Help celebrate SIFF’s 40th birthday party

I've been a regular attendee at the Seattle International Film Festival since 1994, when my wife (then-girlfriend) Mary Pat Treuthart discovered that, as a film critic, I could get festival passes. We've hit it every year since, except for those few times SIFF conflicted with one of our occasional trips abroad.

This year should be no different. I now review films for Spokane Public Radio, and otherwise write about them on this blog, and as such I've already purchased tickets to SIFF 2014's opening-night movie, "Jimi: All Is by My Side," which will screen at Seattle's McCaw Hall at 7 p.m. May 15. "Jimi: All Is by My Side," which stars Andre Benjamin and Imogen Poots, was written and directed by John Ridley, who just won a Best Screenplay Oscar for "12 Years a Slave."

If you want to know more about SIFF, particularly how to purchase tickets for this 40th-annual event, click here. The box office is scheduled to open tomorrow, which is when you'll have access to more than 250 features and 150 shorts from more than 70 countries.

The festival lasts 25 days. You've got plenty of opportunities to enjoy one of the nation's finest cinematic celebrations. But if I were you, I'd get my tickets early. They tend to go fast.

Below: Andre Benjamin and Imogen Poots in John Ridley's "Jimi: All Is by My Side."