Week one of the 41st Annual Seattle International Film Festival was a blur of galas, epics, indies, and chitchat all over the damn place. But now that you’ve got your c legs (it obviously stands for “cinema”), it’s time to hunker down for week two. You can do it. We can help. Don’t forget that our massively searchable festival guide—trailers, synopses, reviews, schedules, tickets—is conveniently located right here in our online calendar, Things To Do.

How To Win at Checkers (Every Time)
To American eyes, the most striking thing about this story of love and bribery, based on the fiction of Rattawut Lapcharoensap, might be its treatment of queer and trans characters. They are remarkable in their unremarkableness. The gangsters, the stern military officers, the religious and superstitious old auntie—they’ve all got more important things to worry about than who’s a boy, who’s a girl, and who’s somewhere in between. (BRENDAN KILEY)
Wed May 20, 9:30pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown

The Malagasy Way
Though I have not seen all of the films in this festivsl, it is hard for me to believe there's one that’s more important and relevant to our times of climate change and financial globalization than this documentary, which is about a community of poor artists, craftspersons, a market vendors in Madagascar. The story concerns the spiritual and economic ways they have survived what we in the US call the Great Recession—for them it has been, of course, a Great Depression. These people are proud of their traditions and their drive to recycle everything, to waste nothing, and to meet all manner of problems with very simple and non-capitalist solutions. Says one man: "To remove a thorn, a white person says give me a pin. As for us... we remove it with another thorn." (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Wed May 20, 4pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown

King Georges
A well-done documentary that captures the essence of the kitchen of a high-end restaurant—the pressure, the relentlessness, the perfectionism. Charismatic chef Georges Perrier yells at his employees, throws food on the floor, and is singularly focused on his restaurant, one of the last holdouts of formal French dining. But the culture of eating out has changed, and you see Perrier wondering if there is still a place for him. (GILLIAN ANDERSON)
Wed May 20, 7pm at Pacific Place

Villa Touma
Quiet, dour, and predictable on some levels (orphaned 18-year-old comes to live with rigid, delusional aunts), but still intriguing given the context—Christian Palestinian aristocrats living as if the war never happened, under the iron grip of a matriarch who refuses to give up the family’s outdated bourgeoisie customs. Most scenes are wooden, but darkly humorous—synchronized tea drinking, attending strictly weddings and funerals as means to meet eligible bachelors. The ending is effed up. (EMILY NOKES)
Wed May 20, 4:30pm at SIFF Cinema Egyptian

Wet Bum
This movie is quiet the way it’s quiet underwater—slow and with its own special noise, sparkling and cool. It’s a not-terribly-unusual coming of age story (with a satisfying ending) written, shot, and played beautifully, about a 14-year-old girl who loves to swim and wears her wet swimsuit under her clothes everywhere. Hence the title: Wet Bum, hands-down the worst title for the best movie this year. (JEN GRAVES)
Wed May 20, 6pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown

The Hallow
Wed May 20, 6:30pm, SIFF Cinema Uptown