Many genres featured at 3rd annual BI Film Festival

The 3rd annual Bainbridge Island Film Festival was held Nov. 6-9 at various locations, displaying 45 films made up of features and shorts.

Festival founder and organizer Charles Poekel shared his excitement and vision about the festival.

“The idea has been…to showcase films and kind of geographically diverse parts of the island, but also to create an event and a weekend where local filmmakers and those who work and live and kind of breathe movies here on our island, get a chance to screen their work and network and, be with notable films from around the country and around the world,” he said.

Poekel said films were shown at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Bainbridge Cinemas, Lynwood Theatre, Rolling Bay Hall, and Cynthia Sears studio at Bainbridge Performing Arts. Many film screenings also included Q&As with directors and filmmakers.

“Everything except for three of the films, played twice. And I tried to schedule everything to play. If it plays once in Lynnwood, the second time it’ll play at BIMA or Bainbridge Cinemas to spread that out geographically as well,” he said.

Two films featured at the festival, Breaking Waves (2025) and State of Firsts (2025), are both directly connected to the island, Poekel said.

State of Firsts, directed by Bainbridge High School alumnus Zach Ingrasci, explores Delaware U.S. Representative Sarah McBride’s first year in Congress as the first openly transgender person elected to the House. Breaking Waves, directed by Alice Rosso, is a documentary about British adventurer Kelda Wood, and produced by Emergence Films, a production company with roots on BI that aims to support female-identifying storytellers. Both films from Ingrasci and Emergence Films have been featured in previous years’ festivals.

In comparison to previous years, Poekel said the festival includes more animated films. For instance, Arco, a science fiction animated film, voiced by Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell and Andy Samberg, was included in the Nov. 7 lineup ahead of a larger U.S. theatrical release scheduled Nov. 14.

“Now with digital, we can access pretty much everything at some point at home. The film industry doesn’t kind of follow the old theatrical model that it used to. So film festivals have kind of a bit of a rebirth in that they have kind of filled an important niche for both filmmakers and for communities,” Poekel said.

Poekel is also an avid filmmaker himself and current chair of the film department at Cornish College of the Arts/Seattle University. Poekel said he moved to BI in 2018 with his wife, who grew up on the island, and he always thought Bainbridge would be a good contender for a film festival with a strong arts community and infrastructure, such as hotels, restaurants, and venues, he said.

“As a filmmaker myself, who wasn’t originally from Bainbridge, these film festivals, and especially regional film festivals are extremely impactful in the kind of life cycle of independent films…Some of the best experiences I’ve had have been in kind of small regional festivals and communities like Bainbridge Island,“ he said.

Poekel said prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Arts and Humanities Bainbridge, a non-profit dedicated to supporting the arts on the island, previously hosted a one-day film festival called Celluloid Bainbridge Film Festival, which ended around the pandemic.

“We want filmmakers, even if they don’t live here, if they still have strong connections to the island, we want them to bring their films here,” he said. “We will always welcome the work of past and present residents.”

Poekel described one of the goals of the festival is to showcase a wide variety of films that the public may not be able to easily access.

“If you saw all 20 feature films and you liked all 20, something would probably be wrong with you, ” he said, “I want them to be different, so everybody can find something that really speaks to them. We’ve got some international titles, some just super weird films. We’ve got feel-good documentaries.”

The BI Film Festival is financially supported by Arts and Humanities Bainbridge.