Country Financial and RMS Titanic (the people who managed artifacts from the famous sunken ship) have teamed up together to create a traveling exhibit of Titanic memorabilia and it is coming to Redmond this weekend.

Titanic: Treasures from the Deep uses recovered artifacts to tell the stories of those who were on the ill-fated ship. An onsite photo booth allows visitors to have a souvenir photo with a Titanic background, retrievable from a mobile phone after the event. The exhibit is free and runs from Thursday, May 21 through Sunday, May 24 at the Redmond Town Center. Hours are noon to 8 pm Thursday through Saturday, 11 am to 4 pm Sunday.

For more details check out the touring exhibit’s website.

Three samurai warlords duke it out to be top dog in mid-sixteenth century Japan when the strongest of the bunch is taken out of the game by a sniper. Lord Shingen’s family refuse to let his death stand in the way of their power grab so they recruit his look-a-like, a poor thief, as his stand-in on the throne, but can such a scheme succeed? See legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha, playing Friday and Saturday at SIFF Cinema to find out. Kagemusha was a genuine labor of love for Kurosawa; unable to secure financing in Japan, he never gave up his dream of making the movie and was eventually rewarded when two legendary American directors, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, helped him get US financing for a film that’s equal parts a broad war epic and the very intimate portrait of a man whose life is shaped by the complex code he chooses to follow.

Saturday morning make your way to SIFF Cinema for this weekend’s Films4Families selection: Whale Rider, the emotionally engaging tale of a Maori girl, Pai, whose traditionalist grandfather refuses to see her full potential to become leader of their family. Pai herself isn’t entirely sure of her destiny at first but her dedication to learning all she can of her people’s traditional ways as well as her understanding of the world as it is now combine with her own surprising inner strength to send her on an emotional journey that impacts everyone in her life.

Andreayaya told you about the Seattle Human Rights Film Festival earlier this week. The festival continues through Sunday, with films focused on human rights issues like the death penalty, prisoners of conscience, violence against women and the struggles of people everywhere to survive oppression and brutality. Films screen at Northwest Film Forum Friday night through Sunday afternoon; the festival closes with Sand and Sorrow Sunday night at SIFF Cinema.

Opening this weekend at the Grand Illusion is Ice People, director Anne Aghion’s new journey to one of the most exotic and fascinating destinations on Planet Earth–the ice bound continent of Antarctica. Aghion spent four months on the ice with a group of polar explorers, determined to capture the genuine experience of living and working in such an extreme environment. She was there when researchers made one of the most significant discoveries about Antarctica’s history in recent years, a history that shows an Antarctica very different from the one we know today.

Do you like science fiction? Fantasy? Short films? If your answer is yes, you definitely want to spend your weekend at the Cinerama for the fourth annual Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Film Festival, brought to you by SIFF and EMP/SFM this Saturday. There are two sessions, one from 4 pm to 6 pm, the other from 7 pm to 9 pm; each feature 10 short films selected from entries sent in from all around the world. If you go to the later section stick around after the final credits for the awards ceremony that follows to hand out the awards voted on by the panel of film, television, literature, and science fiction industry professionals, peers, and film critics.

Central Cinema screens Memento, a striking psychological thriller that plays with audience perceptions with two story tracks, one in chronological order and one in reverse chronological order as a man with a form of amnesia that prevents him from making any new memories struggles to overcome his limitations and find the killer of his wife.

Midnight at the Egyptian: Chocolate, a martial arts spectacular whose hero is a “young autistic girl who grows up next to a Muay Thai boxing studio and is raised on a steady diet of chocolate and marathon viewings of Tony Jaa and Bruce Lee films”.

How much do you know about German Expressionism, the artistic movement that reached its peak in 1920s Berlin? You may know more than you think you do if you’re a fan of movies made by the likes of Ridley Scott (Bladerunner) or Tim Burton (Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd, et al). David Lynch’s films also reflect German Expressionistic traits of strongly-presented symbolism and deliberate use of surrealism in stories meant to appeal to the intellectual. Direct Expressionism in film was a trend that lasted only a short time before losing its popular appeal, but elements of Expressionism remained popular with filmmakers in the 30s and 40s and very strongly influenced two developing film genres: film noir and horror.

The earliest and most acclaimed film of German Expressionism is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, screening Thursday, October 30, at SIFF Cinema as part of its “Dark Nights” series. This film is one of the earliest to tell a story in “flashback” mode and it’s interesting to see how the technique has been developed in the years since then, both for better and for worse. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari tells the story of the title character and his faithful companion, the eternally sleeping walking Cesare carnival performers with a sinister connection to a string of murders in a German mountain village. Even nearly nine decades from its original release date, the story is suspenseful and startling in its moments of surprise.

The screening begins with a talk by German composer Gunter Buchwald about German silent film history. Buchwald will then provide an improvised piano and violent soundtrack for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and return after the film for a post-film discussion.

• In Destry Ride Again, James Stewart is a deputy of the old Wild West who doesn’t like guns and Marlene Dietrich is a sultry showgirl who catches his eye when he reluctantly rides to town to clean up corruption. A comedy that pokes fun at the cowpoke genre in a lovi8ng way, Destry Rides Again is witty, charming, and great fun, further enlivened by Dietrich’s impressive musical numbers. At the Grand Illusion.
• Late night at the Grand Illusion: Who needs good acting, quality camera work or even a coherent plot when you’ve got the delightfully atrocious 70s teen sex comedy Hollywood High?
• Even though I’m not exactly a big fan of baseball itself, one of my favorite film genres is the baseball film, in part because they’re never really about baseball. The best of them use the sport an excellent metaphor to examine various aspects of the human condition. One of the best of them is Bull Durham, starring Kevin Costner as an aging player sent in to help prepare rookie Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon as the baseball groupie who serves as the third point of their romantic triangle. At the Central Cinema; see if they’ll give you some peanuts with your beer for the full baseball fan experience.
• The Human Condition is the title of Masaki Kobayashi’s epic film about Kaji, a WWII socialist soldier in Japan struggling with issues of patriotism and injustice. The director’s full vision takes over nine hours of film; SIFF is allowing film goers the opportunity to see the whole movie without spending an entire day in the theater by splitting it up in the three parts. Part One plays Friday through Thursday and shows Kaji’s attempts to improve the miserable conditions of the forced labor camp he is charged with supervising. His attempts to make life better for the prisoners earn him torture and other punishments, including being forced into the army of a nation he is not sure he is able to defend.
• Saturday morning’s Films4Families selection is one of the most charming and likable movies for children ever filmed, The Secret of Roan Inish. Fiona is a young girl living with her depressed widower father in a bleak Irish industrial city sent for the sake of her health to live with her grandparents in a fishing village on the ocean. Her grandfather tells her stories of the family’s history and their departure from their previous home, the tiny island of Roan Inish. As she makes her way through town, Fiona hears other stories, too: how one of her ancestors married a Selkie, a magical half-seal, half-woman and how the sea stole away her own baby brother, Jamie. The young girl, masterfully brought to vivid and realistic life by young actor Jeni Courtney, plots her way out to Roan Inish where she spies what she believes to be her young brother, living wild with the seals. A brave and hard-working girl, with the help of her cousin she undertakes a quest designed to reunite her family with the child they all believe to be dead. The Secret of Roan Inish is visually stunning and emotionally engaging in a sincere, truthful way. I recommend it for all children and anyone with a love of good stories with strong characters.
• NWFF presents a strange fairy tale of a film, La France. After Camile’s husband disappears in the chaos of WWI, she disguises herself as a man and sets up to find him, along the way joining a troupe of soldiers holding their own secrets.
• Midnight at the Egyptian: a group of young performers pursue their love of acting, singing and dancing at Camp.