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Week of January 17, 2025
Melissa Tamminga
January 17-23, 2025
Hello, friends!
A Complete Unknown and Nosferatu continue their run after another weekend of full theaters and happy filmgoers has demonstrated to us that Bellingham folks are maintaining their love for Bob Dylan and vampires very enthusiastically!
We also have three special events this week:
First, I’m delighted to be welcoming The NeverEnding Story, with its grand tale of fantastical adventure, to our screens. This FREE screening is also particularly special in that it is not only a part of our monthly Kid Pickford series, it is also the first entry in our Science on Screen selections, which have been curated this year by my PFC colleague Lesley Schroeder.
An initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre, with major support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Science on Screen offers “creative pairings of classic, cult, and documentary films with lively introductions by notable figures from the world of science, technology, and medicine,” and at the Pickford, we’ve decided to focus most of our pairings on family films and to invite special guests from our local community for the introductions.
For The NeverEnding Story, we are so pleased to welcome Jenna Samora, a middle school teacher at Fairhaven, to offer the film introduction. Featured in the Bellingham Herald last year for her accomplishments in science teaching, Jenna holds a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in Spanish and chemistry, along with a master’s degree in science teaching from Northern Arizona University. Her deep love for science was nurtured by her mother, a biologist for Mount Rainier National Park, who introduced her to the wonders of the natural world. Jenna’s passion for hands-on learning blossomed during her time as an outdoor education instructor, where she discovered the power of experiential education to engage and inspire students. Jenna has been teaching for eleven years. Starting her career teaching Science and Engineering in Flagstaff, AZ at Sinagua Middle School's Middle School Institute of Science and Engineering. Then with eight years of teaching experience in Bellingham Public Schools. Jenna has created a dynamic STEM curriculum that emphasizes interactive, real-world learning, continuing to spark curiosity in her students from grades six through eight.
We could not be happier to have Jenna with us to spark this same curiosity and interest in a Pickford audience, and indeed, inspired by the blasts and explosions of the film, Jenna will be demonstrating safe pyrotechnic experiments kids can try at home!
Tickets are currently all gone for this free event on Saturday, January 18, at 1:30 pm, but we encourage folks to stop by and sign up for a spot on the waitlist on the day of the screening. We will fit in everyone we can!
Please also note, you can reserve tickets now for our future Science on Screen events, including The Iron Giant (for families), BlackBerry (for grown-ups), Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (for families), The Goonies (for families), and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (for families).
This new year also brings us a wonderful new season of our Indie Lens Pop-up series, a FREE series featuring documentaries from PBS’s Independent Lens and a series that “brings people together for film screenings and community-driven conversations.” For this first film on Sunday, January 19, at 10:00 am, we’re celebrating public libraries with the documentary Free for All: Inside the Public Library, which tells the history of the pioneering women who helped create public libraries and which features the librarians and libraries that, even now, in the midst of an age of book bans, continue to provide the wonderful public service that is the library.
We are honored to be partnering with the Bellingham Public Library for this screening, and Bethany Hoglund, Deputy Library Director, will be leading an informal discussion following the film.
Tickets for this event are also currently all reserved, but we also encourage those who wish to attend to stop by our lobby Sunday morning and ask to be put on the waitlist. Seats often open up, and we’ll offer those seats on a first-come, first-served basis.
Last, the Storyteller’s Seasonal is a very special event that provides a space for all aspiring filmmakers: it is a quarterly, hour-long event that consists of 5-minute films submitted from filmmakers from our area. The Seasonal is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate and cultivate the visual storytelling of filmmakers at all levels and to provide a venue where these storytellers can share their ideas in a supportive, fun, and low-pressure environment. All are welcome to submit films -- see the Storyteller’s Facebook page for more info -- or to come see the filmmaking talents of our community. Join us on Thursday, January 23, at 8:30 pm! Tickets are just $7.
See you at the movies, friends!
Melissa
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Bellingham, WA 98225
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Bellingham, WA 98227