I was glancing through the schedule for 2013 SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival), trying to figure out how they'd organized everything. The booklet lists a few traditional categories (LOVE ... MAKE ME LAUGH...) and some odd ones (OPEN MY EYES ... PROVOKE ME!). Mostly I was trying to find the country by country. In particular I was interested in films from France—although “Les tribulations d'une caissière” kinda screwed me over last year—and finally found, in the back, on pg. 49, a topic index. No pics, no synopses, just movies by topics. I read down:

• DOCUMENTARY
• ENVIRONMENTAL
• EXPERIMENTAL/AVANT-GARDE
• FAMILY FRIENDLY
• FOOD
• GAY/LESBIAN
• GERMAN LANGUAGE

Uh ... wait. Where was the French? I backtracked, looked again. Then again. I studied the other topics: ARABIC LANGUAGE ... ASIAN .... JAPANESE LANGUAGE ...RUSSIAN LANGUAGE... But no FRENCH LANGUAGE? Were they banning French movies or something? Did others complain about “Les tribulations d'une caissière,” too?

A few pages on, I found Country Index, where, yes, about 15 French movies were listed. Whew. Even so. Quel est le probleme, SIFF?

And what's with the logo below?

And has anyone heard what's worth seeing?

Starts May 16.