Beacon Hill Is a Star at Local Sightings Film Festival

by Jas Keimig

Early autumn in Seattle is not only marked by trees changing color and everyone donning their best flannel — it also means the Local Sightings Film Festival is upon us.

Every year, the Northwest Film Forum’s annual fest curates an impressive selection of short films, feature-length films, and other video ephemera from filmmakers located anywhere in the Pacific Northwest. With both in-person and virtual screenings, it’s the best place to get a temperature check on the creativity of our region with forays into narrative drama, experimental horror, and heart-wrenching documentaries. Since it kicked off last week, Local Sightings has screened dance films, shorts that explore relationships, and a collaborative movie package with the Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound.

And anchoring its final weekend of movies is its closing short-film package — “Seattle of the Future?” — featuring three short films that ponder the past, present, and future of the city through the history and aesthetics of two neighborhoods. Visions of Wallingford is a roving documentary that explores the history of the neighborhood, including voices of community advocates, Native elders, and unhoused people. But Beacon Hill looms large with the other two shorts focused there — “BEACON iLL” and Vanishing Seattle: The Beacon.

“BEACON iLL” is a bombastic, colorful treatise with Beacon Hill at its very center. The music video is a product of the collaboration between director Ezra Bantum and rapper Rell Be Free, who hails from the hilly neighborhood. The video features Rell’s song — produced by Noah Coinflip — and is shaped around a deal gone wrong in a desolate parking lot on Beacon. Rell and his masked-up friends drive around the neighborhood with music blasting as Rell, in face makeup, flashes on and off the screen (a reference to a character, Ichigo, from the anime Bleach).

“When we made the song, it was a real kind of angsty energy, reflecting on what it’s like growing up in South Seattle,” said Rell. “Sometimes things go sideways. Sometimes it’s shit gets real — it gets ill.” He continued: “What the song and the video are trying to depict is that we’re wrestling with who we are — there’s this dark shadow or shadow side of ourselves, and sometimes we can’t control it.”

Both Bantum and Rell wanted to pay homage to the neighborhood, making sure to include the video’s centerpiece scenes around recognizable spots on Beacon Hill: the Pacific Tower, the electrical towers in south Beacon, random streets. Neon colors are featured heavily throughout “BEACON iLL,” making the neighborhood’s vibe feel unwieldy, as if danger is lurking behind every corner. For director Bantum, creating a distinct visual narrative was paramount.

“I wanted [the video] to have a Gotham City feel — a sickly nature — but then bring it to Seattle,” said Bantum.

Beacon Hill plays a second — though more ancillary — role in Vanishing Seattle: The Beacon, a 15-minute documentary short film directed by Will Lemke and part of a collaboration with Vanishing Seattle’s film series. The doc focuses on the story of The Beacon Studio, a dance studio originally founded in the Chinatown-International District (CID) back in 2013 by the acclaimed breakdancing crew Massive Monkees.

Named after Beacon Hill — where many Massive Monkees grew up breaking at Jefferson Community Center in the ’90s and ’00s — the dance studio served as an instructional and community space for seven years, dedicated to teaching students of all ages how to express themselves through movement, with members of the crew and experienced teachers leading the way. “It’s more like a community space. Yes, there are dance classes, you can learn the different styles from the best teachers,” said Hocine Jouini of the studio and dance group in the documentary. “But more than that, you will come, build community, and make friends.” 

However, in 2020, The Beacon was forced to close for a variety of reasons — high rent, annoyed neighbors, and the final blow of the pandemic. After a year or two of contemplation, the dance studio triumphantly reopened on Rainier Avenue in 2022. Vanishing Seattle: The Beacon tracks the dance studio’s early beginnings with the Massive Monkees’ formation through the first iteration of the studio in the CID, and its second coming.

For director Lemke, his connection to The Beacon’s story was deeply personal. He, too, attended Franklin High School with many Massive Monkees members and remembers seeing them breaking back in the day. When the opportunity arose to tell the story of the opening, closing, and reopening of The Beacon, he jumped on it.

“I love how The Beacon grew into a community that’s not just breaking and old-school hip-hop, but that they’ve got this blend of whacking funk styles, popping, breakers, and house,” said Lemke, who also produced the music in the film. “I think it’s a really beautiful thing in a city where sacred things are lost. It’s something to highlight when good things happen.”

The documentary tells a compelling story of what gentrification and persistence looks like in Seattle today, using a mix of archival footage and present-day interviews with people important to the studio. Despite Vanishing appearing in the short documentary’s title, The Beacon’s story is anything but. 

“With everything stacked up against the projects and the organizations that matter, I think it’s all the more profound when you see those organizations stand strong, and persevere through it,” said Lemke. “We can’t lose our identity, we can’t lose our treasured communities.”

Both “BEACON iLL” and Vanishing Seattle: The Beacon are screening in Local Sightings’ closing shorts package “Seattle of the Future?” on Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. You can also watch online until Sept. 29 on its website.

Jas Keimig is a writer and critic based in Seattle. They previously worked on staff at The Stranger, covering visual art, film, music, and stickers. Their work has also appeared in Crosscut, South Seattle Emerald, i-D, Netflix, and The Ticket. They also co-write Unstreamable for Scarecrow Video, a column and screening series highlighting films you can’t find on streaming services. They won a game show once.