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Portland’s film ecosystem has had holes in its collective heart the size of the Portland International Film Festival and Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival. Organizers of the Portland Panorama Film Festival want to fill them.
Showing movies by regional and international filmmakers at theaters across town April 10–20, PPFF is 11 days of celebrating cinema. Its organizers have big dreams, carefully curating full days of films and unique experiences across a broad spectrum of genres and themes.
Filmmakers, actors and other experts from the movies might attend screenings, Q&A sessions and educational opportunities, not to mention countless networking opportunities. While casual viewers can buy individual tickets, committed cinephiles might look at passes for Pacific Northwest movies ($150) or the all-movie pass ($250), or splurge on the full festival pass ($350), which includes entry to all of the festival’s nonmovie programs.
Stephanie Hough, PPFF’s executive director, thinks Portland needed a film festival that intentionally included international and Northwest filmmakers. NWFF and PIFF had filled those niches since the 1970s, but during the pandemic their organizers opted to throw in the towel. Though Portland now has no shortage of film festivals, NWFF’s and PIFF’s endings left a vacuum and a need for something new and fresh. PPFF’s team feels it’s up to the challenge.
Hough is a filmmaker who brings with her 15 years working in the Portland’s filmmaker community—10 of them at the Portland Art Museum’s NW Film Center (now PAM CUT). She’s also worked for various artistic festivals, such as Pickathon, Tribeca and Sundance, including in education, equipment management and outreach. She’s been board president of the nonprofit Women in Film Portland for the past two years.
“It’s a great opportunity for everyone, quite frankly,” Hough tells WW via phone. “It also puts our regional makers in the same festival as major directors and filmmakers who are screening at some of the bigger international fests.”
Melina Kiyomi Coumas, PPFF’s director of programming, chose a wide array of films for moviegoers to enjoy. Coumas’ day job has been programming the Hawai’i International Film Festival for the past three years, with PPFF as her side project. Coumas heralds Panorama’s short films as particularly excellent and this year’s documentaries as hard hitting. Another event, an hour of 15 music videos by such local legends as Y La Bamba, Sleater-Kinney and Blitzen Trapper, features a live performance by Summer Cannibals singer-songwriter Jessica Boudreaux.
The following PPFF movie choices examine the lives of people on society’s margins, while a documentary and event block looks at efforts to expand Hollywood’s safety net. All are great passion projects realized after a lot of hard work and showcase part of the wider views that the Portland Panorama Film Festival’s organizers want attendees to see.
Ponyboi (dir. Esteban Arango, 2024)
A neon-lit New Jersey crime thriller about getting mixed up in a messy, unraveling business, Ponyboi opens PPFF with a bang. It follows the complicated life of Ponyboi (River Gallo), an intersex sex worker who works at a laundromat by day. By night, she works for her secret lover and pimp, Vinny (Dylan O’Brien), who impregnates Angel (Victoria Pedretti), her best friend and laundromat colleague. Ponyboi must escape the mob after a drug deal gone bad. More chaos ensues. Gallo wrote, directed and starred in the original 2019 short film that put conversations about gender and toxic masculinity at the forefront of a haunted life and traumatic childhood that Ponyboi longs to escape. Gallo uses a genre heavily associated with their home state to own their Garden State roots. Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave., 503-223-4515, portlandpanorama.org. 7 pm Thursday, April 10. $15.
Safe Sets: Dying to Work in the Film Industry (dirs. Paul Heinzelmann, Jonathan Schwartz; 2024)
Movies transport us to another world. The real-life production work that makes movies look magical onscreen is often highly dangerous. Safe Sets takes a look at filmmaking’s occupational hazards, including the infamous Rust incident in which Alec Baldwin accidentally but fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins with a prop gun in 2021. John Malkovich and Jon Hamm also appear, but Safe Sets is less interested in buzzy stars, spending more time with sound engineers, propmasters, cinematographers, producers and—yes, of course—stunt performers. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-498-1128, portlandpanorama.org. 2:30 pm Saturday, April 19. $15.
Safety Day Saturday
Safe Sets is part of the festival’s Safety Day Saturday, a day of programming centered on keeping those involved in filmmaking safe. After snacks and coffee, Safety Day Saturday begins with a demo about picture cars—”a specialty camera car with a 12-foot arm that allows the camera to move from low to high and 360 degrees around the car for dynamic camera movements,” Hough explains, which is far safer than hanging a camera crew member out a car window—followed by two panel discussions on production safety and interpersonal wellness. Safe Sets wraps the day’s events, giving filmmakers tools and information they need to keep safe while offering the public another peek behind the curtain. Wonderlove, 262 SE Main St., portlandpanorama.org. 10 am Saturday, April 19. $30.
Trash Baby (dir. Jacy Mairs, 2025)
Sometimes films land at very interesting moments. The Y2K throwback aesthetics and fashion featured in Trash Baby fit right in the closets of Billie Eilish fans and Depop resellers. Maybe some people who lived during that era are excited to have it back, but even though it just makes me feel old, it’s interesting to see a film using that time period as the setting for a serious conversation about trailer park kids who, like most kids, try to grow up too fast. Mairs grew up in a Portland trailer park. The film, which stars Sunset High School sophomore Esther Harrison, is getting strong reviews after showing at South by Southwest in March and closes out PPFF’s inaugural year. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-498-1128, hollywoodtheatre.org. 5:30 and 7:30 pm Saturday, April 20. Sold out.