PORT ANGELES — Tonight, a 17-year-old boy will try to swim from Calais, France, to the white cliffs of Dover, England, in hopes of reuniting with his girlfriend.
The boy is a Kurdish refugee, his sweetheart has just emigrated to Britain, and the French authorities mean to stop him from joining her — hence his plan to cross the chilly English Channel under his own power.
The boy, Bilal, crosses paths with Simon, a middle-aged swim coach undergoing his own personal crisis. Despite their differing stations in life, the two see how much they have in common, and the friendship that develops turns out to help them both.
This is the story of “Welcome,” the movie showing at 7 p.m. to inaugurate this season’s “Magic of Cinema: Best of the Fest” series at Peninsula College. The “fest” here is the Port Townsend Film Festival, now spreading its wealth around the North Olympic Peninsula.
The pictures coming to Port Angeles over the next six weeks — all screening at 7 p.m. each Friday through Feb. 25 — are fresh from the September 2010 festival, and include cinematic journeys to Oaxaca, Mexico, as well as back in time to Seattle’s 1970s funk and soul scene. All screen in the Little Theater on the campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
And more than one of these films’ topics have made sparks fly here and abroad.
“Welcome” is French director Philippe Lioret’s story of personal challenge in the face of immigration laws and enforcement. For many in France, the film’s chief revelation concerned the way French officials treat undocumented immigrants and the French citizens who assist them.
When “Welcome” premiered in France, Lioret talked with the newspaper La Voix du Nord and gave his opinion on the French laws that threaten people who help migrants.
“To see that a decent guy can all of a sudden be charged and that he can go to prison is crazy,” Lioret said. “It feels like it’s 1943, and we’ve hidden a Jew in the basement.”
That comment drew an angry response from French Immigration Minister Eric Besson, who said Lioret “crossed a red line” in an effort to generate publicity for his film.
The “Magic of Cinema” movie to follow “Welcome” also confronts immigration, this time from Mexico. “Twenty-five Hundred and One” is a documentary about Alejandro Santiago’s 2,500 sculpted clay figures in his village of Teococuilco in Oaxaca state, and the 2,500 people they represent. They’re the migrants who left to look for work far from home, and Santiago made 2,501 because, he said, there would always be one more “lost soul.”
Director Patricia Van Ryker will appear in person to discuss how and why she made “Twenty-five Hundred and One” with the audience at Peninsula College next Friday, Jan. 28.
Van Ryker is the first in a series of people involved with “Magic of Cinema” films who will come to Port Angeles for post-screening discussions. Others include Jamar Jenkins, a member of Cold, Bold and Together, one of the bands spotlighted in “Wheedle’s Groove,” the documentary about the urban-soul and R & B bands that once flourished in Seattle. “Groove” will screen on Feb. 18.
On Feb. 11, “The Red Machine,” an acclaimed drama about a young safecracker working in Washington, D.C., in 1935 comes to town, with directors Alec Boehm and Stephanie Argy expected to arrive with it.
Bruce Hattendorf, the Peninsula College film studies professor who hosts the series, is looking forward to hearing how the pair of independent filmmakers got their movie made and distributed. “The Red Machine,” critic Roger Ebert notes, is an old-fashioned thriller that has, instead of explosions and special effects, “an elegant simplicity.”
Hattendorf is also anticipating with relish the showing of “Obselidia” on Feb. 25.
“It’s a quirky, often quietly comic, but ultimately moving and oddly hopeful look at rapid change,” he said.
The picture is about George, who figures he’s the last door-to-door encyclopedia salesman in the world, and his friend Sophie, who believes that nothing is obsolete as long as someone loves it.
Also part of the series is “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” a documentary on Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. It’s a timely tale about freedom of the press and the public’s right to know, and journalism professor Rich Riski will be on hand to lead a discussion after the screening, which comes on the night of Feb. 4.
“What I believe makes this [series] unique is the conversation afterward,” said Janette Force, director of the Port Townsend Film Festival. “That opportunity to stay in the moment the filmmaker has created, and talk about it without breaking that distance,” makes these screenings worth coming out for.
Admission to each film is $5 for adults and $1 for Peninsula College students with identification. To learn more about the movies, visit www. pencol.edu, e-mail bhattendorf@pencol.edu or phone the campus at 360-452-9277.
