North Bend Film Festival (2018-2022, Defunct)

Overview

The North Bend Film Festival (NBFF) was a genre and arthouse film festival that operated in North Bend, Washington from 2018 to 2022. The festival is no longer active. Founders Jess Byers, Hugues Barbier, and Justin Timms launched the event in the small Cascade Mountain town where David Lynch filmed Twin Peaks, programming horror, thriller, surrealist, and psychologically intense cinema. The festival ran for five editions before closing in March 2023 due to the loss of a critical and consistent line of funding.

At its peak, NBFF screened features, short films, immersive experiences, and VR programming at the historic North Bend Theatre. The festival was one of the five original Nightstream collaborative festival partners. Submissions were accepted via FilmFreeway and, in earlier years, Withoutabox. The festival accepted open submissions for genre films that blended horror or genre elements with art cinema sensibilities.

The festival is listed here as a historical reference for filmmakers researching Pacific Northwest festival options. NBFF is no longer accepting submissions and will not return.

Key Sections (Historical)

• Feature Film Competition - horror, thriller, and surrealist features competing for jury prizes
• Short Film Competition - genre short films
• Special Screenings - Twin Peaks-adjacent and cult cinema events
• Immersive and VR Showcase - virtual reality and immersive storytelling (introduced in the second edition)
• Filmmaker Conversations - Q&A sessions in the festival's distinctive setting

Major Awards (Historical)

• Best Feature - jury prize
• Best Short Film
• Audience Award

What Filmmakers Should Know

North Bend Film Festival is defunct. Filmmakers should not submit films to this festival. The festival's website at northbendfilmfest.com remains online as an archive but does not accept submissions.

The festival's closure was announced in March 2023 by founder Jess Byers. The decision came after the 2022 edition, which Byers described as a successful "normal" year. The closure was caused by the loss of a critical and consistent line of third-party funding, combined with the structural challenges of running a festival in a small town: large transportation and housing costs for visiting filmmakers, harder-to-gain ticket sales compared to urban festivals, and insufficient local government and organizational support.

Byers noted that the festival had expected local organizations and government to rally around a nonprofit arts event bringing outside artists to town. Instead, the festival found it an uphill battle to get marketing engagement and support from local entities. The festival relied on partnerships with Seattle organizations to produce programming and build an audience.

Pacific Northwest Alternatives

Filmmakers who would have submitted to NBFF should consider these active Pacific Northwest festivals instead:

• Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) - the largest film festival in the Pacific Northwest, accepting submissions via FilmFreeway
• Portland Film Festival - genre-friendly programming in Oregon
• Spokane International Film Festival - regional festival in eastern Washington
• Tacoma Film Festival - community-focused festival at the Grand Cinema

Festival History

NBFF was founded in 2018 by Jess Byers, Hugues Barbier, and Justin Timms. Byers, a Northwest native and Twin Peaks fan, had visited North Bend as a child. After reading about a fundraiser to replace the projector at the historic North Bend Theatre, he identified the town as a potential festival location. The town had the right combination of proximity to Seattle (30 miles east), an airport within reach, affordable theater rental, and a pop culture connection to Twin Peaks.

The first edition ran August 23 to 26, 2018, at the North Bend Theatre. Beth Burrows had just taken over as owner of the 82-year-old theater that same year when the festival organizers approached her about hosting a summer festival. The theater became the festival's primary venue.

The festival ran annually through 2022, with a gap in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a hybrid edition in 2021. The 2022 edition was the final one. Over five editions, NBFF developed a reputation for programming that found films at the intersection of genre and art cinema: works that were simultaneously commercially engaging and formally ambitious. The festival drew filmmakers and patrons from Seattle, the broader Pacific Northwest, and nationally.

The closure was announced in a public letter by Byers in late March 2023. The North Bend Theatre continues to operate independently, hosting traveling festivals like the BANFF Mountain Film Festival, but no longer has its own local film festival.

Why the Festival Closed

The closure of NBFF illustrates the financial fragility of small-town destination festivals. Three factors converged:

1. Loss of critical funding: A consistent third-party funding line was withdrawn, removing a core revenue source that could not be replaced
2. Structural cost disadvantage: Running a festival in a small town 30 miles from Seattle meant higher transportation and housing costs for visiting filmmakers, with a smaller local audience base to generate ticket revenue
3. Insufficient local institutional support: Local government and organizations did not provide the marketing and operational backing the festival needed to fill the theater consistently

Byers stated that the festival decided to "end on a high note" rather than continue with diminishing resources, which would have meant underpaying staff or providing a subpar experience for visiting artists.

See Also

For active genre festival options, see Film Festival Strategy. For independent filmmaking approaches, see Independent Filmmaking Strategies. To evaluate whether a festival submission is worth the entry fee, use the Festival ROI Calculator.