Words and Pictures

  In 1941, simmering tensions between Walt Disney Studios and its animators boiled over into one of the most notorious walkouts in American labor history, an incident that changed the face of the animation industry.  Behind the surfact of the Disney Strike is a tangled sto... Read more

  Orpheus PDX is the newest opera company in the Pacific Northwest, bringing together talent from around the world with the intention of making opera more accessible and intimate.  Their inaugural season opened in August 2022 with the Monteverdi opera L’Orfeo, and continue... Read more

  Bushra Azzouz was an Iraqi-born experimental filmmaker who directed documentaries and mentored students for two decades at the Northwest Film Center's School of Film.  When she died in 2019, her colleagues Ellen Thomas and Enie Vaisburd took up her unfinished project A M... Read more

  Portland is an international hub for stop-motion animation, and Jerold Howard and Suzanne Moulton are two of the most innovative artists in the field. Suzanne is a filmmaker, artist, and educator.  She’s worked with Tim Burton on Frankenweenie and Henry Selick on Corali... Read more

  In the spring of 2020, the Northwest Film Center shut the doors of its Whitsell Auditorium in the face of the Covid lockdown.  Now, the space is opening back up again, but with a different name and different priorities.  Jon Richardson fills us in on the changes at PAM C... Read more

  Portland alt-comics heavyweights Barry Deutsch (Hereville) and Becky Hawkins (French Toast Comix) have teamed up to create SuperButch, the adventures of a lesbian superhero and the citizens whose lives she transforms.  Set in the 1940's when many gay Americans led double... Read more

  Kat Alioshin is a film director and producer who's helped shepherd numerous stop-motion animated classics to the big screen, including The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, Coraline, and James and the Giant Peach. Now she's turned for inspiration to the long... Read more

  In this extended version of our conversation with Craig "Spike" Decker and documentarian Kat Alioshin, we hear more about the history of the Spike and Mike Festival of Animation. Spike teamed up with Mike Gribble in the 1970's to launch the Spike and Mike Festival (and ... Read more

  Thousands of film industry crew members and actors have learned the ropes working for Lloyd Kaufman and his independent studio Troma Entertainment.  The low-budget movies that Lloyd has directed and produced include Class of Nuke ‘em High, Sergeant Kabukiman, and four di... Read more

  In this extended conversation with Troma Entertainment co-founder Lloyd Kaufman, we feature 50% more fun. For the past half-century, thousands of film industry crew members and actors have learned the ropes working for Lloyd and his fiercely independent New York studio.... Read more