Film + Cupcakes = Goodness

And this weekend, Capitol Hill is filled with the goodness! The 14th Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival kicks off with a bash tonight and runs through next Sunday. We're long time sponsors of the festival, and look forward to it every year, but this year...there's MORE!

Our Capitol Hill café is the official lounge of this year's festival. What does that mean? Well, two things. And they're both super terrific.

1. As our way of saying thank you to festival filmgoers, and to support the arts and the discussion thereof, we are offering a free babycake with a coffee or tea purchase to anyone with a ticket stub or festival pass. Films are screening all week at the Egyptian and over at our superfriends the Northwest Film Forum, so we really could not be better positioned as your official festival hang out. See a film. Bring your friends. Discuss over coffee and cupcakes. Perfect.




2. We are actually showing a film in our café! Yes, you read that correctly. Starting Saturday and running through the end of the festival, 13 Love Stories will be projected on the wall of our Capitol Hill café at 3 pm and 8 pm each day. This film "profiles the moving stories of thirteen couples whose lives were profoundly affected by Proposition 8 - the recent California ballot initiative that eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry." We are psyched to have this important piece showing in our café, and it couldn't be more timely for our own state. Your chance to help us APPROVE REF 71 is just around the corner. Get those voting pens ready!




Speaking of marriage equality, remember when we had a little fundraiser called Legalize Gay Cupcakes? We kicked it off for Pride back in June, and sold tees, buttons, and stickers to raise money for Lambda Legal, those good folks who fight hard every day for marriage equality and equal rights across this great nation. Well, the gear has been sold and the tally is in. Thank you to everyone who helped us raise $1762 by buying a Legalize Gay Cupcakes tee, button, or sticker, and rockin' the message hard! Keep up the good work as we fight to get Ref 71 approved, so that ALL Washington families have rights they deserve.

Dolly Parton. Lily Tomlin. Jane Fonda. The moustache guy. You. Me. Tomorrow.

Oh geez.

Yup, that's a party. Nope, its a movie! And it's playing tomorrow night under the stars in Cal Anderson Park. Thanks to the folks at Three Dollar Bill Cinema, you can enjoy one last cinematic spectacular from the year 1980 al fresco, as they wrap up their Outdoor Cinema series with Nine to Five. If you have never seen this movie, holy boy. You are in for it. And if you have seen this movie, you already know what you're in for. And you can't wait.

We're big fans of Three Dollar Bill Cinema, producers of Seattle's Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. We sponsor the film fest every year, so we decided to sponsor Outdoor Cinema, too. If you do come out for the retro film funtimes tomorrow night (and you know you should,) make sure you stop by the concession stand. We've donated babycakes for them to sell to all you sugar-starved filmgoers, and all the money they make, they keep. That way they can keep on doing super awesome stuff like this, the film fest, and Cineoke.

It all goes down at dusk. Zing. Bring your blanket, your pillow, your friend, your lover, your dog, whatever. Just be there.

Love Thy Neighbor

And boy do we ever. That's why it breaks our cupcake hearts to think that our neighbors and superfriends over at the Northwest Film Forum are in some dire straights right now. They need to raise $70,000 by August 15th to offset their budget deficit and avoid cutting staff and programming for the coming year.

In order to do this, they're asking for $10 from 10,000 people. Seems easy enough to us. By donating the price of a movie ticket, we can all feel good about the fact that we can keep on seeing the amazing films they play at the Film Forum. Seattle is immeasurably lucky to have an arts organization like them in our city. From the programming we see on their screens, to the classes they teach, to the local filmmakers they fund and support, to full on film festivals like Local Sightings, to the killer parties they throw, this city is by far better off because of all that they do.

So walk it in, mail it in, or click here to make your donation of just $10 to keep the Northwest Film Forum running at full force. Your money will help truly great films be seen, local and innovative films be made, and countless filmgoers and filmmakers be inspired.

And just in case this little plea wasn't quite sappy enough, can we please just take a moment to acknowledge how hard SubPop rocks?! Not in the way you already knew they did, but in the way that they support their fellow lovers of the arts. Sub Pop has pledged to match all donations up to $10,000. That's right people. So cool. We didn't think we could love Sub Pop anymore than we already did, but, turns out, we could. And now we do.

What You're Doing Tomorrow Night

If you think you have a better idea than sitting out on the lawn at Cal Anderson eating strawberry cupcakes and watching Little Darlings as dusk settles in on Capitol Hill tomorrow evening, we'd beg to differ. Our superfriends and Capitol hill neighbors-to-be over at 3 Dollar Bill Cinema have one sweet evening lined up for you via Outdoor Cinema.

Tomorrow night's film is Little Darlings, starring none other than the adorably 80s Tatum O'Neal, Kristy McNichol, Matt Dillon, and Cynthia Nixon.


Sweet AND sassy. Now you KNOW we like it like that.


What, you don't know who Three Dollar Bill Cinema is? Crikey! They're only the queer film cool kids behind the annual Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Cineoke, Translations: The Seattle Transgender Film Festival, and now...Outdoor Cinema at Cal Anderson Park.

We love everything they do, but we are psyched as all get out about Outdoor Cinema: I Want My 1980. Yeah. That's right. In their words:

"This year’s slate of fun and campy films all come from 1980, the premiere year of the decade that made sexual power plays, alien encounters, and shameless success all the rage."

Sounds good to us! The only thing that could make it better...hmm...CUPCAKES! So, we're donating a bunch of cupcakes to each screening. Buy them, eat them, love them, and all the monies go to support the yearlong programming over at Three Dollar Bill Cinema! Win win!

FRIDAY | JULY 17 | Cal Anderson Park | Dusk

Sweet Crude SIFF Premiere! Be there.

What if the world paid attention before it was too late?

The time is now. The final cut of Sweet Crude is premiering at SIFF this Wednesday at 7 PM at the Egyptian Theatre, and it could not be more timely. Since May 15th, the Niger Delta has been under attack by the Nigerian Military Task Force. Government led violence is being blamed for the deaths of between 500 and 1,000 civilians, and the displacement of some 30,000 refugees. The people of the Delta are more desperate now than ever, without access to food or water. Oporoza, the village featured in the film, has been burned to the ground.



All of this is for oil. It is not just an environmental issue. Oil is a human rights issue, and it affects us all. For the past four decades, the Delta has been the source of billions of dollars in oil revenues for the Nigerian Government and for multinational oil companies. The people who make their homes in the Delta, who fish the waters run slick with oil, whose crops are watered by the acid rains, whose homes are shadowed by the black smoke clouds of gas flares, have yet to see a penny of the massive wealth that flows beneath their feet.

Sweet Crude is their story. Make sure it is heard.

Come to the screening this Wednesday. If you can't make it Wednesday, come on Saturday the 13th, and join us for the Q & A afterwards. Details to come.

Sweet Crude SIFF Premiere
WEDNESDAY 6/3 @ 7:00 PM
Egyptian Theatre

Sweet Crude Kirkland Screening
SUNDAY 6/7 @ 1:30 PM
Kirkand Performing Arts Center

Sweet Crude Final Screening
SATURDAY 6/13 @ 1:30 PM
Egyptian Theatre

Click HERE for tickets!

More info on how to get involved at www.sweetcrudemovie.com.

Photos by Kendra Thornbury.

Some things we're lovin' on this weekend.

First things first - get your SIFF on! Starting tonight with the Opening Night Gala. Watch the opening night film, In the Loop, and then stick around for the super fancy, always fun party. Schmooze with your fellow film-lovers while sippin' on fine champagne and enjoying your exclusive sneak peek taste of our June Cupcake of the Month: Rainier Cherry with Theo Cocoa Nibs.

Subtly sweet Rainier cherries from Olmstead Orchards in Yakima Valley swirled into a cream cheese and cherry liqueur frosting, topped off with organic roasted cocoa nibs from our superfriends over at Theo Chocolate. It's not available in stores until June 1st...but SIFFers will get the first taste tonight. Be there!

Then get up and at 'em tomorrow and head on down to 5609 Rainier Ave S, the corner of Rainier and Orcas for the Yard/Bake Sale of the Century! The fine peoples over at the Service Board have come up with some creative fund raising fun times to get together the cash for their final trip of the season.

From 8-4 they'll be peddling old boards and boots, baked goods, and donations from the community. And by baked goods, we mean cupcakes. From Cupcake Royale. True fact. It's gonna be a beautiful day in their neighborhood, so get on down there and get in on the neighborly goodness.

Local Arts Twofer!

Apparently, Local Arts Twofer! is a regular thing now, because it just keeps happening. And we just keep lovin' it. So much.

This week's Local Arts Twofer! is a double whammy, if whammies were good, and double meant infinite. The rules have changed a little, though. Whereas before the term "twofer" was used to point out the fact that two super cool arty things were goin' down in the same time and space, this time around they're same time...different space...which makes things a little interesting. However, one runs longer than the other, so you can do this people. We believe in you.

THURSDAY | APRIL 30 | SEATTLE, USA

FIRST

Go to the Harvard Exit and check out the results of the great Seattle film race that went down last weekend. Filmmakers were asked to complete a project in 24 hours with these two additional parameters:

THEME: Superstitious SURPRISE ELEMENT: Action: Swallowing a Pill

To top it all off (this is where the good whammies start getting infinite) Cupcakes for Health Care cohort Joshua Welter of Washington CAN! had a hand in the film "Meeting Miss Fortune." Yes. Yes. Yes. Tickets are $9 and the program runs from 7-9:30.

SECOND

Leave the Harvard Exit and hurry on over to Ballard for the "Bad Ideas" Northwest Designers Zine Release Party and Poster Show at Society Co. Here comes the infinity part again...not only is Society Co. our neighbor and superfriend, but our very own Darin Shuler has work featured in the show.

It's almost too much awesome. But its probably just enough, so tomorrow night, get on out and be in it!

We love youth. We love film.

And we really love films made by youths! You should check some out at the National Film Festival For Talented Youth, a.k.a. NFFTY.

The festival showcases work from filmmakers ranging in age from 7 (yes, 7) to 22, and the subjects range from a couple of Australian kids trying to surf their way across the U.S. to the incredible members of Def Dance Jam Workshop in Harlem.

See what happens when a bunch of talented youth use film to speak about social justice, environmental change, and chicken cowboys.

The festival runs from Apr 24-26 at SIFF Cinema, Cinerama, and EMP|SFM. 10 short films open the festival at Cinerama this Friday with an after party at EMP.

Do not miss it. Do. not.

Local arts Twofer!

We sure love the Northwest Film Forum, and we're really looking forward to being neighbors when we open our Capitol Hill café on 1111 E Pike this summer. And right about now, we just couldn't be more excited about their spring gala, because this year it's being produced by Implied Violence.

In case you haven't heard of Implied Violence, they are the winners of The Stranger's 2008 Genius Award for Arts Organization. Founding member and Managing Director Mandie O'Connell can also be seen pulling shots and frosting cupcakes in our Madrona café. Small world, eh?

So, in attending this year's spring gala, you get the Local Arts Twofer! we promised you in the title of this post. Support the Northwest Film Forum's upcoming year of amazing film programming - films you will not likely be lucky enough to see anywhere else - and expose yourself to the work of local theatre group Implied Violence.

Also, there will be cupcakes in the Dessert Dash, so get your biddin' chops ready.

Unbridled Stimulus Package

An evening of dinner, bidding opportunities, performance, games, and froth to benefit Northwest Film Forum

Produced by Implied Violence

Saturday, April 18
China Harbor
2040 Westlake Avenue North
6:00 P.M.
By reservation only
Seating is limited

For more details, and to buy your tickets, go here:
http://www.nwfilmforum.org/party