Orcas Island Film Festival: Five Years, Five Days Five-fold Success

Thurs.Oct. 4 – Sunday Oct. 8

— from Donna Laslo —

Julia Roberts and director’s son Lucas Hedges star in “Ben is Back”

The fall film festival season is in full swing and the Orcas Island Film Festival is celebrating its fifth
anniversary, Oct. 4-8, 2018 with our biggest and most star-studded edition yet. OIFF film curator Carl
Spence has been busy scouting the hottest new films and he’s come up with another powerful lineup
that film buffs have come to expect from him. The festival takes place over five days and two
venues with an impressive lineup of 34 brand new international films representing 18 countries.
Twenty-nine of these films are making their Northwest Debut (directly from Cannes, Telluride,
Toronto, NYFF, Sundance) and nine are films by women filmmakers.

“For our 5th Anniversary, we have put together a star-studded line-up of acclaimed films from 18
countries,” said Festival Curator Carl Spence. Actors slated to appear on our state-of-the-art cinema
screens at the The Sea View Theatre and Orcas Center include Blythe Danner, Carey Mulligan,
Guillaume Canet, Hilary Swank, Irrfan Khan, Jake Gyllenhaal, Javier Bardem, Jay Duplass, Joaquin
Phoenix, John C. Reilly, Julia Roberts, Juliette Binoche, Kelly Macdonald, Lucas Hedges, Mary Kay
Place, Melanie Lynskey, Michael Shannon, Montgomery Clift, Penelope Cruz, Ricardo Darin, and
Rupert Graves.

We are thrilled to be presenting the Festival’s inaugural Vanguard Award to the film “Yomeddine,”
which had its recent world premiere as the first ever Egyptian film in competition at the Cannes Film
Festival and was just selected as the official Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film from
Egypt for the 2019 Academy Awards. “The Vanguard Award was created to honor a creative work
that exhibits mastery and excellence with a story that illuminates the power of the human spirit,” says
OIFF Co-Founder Jared Lovejoy. Producer Dina Emam, from Cairo, Egypt will attend the festival and
accept the award along with a $5,000 cash prize generously underwritten by Orcasong Farm.

Films at the Orcas Island Film Festival are, “the crème de la crème of the first-tier festival circuit,”
says Charles Mudede, Film/Art critic from The Stranger. Past films have garnered a total of 34
nominations and eight Oscars including Oscar winners; “Darkest Hour,” “Faces Places,” “The Square,” “Manchester By The Sea,” “The Salesman,” “Room,” “The Imitation Game,” and “Son of Saul,” along with critically acclaimed films such as “Loving,” “Florida Project,” “Faces Places” and more. Attendees will see these films before their official theatrical release and the festival provides a unique opportunity for filmmakers and film lovers to connect and share the cinematic experience in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Highly anticipated films include “Ben is Back from the multi-hyphenate author, screenwriter, and
director Peter Hedges (“What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” “Pieces of April”) directing the dynamite return of Julia Roberts, and his son Lucas Hedges who is one of the brightest, most diverse and indeed best
actors of his generation. Jake Gyllenhaal appears in two films: “The Sisters Brothers;” the western
comedy and English language debut of award-winning director Jacques Audiard (Dheepan) and
actor Paul Dano’s stunning directorial debut”Wildlife.”

The Orcas Island Film Festival is made possible each year by the generosity of many individual
donors, businesses, grants and over 75 committed volunteers. It simply wouldn’t exist without help.
If you’d like to support the Orcas Island Film Festival there are a number of ways you can help.
Contact us for more information. One of the easiest ways to support us and upgrade your festival
experience is to buy Festival passes. The full festival line-up, trailers, passes, and tickets are now
available at orcasfilmfest.com