SIFF got off to a rousing start last night, with the premiere of the brilliantly foul-mouthed political satire IN THE LOOP but the real surprise was the locally produced short that ran just before the main feature. Rick Stevenson is a longtime (and long-suffering?) Seattle filmmaker whose career never quite hit the big time that a lot of his supporters had expected. But he may finally have a hit on his hands with his 10-15 minute short honoring the 35th anniversary of SIFF.

The film cleverly parodies IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, with its look at what life in Seattle would have been like if SIFF had never existed. It turns out glass artist Dale Chihuly would have been reduced to playing a Sea Fair pirate, weatherman Steve Pool would be hawking umbrellas, actor Tom Skerritt would be stuck running a doughnut shop, and Matt Hasselbeck and Steve Raible would be your not-so-friendly garbage men. The punchline? SIFF founders Darryl MacDonald and Dan Ireland, without SIFF, would be running a sex video store .. and bickering about it, of course.

Nice job, Rick.