date night” activity. Mark your calendar for The Last Dive screening May 22 at the SJI Library and the Lopez Center for Community and the Arts. Check the rest of the schedule at fhff.org.
Sitka’s Hidden Wonders and From Sea to Shining Sea are presented as part of the 2026 Best of the Fest Series, with
support from Film Sponsor: Friday Harbor Freight, 2026 Best of the Fest Series Presenting Media Sponsor: CascadePBS, and 2026 Best of the Fest in-kind Sponsor: The Journal of the San Juan Islands for their continued support of FHFF and the Best of the Fest Series.