Announcing upcoming Best of SECS Fest 2021 screenings #ShortFilms #EroticFilm

Did you miss the festival last September? Or do you want to revisit some favorites?

For the 2021 festival, we were fortunate to have some film students from Indiana University help jury the festival selections. So they put together two collections of short films and one feature in a Best of SECS  Fest – Midwest event, so we are going to play the same programs for our local audience.

Coming to Seattle at the Grand Illusion Cinema in March is the first shorts collection in our Best of SECS Fest 2021 series, Best of SECS Fest 2021: Carnal Delights and in April will be Best of SECS Fest 2021: Holes & Wholes.

You will now want to miss these sexy-fun selections of short films from around the globe.

Best of SECS Fest 2021: Carnal Delights

These playful short films explore the lighter side of sex, themed around food, fun, friendship, and laughter. Featuring splashes of absurdist humor, unexpectedly creative relationships, and improvisational pleasures, there’s something for everyone here! The program concludes with the featurette Wild Card (Jennifer Lyon Bell, 2020), starring Bishop Black and Kali Sudhra.

Contains sexually explicit material. Adults (18+) only.

SHOWTIMES

Friday, Mar 4: 10:00 pm

Best of SECS Fest 2021: Holes and Wholes

These thought-provoking shorts explore the more serious side of sex, with themes of trust, transformation, healing, nature, and the universe. Ranging from magical-realist fantasies to documentaries to poetic essays, these films all use sex to think through personal, philosophical, and metaphysical issues, stimulating your mind as much as your body. Contains unsimulated sex and nudity.

Contains sexually explicit material. Adults (18+) only.

SHOWTIMES

Saturday, Apr 2: 10:00 pm

 

Hop on the SHORTBUS in February

After a long absence, we are again hosting events at the Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle.  Starting with the 4K restoration of SHORTBUS (2006). So if you missed our 35mm screening in 2018, here’s another opportunity to see this amazingly warm and innovative film from director, John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch).

Shortbus – 4K Restoration

John Cameron Mitchell · 2006 · USA
101min · DCP
Playing Feb 6 through Feb 9

New 4K Restoration! John Cameron Mitchell’s SHORTBUS explores the lives of several emotionally challenged characters as they navigate the comic and tragic intersections between love and sex in and around a modern-day underground salon. A sex therapist who has never had an orgasm, a dominatrix who is unable to connect, a gay couple who are deciding whether to open up their relationship, and the people who weave in and out of their lives, all converge on a weekly gathering called Shortbus: a mad nexus of art, music, politics, and polysexual carnality. Set in a post-9/11, Bush-exhausted New York City, SHORTBUS tells its story with sexual frankness, suggesting new ways to reconcile questions of the mind, pleasures of the flesh, and imperatives of the heart. ** This film is rated NC-17, no one under 17 will be admitted. **

Co-presented by SECS Fest.

“Few arthouse directors have put real sex to such narratively constructive and credibly, humorously human use.” Ben Walters, Time Out

“A rather sweet, wistful little movie that just happens to have a lot of explicit sex in it.” Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

“Something both deeply funny and transcendently human: a revolving door that leads to the senses and to the heart” Ty Burr, Boston Globe

SHOWTIMES

Sunday, Feb 6: 4:00 pm, 7:00 pm
Monday, Feb 7: 7:00 pm
Wednesday, Feb 9: 7:00 pm
Thursday, Feb 10: 7:00 pm

*Mask and proof of vaccination required for entry.

Click for tickets

Awards

Each year, the SECS Fest selection jury reconvenes after the festival to decide upon the best films in the festival to award four “Golden Raincoat Awards” to each year.

Why are the awards called “Golden Raincoats”?

We borrowed Raincoat from the derogatory term for the men who would frequent adult movie theaters, the raincoaters. So it seemed fitting to reclaim the stereotype of the sleazy guy in the raincoat while naming the SECS Fest awards.

2021 GOLDEN RAINCOAT AWARD WINNERS:

BEST FEATURE FILM:  ONE LAST TIME

BEST SHORT FILM:  HOLE THEORY

BEST SEX-POSITIVE FILM:  THE MULTIVERSE IN A MOUTHFUCK

BEST HUMOR:  PROGRESSIVE TOUCH

BEST DOCU-PORN:  ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL CREATURE

#SECS FEST is this weekend at the Grand Illusion (@gicinema). Ticket sales end soon.

The festival begins on Friday, but if you want to watch the entire virtual live-stream of the festival, you need to buy your tickets now. Sales of the virtual festival pass end on Thursday, September 9 at 10 pm (Pacific Time).

Individual in-person tickets are still available to all shows and can be purchased through Stranger Tickets or in person at the Grand Illusion Cinema, 30 minutes before the start of the show. Just remember to wear a mask and bring proof of COVID-19 vaccination.

Map of seattle region. Reads Weekend Traffic Alerts: Fri 9/10 - Mon. 9/3 Sounders Game 2 pm saturday Montlake Bridge, Montlake Blvd and SR520 ramps are closed 11 pm Friday - 5 am Monday. 1-5 Express Lanes closed 9 pm Friday - 5 pm Monday

The festival weekend is going to be challenging due to numerous sports events, construction, and road closures. So you will need to give plenty of time to get to the University District and find street parking.

Seattle scores a weekend of construction and sports, Sept. 10-13

And SECS FEST has some press this year.

BOMB Magazine: Girls Just Want to Have: Shiva Sanjari Interviewed by Jessica Lanay

Shiva Sanjari’s documentary, RED LIPSTICK, will screen on Sunday, September 12 at 2 pm. The full interview by Jessica Lanay will follow the film. Tickets an info at https://www.secsfest.org/red-lipstick/.

See you at the festival!