“Darkness and silence and fear of the unknown have haunted me. The fear of death is the big one, right? I think comedy and horror are both ways in which we deal with the existential crisis of the knowledge that the pattern of life we're so used to will one day be broken, and we don't know what will happen next.” - Jordan Peele, Time, 2018
In honor of 2024's Black History month and of Bellingham's enduring love for horror, this February, we'll be celebrating the unique cinematic art of Jordan Peele, who with just three feature films has knocked each and every one of them out of the park, and with Get Out in 2017, he became the first African-American screenwriter to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Prior to 2017, Peele was well-known for his hilarious, inventive, and often socially-conscious comedy in Key & Peele, but as a longtime horror-aficionado and founder of Monkeypaw Productions, he wore his love for horror on his sleeve as well. With Get Out, as his stunning feature film debut, Peele offered a wonderfully inventive new entry in the horror genre, a brilliant marriage of horror, comedy, and social commentary and, thus, a showcase of Peele's passions and unique sensibilities. His subsequent features, Us and Nope, have offered the same brilliance in the marriage of tone and subject, while also showcasing ever-deeper thematic elements and new explorations of genre conventions.
Join us, this February, for the pleasure of seeing all three films -- Get Out, Us, and Nope -- back on the big screen again and to consider them together, as part of Peele's approach to film and filmmaking.
Get Out February 15th
Introduction by Felicia Cosey of Western Washington University
Us February 22nd
Introduction by Gary Washington, co-founder of Bleedingham FIlm Festival
Nope February 29th
Introduction by Felicia Cosey of Western Washington University
All screenings at 8:00 PM.
Professor Felicia Cosey of Western Washington University will be introducing Get Out and Nope. Professor Cosey is currently teaching a class on Elevated Horror -- "Elevated horror film—also called slow horror, art horror, and indie horror—is a subgenre that embraces storytelling and character development to evoke a profound sense of dread in the spectator" -- and she is "a film, television, and media studies scholar. Her research and teaching interests focus on representations of race, gender, and sexuality in various forms of popular culture. Her current scholarship investigates post-apocalyptic fantasies in film, television, video games, and literature."
Gary Washington will be introducing Us. Beloved Pickford Board member and co-founder of Bellingham's very own horror film festival, Bleedingham, Gary is our resident expert on horror. Whatcom Talk, profiling Bleedingham in 2023 notes, the festival takes "place each year on the weekend before or of Halloween, the film festival provides creative opportunities for local filmmakers and horror enthusiasts to bask in gore and jump scares, among other creepy delights."
Event Details:
Series Name: From The Mind of Jordan Peele
Dates: Starts Thursdays, February 15th-29th 8:00 PM
Location: Pickford Film Center, 1318 Bay St. Bellingham, WA
Website: https://www.pickfordfilmcenter.org/peele
Founded in 1998, the Pickford Film Center serves the Whatcom community by screening independent films 365 days a year, producing and presenting the annual Doctober film festival, the Bellingham Children’s Film Festival, numerous film series and special events. The Pickford offers free documentary film showings to all Whatcom middle schools through Doc-ED and partners with students and schools for many other events during the year.
