Meet our talented team of programmers—the people who work and watch movies all year long to curate the best films possible for the Seattle International Film Festival, celebrating its 50th year from May 9 to 19, 2024. Full program info siff.net/festival.

Emalie Soderback (she/her)
Programmer
Shorts

What are your 10 favorite films ever?
Ok Sight & Sound let’s go! For the time being, and just in chronological order:

The Red Shoes (1948, Powell/Pressburger)
La Dolce Vita (1960, Fellini)
Carrie (1976, De Palma)
Out of the Blue (1980, Hopper)
Possession (1981, Zulawski)
Smithereens (1982, Seidelman)
Goodfellas (1990, Scorsese)
Chungking Express (1994, Kar-wai)
Boogie Nights (1997, Anderson)
Frances Ha (2012, Baumbach)

What’s one of your favorite Festival memories or anecdotes?
While I have a lot of great memories in the last 11 years of working with SIFF, the electricity of last year's opening night when the re-opening of Cinerama (SIFF Cinema Downtown) was announced is hard to beat!

What is your guilty pleasure film?
I don’t believe in guilty pleasures—let’s all embrace our cringe! I’m a Michael Bay fan, and love the big budget sentimentality found in movies like Pearl Harbor and Armageddon. Also will forever be obsessed with Titanic, and stuff like Tony Scott’s Man on Fire and Déjà Vu (really anything Denzel). Other things that might not be everyone’s cup of tea is just ultra ugly and gross horror, whether that’s super goopy body horror movies or 2000s “torture porn,” I can typically get into.

What's one thing we should know about you that is NOT film related?
Some of my favorite things are thrifting, dinner parties, and hot yoga.

What do you consider your hometown?
Lynnwood, WA. I grew up at the Alderwood Mall.