CASCADIA Kicks Off 10th Anniversary Celebration With STILLS Poetry Book Launch Party Dec. 12
Stories told by women have the power to entertain, enlighten and inspire. CASCADIA International Women’s Film Festival is celebrating ten years of bringing women’s stories through the power of film to Bellingham. To date, the festival has presented the films of more than 300 women directors from around the world, during its annual four-day festival that occurs each spring.
To kick off the year-long celebration, CASCADIA will host a launch party for a collaborative book project, “STILLS,” a poetry anthology inspired by the films of the 2025 festival, from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, December 12 at Aslan Depot (1322 N. State St., Bellingham). The event will open with readings by a number of poets featured in the book, followed by live jazz music from 8 to 10 p.m. A special cider created for the event by Greenwood Cider of Seattle will be available on tap. Admission to the all ages event is free and open to the public.
“It’s going to be a fun-filled launch to CASCADIA’s milestone 10th anniversary—a dynamic celebration of the festival’s achievements that have propelled women filmmakers onto the local and global stage,” said CASCADIA Executive Director Cheryl Crooks. “Together, we honor a decade of unstoppable creativity, visionary storytelling, and community, all while shining a spotlight on the urgent pursuit of equity for women in the film industry. This festival drives action, champions voices, and inspires everyone to energize this movement for lasting change.”
Sati Mookherjee, poet and CASCADIA Board Vice President, said that CASCADIA collaborated with Ravenna Press, an independent and woman-owned literary press in Edmonds, and asked poets to create new works—poems, prose poems, short poetic essays, or other art—in response to the films shown at the 2025 Festival. While poetry and cinema may superficially seem like two very different art forms, Mookherjee said they actually have much in common.
“STILLS is a dazzling testimony to the power of film to inspire and transform, and indeed to the very wonder—on screen or on page—of art-making,” Mookherjee said.
With an introduction by Stefania Heim, poet and Associate Professor of Literature and Director of Graduate Studies in English at Western Washington University, this anthology connects the work of film directors who presented at the 2025 festival to poetry, prose and art by noted poets from the Pacific Northwest and across the country, including Tobey Hiller, Julie Gard, Luther Allen, Arlene Naganawa, Jed Myers, Jeff Alessandrelli, and J. I. Kleinberg.
Kathryn Rantala, managing editor of Ravenna Press, said: “It’s an exciting and unique contribution to the literature of film and poetry about film. The variety (of submissions) was unexpected and inspiring. Each artist invested their abilities and sensibilities into something fine … That celebratory sense flowed into the book project and fed the poets as well as the editor.”
Books will be available for purchase for $18 at the event from co-host Village Books. The books may also be purchased through CASCADIA’s website. Books purchased directly from CASCADIA through December will also receive a discount code to watch online free short films featured in the book during the month of January.
CASCADIA International Women’s Film Festival is a Bellingham, Washington-based festival dedicated to discovering, developing and showcasing emergent and expert women filmmakers and promoting the Pacific Northwest as a destination for film production and film going audiences. Its annual film festival and cultural and educational programs throughout the year champion the arts, community and diverse perspectives.
