Back to New day northwest.
If you are a lover of things that are
imaginative and a little outside the box,
you're gonna love our next gues.
He's the guy behind a brand new genre of
Film Festival called Make believe Seattle.
It showcases horror, science fiction,
fantasy and so much more.
Please welcome to new day,
Billy Ray Brooten, thank you for being here.
It's my pleasure.
So let's talk about this.
How did you come up with this
cool idea for a Film Festival?
I've wanted to do a genre festil
of my own for quite a few years,
and so once I moved to Seattle in 2020.
One, it was one of the
first things in my mind,
and it's the Pacific Northwest,
which is inherently kind of spo.
So yeah, just made all
the sense in the world,
right? Why focus on these genre?
Well, you know, genre
is sort of a blanket term
that's used to describe horror,
sci-fi, fantasy and all of that.
And I don't know, I've just alws
been obsessed with those genres.
I've been a horror fan since I a
kid and a sci-fi nerd since I was a kid.
And, you know, I feel like Seate
audiences haven't really been
given enough of those genres.
And so I wanted to kind of do
something a little different from like.
If or or things like that,
which are awesome festivals but
don't quite specialize in genre.
And this is what I'm excited ab.
I'm a huge fan of fantasy, urban fantasy.
We've got a lot of great
authors in Seattle who do this,
so I think it's important.
Now why do you,
before we get into some of the films,
I just have to ask about the opening night.
There's a party called Killers
on the loose party.
Let's talk about this.
That's right.
So it is our opening night part.
It's at
century ballroom.
We're encouraging all
attendees to dress up as their
favorite horror movie killer.
We'll have a live DJ.
It's kind of camp theme.
OK. And and then people will maybe go missing
throughout the evening and
maybe we don't know why but
they'll just disappear.
Knows scary we're trying to mak.
And then we're also gonna be
telling ghost stories on the
microphone at some point.
I don't know.
I like see I love fan.
I don't know if I'm I'm a little scaredy cat.
But I think that would be fun.
I think
you could handle some old campfe
ghost story, but I think you'd K
alright. Let's talk about some of the films.
The first film on opening
night is called my parents.
Were abducted by aliens and now I kind
of feel left out. Love this tit.
Tell me about this film. Yeah,
so this is it just premiered at Sundance
Stars, will Forte from SNL,
Elizabeth Mitchell from lost.
It's about a girl who
moves to this small town,
befriends this boy next door who believes
his parents were abducted by al,
and then they go on this sort of John Hughes,
Esque adventure to try to
figure out what happened there.
And it's funny and it's
fun and we just thought,
why not open a genre
festival with a family film?
I love that. Alright,
the next film is about Little Richard.
It's a it's a document. How doe.
This musician movie go into
this make believe Film Festival.
I get asked this question a lot.
So we're trying to broaden the definition
of what a genre festival is, OK?
And we're called make believe.
And when you think about the words make
believe, who better personifies that than
someone like Little Richard who spent his
entire career sort of traversing that world?
And it's just a fabulous documey
that really focuses on his influence,
his queerness.
And yeah, it's just wonderful.
It just fit in my mind.
It fit perfectly.
And his. Music is phenomenal.
I can't wait to see all of it pursued.
This film is having its world
premiere world premiere.
Yeah, we're really excited about this
when this was the new thriller from the
director of the dorm that dripped blood,
which is a classic horror film,
and it stars Sam Trammell from True Blood.
It's stars Angus McFadden from Braveheart,
Molly Ringwald.
Like, it's just packed full of ,
recognizable faces.
It's about this young girl who
finds out her mother's dating aw
guy and she goes to cyber stalkg
but accidentally starts stalkin.
A guy with the same name but who
happens to be a serial killer.
And so it's really fun, really .
I think people are gonna love i.
Well that's cool.
I actually watched that one.
It sounds really it's not as
horror and that is horror,
but it's creepy and I like that.
Yeah, life on the farm,
life on the farm. Ohh.
It's a documentary from the UK.
It's about this family that
uncovers this old VHS tape made
by one of their neighbors.
This like 70 something year old
guy who is just showcasing his
farm and it's sort of like Grey
Gardens meets the Texas Chainsaw
Man. Ohh what? It's just it's
so much fun and it's actually
kind of heartwarming in the end.
So it it's it's one of my favors
of of of the last few months.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
It's a documentary or is it a f?
It's a documentary.
It's a documentary about this od
guy who just made these VHS taps
feel good. Documentary about deh
is literally no mic. That's it.
It is a feel good documentary about death.
And who doesn't want to
feel better about dance?
I mean, I preach absolutely.
You're also gonna have a short films program.
Yeah, we have 6 short film bloc,
actually, from all over the wor.
The one I I'm most excited
about is our animated block.
It's called win, lose or draw o,
and it's got some animated films
from literally all over the wor.
We've got, I think we've got one American
film and then it's spread all as
and Co presented by Outsider Co.
It's just it's going to be a great block.
It's at the Egyptian too.
So what better place to see a bunch of
animated shorts than the Egyptian theater?
How fun. You're also going to be
celebrating some anniversary pi.
We've got the 30th anniversary screening
of careful, which is Friday nig.
It's also when we're giving our
imagination award to filmmaker. By Madden.
OK is gonna be joining us for that and
doing a 15th anniversary of a hr
film called Make Out with viole,
which is a southern horror film
that I actually kind of discoved
over a decade ago back in Alaba.
So we're going to bring it to Seattle
and see if it and see if it cli.
I think it will. I think it wil.
This is interesting. Where where
are these films gonna be playin?
Where people go see them.
You could. It's all on Capitol .
Everything is within a two to
three minute walking radius.
We're at Northwest Film Forum, siphon,
Gyptian queer Bar, Century ball.
Those are our main locations.
But you're not gonna have to wak
more than two or three minutes o
get anywhere during the festiva,
which was part of it. Yeah,
well Billy, I'm so excited that you brought
this fun Film Festival to us and I can't
wait to see so many of these mo.
Yes, I think you'll enjoy it.
Even the scary one.
Ohh, yeah, alright. Scary stuff.
Well, the make believe Film Festival runs
the weekend of March 23rd to the 26th.
Don't miss out. Go get tickets.
Go find out. Alright. Well.