One Day Only: February 15
NORTHWEST PASSAGE
Premiere (2006, 90 minutes)
From the late 1970s through the early 1980s the Pacific Northwest witnessed a surge of idiosyncratic musical creativity that, for a time, competed with the slack-jawed banality of mainstream music, condemning it to the shabby bargain basement of the cultural wasteland where it belonged. Numerous young men and women turned their backs on popular culture, which had become a hollow blather generated in corporate boardrooms. These punksters produced their own music and art with a rebellious, energetic glee. NORTHWEST PASSAGE: THE BIRTH OF PORTLAND'S DIY CULTURE is an independent, locally produced film that examines the exciting alternative music movement in Portland that thrived from 1978 to 1983. Directed and produced by video pioneer Mike Lastra, NORTHWEST PASSAGE is a narrative told by the musicians and artists themselves via interviews, archived performance videos, photographs, and vintage news clips. Poison Idea, Sado-Nation, The Wipers, The Dead Kennedys, The Neo Boys, Smegma, The Bags, The Rats, and The Styphnoids are just a few of the bands that appear in the film, sure to still rattle the cages of the corporate cultural elites.

The Reel Music Festival presents a film by Mike Lastra

The Birth of Portland's DIY Culture

An independent film celebrating the infectuous creativity of the late 70s alternative music scene