The Seattle International Film Festival is happening right now and our handy guide to every single film is right here. Meanwhile, one of the best short films from last year's festival has just been made available for online viewing for free: Local filmmaker Zia Mohajerjasbi's Hageresesb. Charles Mudede:
Lyrical, intimate, and filled with the solemn winter light of the Northwest, the 35-minute film is set in 1990s Yesler Terrace and concerns the small world and troubles of an Eritrean American boy. He wants to make music, he needs batteries for a synthesizer, he has cultural and generational conflicts with his traditional family, and also his neighborhood is a little rough. This small world within a world that was born from the noblest ideas of the New Deal era is now mostly gone (go to Yesler Way and Broadway and see for yourself). We are now living in a city that has become too expensive for many in the community portrayed in this short film. The end of Hagereseb will break your heart with its beauty.
The film's Yesler Terrace buildings, monuments to the first racially integrated housing project in the country, no longer existâtorn down to make way for mixed-use high rises.
