SIFF 2024 wraps, with an attendance bump over last year’s edition

The 50^th annual Seattle International Film Festival ended Monday, after 11 days of in-theater programming May 9-19 and a week of virtual films May 20-27. Numbers provided by SIFF show a slight bump in attendance over the 2023 festival (which was of a similar length): just under 95,000 tickets sold, including in-person and virtual, compared to last year’s total of just under 90,000.

Streaming numbers were approximately the same as last year’s despite having fewer online offerings this year, and included viewers from 43 states. In a newly measured statistic, SIFF venues sold 18,000 pounds of popcorn during the festival, the organization said.

Award winners were announced at the close of the in-person screenings. For the audience-voted Golden Space Needle awards, curiously, two of the top titles shared a similar theme; namely, the transformative power of amateur theatrical productions. “Sing Sing,” a drama starring Coleman Domingo (“Rustin”) as an incarcerated man who finds meaning through participating in a theater group, won for best film. “Ghostlight,” in which a troubled construction worker joins a community production of “Romeo and Juliet,” was runner-up for best film. It also won best director (Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson) and best performance (Keith Kupferer). Also receiving Golden Space Needles were “Porcelain War” for best documentary and “Jellyfish and Lobster” for best short. Both “Ghostlight” and “Sing Sing” will open theatrically in the Seattle area this summer, on June 21 and a not-yet-finalized July date, respectively.

SIFF’s juried awards for feature-length films went to “Gloria!” (SIFF Official Competition), “Through Rocks and Clouds” (Ibero-American Competition), “City of Wind” (New Directors Competition), “We Strangers” (New American Cinema Competition”) and “A New Kind of Wilderness” (Documentary Competition). The Youth Jury Prize for Best Futurewave Feature went to “Empire Waist.” Short film juried awards went to “The Shell Covered Ox” (narrative), “The Waiting” (documentary), and “Madeleine” (animation).

The Fool Serious Awards, a longtime tradition voted upon by SIFF’s full series passholders (with 139 voting this year, seeing an average of 34 movies each), named Agnieszka Holland’s refugee drama “Green Border” as their top narrative title and Shiori Ito’s “Black Box Diaries,” in which a journalist investigates her own assault, as top documentary. (“Green Border” opens for a regular run July 5 at SIFF Cinema Uptown). And the Seattle Film Critics Society presented its inaugural SIFF award to Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow,” currently on-screen at the Uptown.