About the Bloggers
Adam Sekular is Program Director for the Northwest Film Forum. Before arriving in Seattle he was programmer for the nation’s first and only dedicated non-fiction theatre, The Bell Auditorium. He is co-founder of Search and Rescue, an ongoing effort to present and preserve discarded archives of 16mm films. He also programmed for the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival and Sound Unseen. In his early years he booked music for the Whole Music Club, Minneapolis’ only all ages venue. During his spare time, Adam makes short films that have screened at festivals and museums. You can find him scheming about bus cabarets and penciling in words on crossword puzzles on the weekends.
David Hanagan is Studio Director of the Northwest Film Forum, where he manages the education programs, filmmaking equipment facilities and artist access programs. He also serves as the festival director for the Local Sightings Film Festival. Before moving to Seattle, he studied graphic design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dave has made numerous short films; his latest, Circadia Sees the Moon, premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival and was completed with support from 4Culture, Artist Trust, and the Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs. Since 1997, he has worked as a cinematographer, gaffer, editor and producer on over 50 independent, artistic media projects including Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain!, Webster Crowell’s Borrowing Time and Matt Wilkin’s Buffalo Bill’s Defunct.
Mark Titus is an award-winning screenwriter and the principal owner of August Island Pictures, a motion picture company with its roots in Seattle. In 2001 he completed an intensive directing program at the Vancouver, B.C Film School, then wrote, directed or produced several short films including Fins, shown at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2003; 30, a documentary commemorating SIFF’s 30th anniversary; Justin Burris’s Knowing the Game; and Cheryl Slean’s IFP award winning Diggers. In 2006, Paradigm Studio optioned Mark’s script The Wild, winner of the 2004 Washington State Screenplay Competition.
Michael Seiwerath has been Executive Director of the Northwest Film Forum since 1996. Michael has worked in independent film in Seattle for more than a decade, as both a curator and film producer. As Executive Director, Michael oversees all aspects of film production and exhibition. In this capacity, he has acted as Producer or Executive Producer on three feature-length films made through the nationally recognized Start-to-Finish program. Michael has served on national panels and juries for the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital, and the Slamdance Film Festival. In 2005, he was the recipient of the Stranger Genius Award for Film.
Nicholas Vroman is a filmmaker, writer, photographer, and cultural explorer living in Japan. He has worked for Northwest Film Forum, Seattle International Film Festival, and various public radio stations. He’s also a singer/songwriter with several albums behind him. He currently books a small club in Tokyo; performs regularly; writes on film, Japanese food and culture; and is working on a series of films that he defines under the rubric of New Documentary Formalism.
Peter Lucas is Associate Program Director of the Northwest Film Forum, where he has worked for the past 6 years to present music films, documentaries, and special series exploring the intersections of art, design, and architecture with moving image media. He has also contributed programming for the Seattle International Film Festival and Sound Unseen Film and Music Festival, and has organized independent art exhibits, film screenings, and collaborative multimedia events in Austin, New York, and Seattle.
Ryan Davis is Communications Director of the Northwest Film Forum. She has been active in the Seattle film community since she arrived in the Northwest, and was involved with NWFF as an intern, volunteer projectionist, and contributing filmmaker before taking the reins of Communications Director. Ryan is a native of New York State by way of Brunswick, Maine, but has called Seattle home since 2004.
Susie Purves has an understanding of film like the messy floor in a child’s room: uncategorized, of varying depths, and without rhyme or reason. You can’t get her to clean it up and you can’t get her to throw anything away. Perhaps, if you look carefully, you might find something of importance. The rest is trash but it could be amusing. She is Managing Director of Northwest Film Forum and can push a pencil with impunity.
Tania Kupczak is Operations Manager at On the Boards, where she manages the blog and website, oversees performance videography, and chases sleeping bums off the porch. In her free time, Tania production designs for film. Her work includes Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain! and Lynn Shelton’s We Go Way Back. In the other part of her free time, she’s a discourse surfer, favoring video, audio installation, drawing, and collaborative practices of all genres.
