Saturday started, not with SIFF, but with Fremont’s annual effort to make Seattle’s other neighborhoods look normal. Yes, it was Solstice Parade time in the center of the universe. Depending on your feelings about body paint, nudity on bicycles, an army of belly dancing Egyptians bringing the procession to a standstill, and other sundry statements on topics ranging from marijuana-friendly slugs, mind-expanding mathematics, and the Bush administration, you can decide whether it’s fortunate or unfortunate that the battery on my camera promptly died as my group stumbled from brunch to our staked-out spot on the sidewalk. Say what you will about Fremonters, but those people respect the sheet! Prime territory marked in the morning with bedclothes and paperweights remained invasion-free until our arrival.

It turned out that the predominant environmentalism in the parade’s floats provided a nice lead-in to the day’s first SIFFing. At the Neptune, Arctic Tale was having it’s world premiere. Part G-rated polar porn with cute overload shots of newborn polar bear cubs, National Geographic also manages to make resolutely weird-looking walruses appealing, overcoming oddness with devoted family structures. Occasional goofy soundtrack moments (”Celebration”, “We Are Family”) and Queen Latifah’s narration lends a more storytelling than science lecture feeling, often with laugh-inducing descriptions including things like walruses “getting up in each other’s business”. In case you miss the environmental points among the walrus farts and stunning wildlife footage demonstrating that melting icecaps are no picnic for wildlife, a cast of children show up along with the end credits with pointers about reversing some of the damage that humans have inflicted on the planet.

A ticket mix-up meant that I didn’t make it to the screening of Evening, which was reportedly very nicely made and entirely enjoyable. I have to confess that I was a little bit relieved that I was forced forgo a sappy love story in favor of Maria Yatskova’s Miss Gulag, ostensibly about a beauty pageant in a Russian women’s prison. While the movie is about the competition, it is also about the bleak conditions in the post-Soviet era, high unemployment rates driving young women to violent crime, and a new model for incarceration and rehabilitation. I suspect that Yatskova and her crew were very limited in what they were allowed to present, because after watching the intertwined stories of three women (one in the middle of her sentence, another up for parole, as well as a recent “graduate” of the system who faced joblessness and insurmountable bureaucracy and almost seemed to long for her days of incarceration), I left thinking that detention didn’t seem that bad. I guess it’s a statement on current conditions in Siberia on either side of “the fence”.

Later, I caught up with my Evening-going friends at the post-screening party at the Daughters of the American Revolution House on Capitol Hill. As if being at a party at the D.A.R. House wasn’t an odd enough sensation, people from two of the most (intentionally, I think) confusing world premieres of the festival were among the guests.

Both Cthulhu and One Day Like Rain [siff] seemed concerned with impending apocalypse and environmental collapse, but beyond that, I’d be hard-pressed to explain the details. The former, made by Grant Cogswell and Daniel Gildark takes H. P. Lovecraft, throws in a gay love story, and transports the action to the Pacific Northwest moodily shot in deeply saturated tones by Sean Kirby. Call me a sucker for art direction and polar bears, but the look of the picture (even in the Neptune, where the director complained about the video projection) makes it worth checking out for locals interested in finding out what was happening in that ominous building behind Piecora. It’s also turning into the biggest source of water-cooler discussion in the Slog’s comments section; so catch it this afternoon [siff] if you want in on the opinion warfare.

One Day Like Rain takes almost the opposite course, to nonetheless interesting if not head-scratching effect. Where Cthulhu soaked the incomprehensible in rich visual textures and heavy performances, Paul Todisco cast most of his story of metaphysical teens that tumbled out of his subconscious over a week with in the flat oppressive suburban Southern California sunlight and disaffected line readings. Reminiscent of David Lynch, if only in its refusal to present a clear explanation for any of the plot points, the interruption scenes of speechless creatures on a parched landscape, and Becky Stark making a dreamlike appearance to one of the characters, I left the screening feeling incredibly uncertain about what I’d just seen. I suspect that was partially the point.

As the party continued, volunteer bartenders generously poured Bombay Sapphire into customized SIFF drinks and I convinced a friend to ask Daniel Waters about whether he and Simon Baker intentionally wore matching shirts to the premiere of their funny Sex and Death 101 [siff], about the agony and ecstasy of receiving a complete list of a lifetime’s worth of sexual partners when you’re only a third of the way through (with a nice performance by Winona Ryder and comedy from Patton Oswalt sprinkled throughout). It turns out that it was a complete accident and that the shirts weren’t as identical as they looked from the audience.

It was around this time that guy appeared in a glowing jacket and carrying what looked like sticks intended to be set ablaze. To my relief, they remained unignited throughout, but this is the sort of thing that only heightens the value of checking out these SIFF parties. Go and you might run into actresses or the guy who played a monster in Cthulhu! The closing gala is tonight, do your best to secure a ticket before the festival disappears for another year.