It was a big year for the Port Townsend Film Festival, which saw gross sales rise to slightly more than $91,000, compared to $83,000 from 2024. The opening night gala fundraiser alone brought in more than $56,550.

Having watched 15 feature films prior to the event, I screened eight feature films and five short films during this year’s Port Townsend Film Festival, which ran from Sept. 18-21.

The 26th annual film festival drew a number of the filmmakers whose works were featured, as well as two special guests; actress Kelli Garner, and actor and director Tom Skerritt.

Garner was attending the festival to screen writer-director Mike Mills’ feature directorial debut from 2005, “Thumbsucker,” in which she’d also starred. Skerritt received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the film festival, delivered on stage Friday, Sept. 19, by PTFF Executive Director Danni McClelland at the Rose Theatre.

Day 1: Thursday, Sept. 18

“A Look Through His Lens”

Directors Matthew Berkowitz and Gregory Hoblit have crafted a compelling, informative profile of Oscar-winning cinematographer Philippe Rousselot, that itself succeeds as an independently atmospheric film, thanks in no small part to the haunting, dreamlike original score of Ben Flesch.

Fortunately for the filmmakers, Rousselot is an effortlessly engaging raconteur, whose resume reads like a history of modern cinema, ranging from avant-grade art to popcorn blockbusters.

Rousselot’s professional approach reminds me of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.” Just as the ancient military strategist wrote that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, so too does the veteran cinematographer come to every shoot prepared, before he winds up improvising anyway, to adjust to whatever unanticipated conditions he finds at those shooting locations.

Hearing legendary filmmakers like John Boorman, Stephen Frears, Neil Jordan and Bertrand Blier hold forth about working with Rousselot would be worth the price of admission by itself.

The important truth that shines through all their entertaining anecdotes is how Rousselot envisions his role. He’s not a technician operating in isolation from the rest of the production, but a holistic partner in storytelling with those filmmakers. Rousselot grasps, on an aesthetic and emotional level, what they want to achieve, even if they can’t put it into words themselves.

What I love about reviewing films is that I’m always learning something new. Since French cinema has been one of my blind spots, I’m now eager to catch up on Rousselot films such as 1981’s “Diva,” which seems like an absolutely wild ride from the cinéma du look movement.

Day 2: Friday, Sept. 19

“Lost Wolves of Yellowstone”

Mollie Beattie’s term as the first woman director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lasted only three years, from 1993-1996, before she died of cancer, but she made those three years count.

Under her watch, wolves were brought back to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, 50 years after they’d been wiped out from that area. “Lost Wolves of Yellowstone” follows the tenuous progress of those initially imported wolves, alongside Beattie’s dignified passing.

Decades-old recovered footage allows documentary director Thomas Winston to share the social and survival dynamics that park rangers observed among the Yellowstone wolves. This enhanced their understanding of the species, and revitalized the area’s ecosystem by thinning its overstocked prey herds, thereby reducing those herds’ over-grazing of the landscape in turn.

More squeamish viewers might shy away from sequences of wolves teaming up to take down much larger elk and bison, but it’s impressive how effectively the pack predators zero in on the subtle weaknesses of specific individuals within those herds.

The overall balance that the wolf repopulation project had to strike remains fascinating, since these animals ultimately needed to be able to claim the territory through their own fitness, but the rangers still did what they could to help bolster the wolves’ odds of success.

It’s a fitting tribute to Beattie’s legacy that the group of wolves among them who were named “Mollie’s Pack” wound up achieving the most success. Indeed, that pack’s alpha female became the equivalent of Genghis Khan among the Yellowstone wolves as a whole, given the significant percentage of those wolves that are now descended from her.

“Suburban Fury”

Despite having already screened two impeccable documentaries in person at this year’s film festival, I still was not prepared for “Suburban Fury” to knock me back into my seat as hard as it did.

In recounting the second assassination attempt in 1975 on President Gerald Ford, through the perspective of his would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, director Robinson Devor — and his co-writers Bob Fink, Charles Mudede and Jason Reid — have weaved together a challenging, experimental fever dream of a film out of a lone interviewee and mountains of archival footage.

Moore is afforded the freedom to tell her own tale — a bold choice on the filmmakers’ part, given her questionable reliability as a narrator — but it’s contextualized with relevant historic footage, and her story is presented in non-sequential hopscotch order, flashing back and forward in time.

This yields a scattershot collage of a life that already resisted tidy interpretations on its own, as Moore traded out husbands much like she switched her loyalty, as an FBI informant, from the establishment to the extremist political groups whom she was tasked with surveilling.

The unsettling appeal of this approach is that Moore almost comes across as a symptom of her chaotic and highly radicalized era, whose unprecedented developments rivaled current events.

As tempting as such an interpretation might be, the filmmakers also acknowledge Moore’s attempts to construct her own narrative, as a former aspiring actress with an enigmatic past.

It’s sobering to look back on the turbulence of the post-Watergate period and see not only parallels to today’s news, but also how quaint some of its concerns now seem by comparison.

Day 3: Saturday, Sept. 20

“The Chaplain & The Doctor”

Hospital chaplain Betty Clark and physician Jessica Zitter easily qualify as heroes, working on the front lines of providing health care to low-income inner-city residents. But what’s striking about Zitter’s documentary, about their decade-long partnership at the hospital where they work, is its humility about her own role, and its empathy for the patients whom they team up to serve.

Zitter’s Jewish family weathered the Holocaust, while Clark’s Black family descended from slaves and sharecroppers, so both women are familiar with generational trauma and cultural disenfranchisement. This aids Zitter in learning from the 80-year-old Clark how to care better for her Black patients in Oakland, California, who have ingrained reasons to mistrust the health care system.

Zitter freely concedes that the doctors in her own family weren’t always strong on emotional warmth, so she strives to adopt Clark’s habit of connecting to patients on a personal level.

Along the way, the women forge a bond that, ironically, is never more evident than when they bicker amusingly over minutiae, such as which directions to use during shared car trips.

If there’s a lesson Clark needs to learn, it’s to give herself a break, as concerning health incidents of her own compel her to slow down, if only relative to her ever-active standards.

Seeing the sacrifices and solace that Clark and Zitter provide, to those most in need of such measures, should serve as inspiring and informative examples for others. Such examples could crack the code of how to provide care for folks who have been systemically disadvantaged.

As the film’s opening sequence illustrates, poorly scheduled medical appointments are more than a mere inconvenience when you’re the sole caregiver of a household.

“Desert Angel” and “The Changebaker”

These paired short and feature-length documentaries center on successful immigrants to the United States, from Latin-American countries, aiding those looking to follow in their footsteps.

“The Changebaker” follows Manolo Betancur, as he flees war-torn Colombia to start a bakery in North Carolina, that employs fellow immigrants.

After being beset by a string of ICE raids, Manolo’s Bakery receives a groundswell of support, from his local community and well beyond. This feels fitting, because Betancur’s baked goods look amazingly appetizing, and I can’t help but root for a man who quotes “Rocky” to describe the U.S. as a “land of opportunity.”

“Desert Angel” focuses on the tireless, self-funded and largely solitary efforts of Mexican immigrant Rafael Larraenza, to rescue those who become stranded in deadly deserts, when they attempt to cross the southern border of the United States, or else to recover their remains, if they don’t survive the crossing.

By his own account, Larraenza had made a comfortably prosperous home for himself in the U.S. He had no reason to take up such a self-appointed crusade, other than his empathy for folks he didn’t know. But because he’d successfully crossed the border himself, he felt obligated to give back.

Director Vincent DeLuca hammers home how Larraenza has given everything he has to his mission, from frequently running out of money to fuel his beat-up truck, to putting himself through the physical wringer, which results in him needing a double-hip replacement.

And yet, Larraenza still sheds tears of guilt over not being able to save more lives. If kindness is the real punk rock, then he’s an absolute rock star. As heartbreaking as it was to watch, I’m glad I spent some time with him on his journey.

“Girl Climber” and “Beyond Beliefs”

The short, sweet documentary “Beyond Beliefs” shows a young Black woman tackling the racist stereotype that “Black people can’t swim,” by embarking on a four-day rafting trip through the Green River’s Gates of Lodore Canyon.

No, she doesn’t know how to swim, but she overcomes her fear of water, transcending the limits of what she believes she can do. It’s a brief but uplifting glimpse into how an otherwise simple act can open someone up to broader possibilities, and it benefits from lush on-location shooting.

This sets the stage nicely for the feature documentary “Girl Climber,” which almost qualifies as a thematic sequel to the 2018 documentary, “Free Solo,” that I reviewed for The Leader that year.

“Free Solo” profiled Alex Honnold, as he performed the first-ever free solo climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in 2017. In “Girl Climber,” Honnold helps Emily Harrington train for her goal, to complete a 24-hour ascent of El Capitan, but make no mistake, he’s merely a supporting character in her story.

Both “Free Solo” and “Girl Climber” feature seemingly impossible footage from the high-altitude sheer cliffside of El Capitan, with cameras barely a stone’s throw from their respective climbers, to underscore the potentially deadly stakes of their physically taxing undertakings.

Of the two films, though, I preferred “Girl Climber,” because Harrington falls just slightly short of Honnold’s self-assurance and physical capabilities — at one point, she has to wear an extra layer of climbing shoes, just to approximate his larger foot size — which makes her more sympathetic.

Unlike Honnold, Harrington is also saddled with institutional sexism within the rock-climbing field, as well as a self-imposed deadline to successfully scale El Capitan, before she can consider becoming a mom.

I felt a sense of secondhand exhilaration from witnessing Harrington’s triumphs and perilous travails so close.

Day 4: Sunday, Sept. 21

“Come See Me in the Good Light”

I’d never seen a biopic of someone dying of cancer that intentionally evoked so many instances of laughter, deep enough to leave audiences gasping for breath. But married poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley were riotously hilarious together on camera, even as they coped with the inexorable progression of Gibson’s cancer.

The couple’s shared humor underscored the tragedy of Gibson’s illness, rather than diminishing it, just as Gibson (who identified by they/them pronouns) recounted how their cancer diagnosis had ended their previous suicidal ideation.

Gibson composed poetic verse with a quicksilver fluidity, and delivered those poems through passionately animated performances, with a cadence whose rolling rhythm felt relentless.

This documentary captured enough of Gibson’s Promethean talent to make me want to see more of it, through videos of their spoken-word performances.

This film also conveys how ideally suited Gibson and Falley were to each other, as creative and romantic partners. Each one provided the affirmation and insights the other needed, to heal and become more fully actualized as people. I loved hearing how Gibson cherished the curves that Falley had been raised to be ashamed of in her own body.

As I watched Gibson bear up under the weight of becoming aware of their impending mortality, and Falley provide her support, comfort and companionship to her partner, I couldn’t help but see it as a real-life version of Frodo and Sam from “The Lord of the Rings.” Like the ring-bearer, only Gibson could shoulder the burden of their illness, but Falley could still carry and care for her partner.

While “Suburban Fury” knocked me back into my seat, “Come See Me in the Good Light” knocked the wind out of me. If you were left emotionally unmoved by Gibson and Falley’s story, then I can’t fix what’s wrong with you.

“Her Fight, His Name: The Story of Gwen Carr and Eric Garner”

When Eric Garner was killed by police officers in 2014, his mother, Gwen Carr, made it her mission to fight for justice, not just for her own son, but for other Black men losing their lives to law enforcement.

Through this short documentary, we see Carr mourn the deaths of her son Eric, her granddaughter Erica from a subsequent heart attack, and her second husband Ben from a stroke, after she recalls how her first husband Elliot, Eric’s father, also died of a heart attack, leaving her a widow at 27.

Carr’s fortitude in the face of such losses is more than should be expected of anyone, but that determination yielded results, with the passage of the Eric Garner Excessive Use of Force Prevention Act of 2021, which forbids the use of chokeholds by law enforcement.

“Out Here”

This short documentary raises many of the same issues as Gabe Van Lelyveld’s “Michael and Damian.” While director Lisa Klein’s film is set in Sacramento instead of Port Townsend, it also centers around encampments of folks who are otherwise homeless, receiving assistance from someone who used to be in their shoes.

Social worker Mark is shown attempting to apply a Band-Aid to the gaping wound of systemic homelessness. While he’s able to furnish tickets to public transportation, and even temporary stays in hotel rooms, many of the people in these encampments are dealing with deeper issues of income, affordable housing, and caring for either children or pets, while also trying to support themselves.

Mark’s earnestness and empathy are to be commended, but Klein casts his struggle as practically Sisyphean, given how pervasive homelessness is in the state of California alone.

“Viva Verdi!” and “Tessitura”

The short film “Tessitura” offers a breezy, cheerful primer of some of the primary archetypes of opera, via the unorthodox lens of contemporary transgender opera singers.

By concentrating on vocal ranges and character roles, rather than getting hung up on questions of gender, “Tessitura” cuts straight to the deeper nature of operatic drama.

It doesn’t hurt that the singers in question offer appealing personalities and interesting backstories of their own, independent of their brisk summaries of the history of opera.

The feature-length “Viva Verdi!” follows with a real-life premise that deserves to be its own ongoing streaming reality series. Casa Verdi, created by 19th century Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi on the eve of the 20th century, serves as a retirement home for elderly opera singers and musicians, as they mentor international music students who live with them.

Each of these senior pros could sustain their own biopics, but my favorites were jazz drummer Leonello Bionda, Japanese-born Italian opera singer Chitose Matsumoto and the grand old man himself, superstar opera singer and music teacher Claudio Giombi.

Bionda exuded a puckish Jack-the-Lad energy, while Matsumoto offered a fascinating perspective on attempting to establish herself as an opera singer when native-born Italians were even more heavily preferred in the field than they are today.

As for Giombi, he’s an overgrown personality kid who automatically commands the attention of any room he enters, and his supreme self-confidence is backed up by a savvy wisdom about musical artistry that still compels younger musicians to seek his tutelage.

Seeing so many musical legends go out on a high note felt like a fitting conclusion for this year’s Port Townsend Film Festival.