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Pretty big event yesterday: Shobhit and I attended this year's Tasveer Film Festival and Market Launch Party. When we went last year, the photo album I created on Flickr included 15 shots from the Launch Party, at Tagney Jones Hall right next to McCaw Hall at Seattle Center, but I later filled it out for the whole festival because Shobhit had photos from both visiting a local studio that Tasveer is sponsored by (Harbor Island Studios) as well as some later festival events we both attended. The album later fleshed out to 30 photos, and I kind of expect a similar thing to happen this year. For now, I took 16 photos at the Launch Party, so that's how many photos are in the album.

When we went last year, we had a much more explicit understanding of what it was. Shobhit and I even attended wearing the traditional Indian outfits we got married in, something that clearly made an impression: more than one person last night remembered us both from last year specifically because of how we had been dressed.

We didn't even think to attend in kurtas this year, mostly because we didn't realize this was simply this year's version of the same Launch Party we went to last year. It didn't even fully register until we got there, largely because it was in a new location. This time we were driving in the opposite direction from Seattle Center, to Columbia City.

I did look it up on my calendar to double check it while we were in the car. "Tasveer Film Festival Launch Party," I said, confirming that was indeed what it was. The thing is, plenty of South Asian people at least year's party were not in kurtas, so I knew we wouldn't feel out of place in regular everyday clothes. I think Shobhit may be more inclined to lean back into the Indian dress next time, though, simply because more than one person last night commented on how we were dressed in "beautiful" clothes last year.

They even had the same backdrop for photos inside the front entrance this year, but we did not stop to have someone take our photo in front of it. Perhaps we should have.

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We actually toured the facility, which is right across from the residential complex where PCC Columbia City is the anchor tenant on the ground floor (just on the opposite side from Rainier Avenue), and saw three different theater screening rooms. And we had done this tour from the ground floor to the second floor before it finally registered to me that this was the old Ark Lodge Cinemas.

It had been some time before I even thought about the sad news of that cinema being forced to close, just last February. Did I even know that happened, actually? I can't remember for sure. I think I did hear about it. Maybe. It was only a month later when the news came out that Tasveer bought the space, largely with the help of a $2.19 million grant from King County's Open Doors program. But last night was the first I heard about any of that.

I found myself pretty excited about it, though. We were among the first to arrive—maybe 10 or 15 others were there when we got there—and we found ourselves with some time to chat with a woman named Sandy who is the Board President, so she was able to give me some pretty knowledgeable information about the space (which they reduced from the four screens at the Ark Lodge to three screens now; they are using the third/top floor for office space) and what they had been doing with it since acquiring it.

Interestingly, the Seattle Times article from March says Tasveer hoped to use the space "by 2028," and here they are holding the festival there, now called Tasveer Film Center (something else that had been new to me, that location name itself), this very year. The festival is next month.

There is an event space on the second floor, where they had a Sri Lankan snack available to eat (they had more options last year, but I rathered liked this stuff) and an open bar. The bar was manned by a young man who clearly did not do that very much; Shobhit showed him how to open a wine bottle, and when he poured me my two different cocktails of vodka & pineapple juice, I don't think he had any idea he made them quite strong—I think it was a 1:1 ratio of liquor to juice. No complaints here!

They also had cake, which didn't start getting cut until people were filing into the main theater for the official program. To my surprise, people just cut their own slices. I went to get one and brought it back for Shobhit and me to share in the theater, where we sat through some talks, some trailers to some of the featured films, and then a screening of a 20-minute short film that I didn't understand at all but Shobhit clearly followed very easily. I felt a distinct cultural disconnect there, but that's okay.

Shobhit still wanted other food after the event was over, and somewhat amusingly, he decided to go to Bombay Burger at Madison & 15th, all of one block from our place. We just walked over after parking the car in our garage, then came back with it as takeout, and ate it over a plate on the kitchen counter. Then I went to bed.

Oh by the way tasveer means "picture" in Hindi. I couldn't believe I never learned that last year. There was one white woman who was part of the presentation and she kept pronoucing it "tass-veer." It was like she was magnifying her own whiteness through her accent. Everyone else, at least the South Asian people, pronounce it "tuss-veer."

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[posted 12:33pm]