Arts & Entertainment Community
Gig Harbor Film Festival offering complimentary passes starting Sunday
Editor’s note: Film fans snapped up the 400 available free passes in 11 hours. Tickets are now available on the film festival’s website for the usual price of $50.
Tickets for the Gig Harbor Film Festival usually go on sale around this time. But not this year.
Because for a limited time starting Sunday, Aug. 18, the film festival is giving away complimentary (read: free) passes instead.
A limited amount of the free general admission passes, good for all screenings and the festival-closing awards ceremony, will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis for an undetermined period of time. Anyone can get a pass by going to the film festival’s website starting Sunday.
After the promotion ends, GA passes will be available at the regular price of $50 for the whole weekend. They will be for sale online and at the Galaxy box office.
VIP passes, which cost $400 and come with additional perks like priority seating and access to filmmakers at afterparties and other events, are also available. (Email [email protected] for information about VIP passes).
The festival will be Sept. 26 through 29 at the Galaxy Theaters in Uptown Gig Harbor. The opening-night headline film for this year’s festival is “The Dawgfather: The Legacy of Don James,” by local filmmaker Kent Loomer about the former University of Washington football coach.
Saying thanks
The free passes are the film festival’s way to say thank you to the Gig Harbor community that has supported the event for 17 years.
“Our main goal is we want full, engaged, vibrant audiences in our theater,” film festival executive director Pam Holt said. “We see this as one way to do that, and also thank people for 17 years. We would just like to invite more people in and have vibrant theaters for our filmmakers.”
Festival-goers will get even more bang for their (no) bucks this year. The 2024 Gig Harbor Film Festival features 85 films, up from 64 in 2023. That total includes 15 feature films and 70 shorts, grouped in 10 blocks of shorts.
The shorts are grouped by themes with intriguing titles. A few include “Love … And Other Bizarre Concepts,” “Locally Sourced” and “WTF?”
Most of the films have never been screened in Washington before, and several are world premieres.
“Dawgfather” and other films
The main event on opening night is “Dawgfather,” profiling legendary Huskies coach James.
James won 178 games over 22 years coaching college football at Kent State and Washington. His Huskies went 153-57-2 in 18 seasons, winning a share of the 1991 national championship.
“Dawgfather” features appearances by coaching colleague Nick Saban, Husky legends Warren Moon and Lincoln Kennedy, and others. Actor Joel McHale, a former walk-on tight end for the Huskies, is the narrator, Deadline reported this week.
Other highlights include “Last Lap,” about Gig Harbor running legend and former world champion Doris Brown Heritage; “First We Bombed New Mexico,” about the effect of nuclear weapons testing on the largely Hispanic and Native populations in that area; and “Fish War,” about the battle over tribal fishing rights in Washington state.
For more on the movies, see the 2024 Gig Harbor Film Festival program that went live earlier this month.
Programming Director Josh Hope said in a news release that the festrival will offer a “wildly rich slate of films across all genres. Whatever your genre, we know you’ll find something you love!”