Depth of Focus is a monthly series of short films sponsored by the Puget Sound Cinema Society. Where most series of short films tend to be of one genre or another, Depth of Focus is purposefully eclectic.

Part of the commercial film experience depends upon a passive audience. This passive attitude is latent in almost every film screening, even in the supposedly intellectual quarters. We work against this passivity by always keeping the audience guessing what they will see next.

Each film at Depth of Focus is distinctly different from the film before it and the film after it. We program a wide variety of film and video for exactly this reason. Corporate video, traffic safety films, educational documentaries and propaganda films co-exist alongside puppet animation, music video, and experimental trance films. By shifting from genre to genre, Depth of Focus recovers the element of surprise that has been lost from too steady a diet of Hollywood melodramas.

And for more than mere shock value. Complacency is the enemy of thought and feeling, and we believe that cinema is an intellectual and spiritual enterprise. If we cannot surprise, we cannot encourage real engagement with cinema, whatever sort it happens to be.

Admission is pay what it was worth: No payment is taken in advance; after the screening one may pay what one thinks the program was worth. Food and drink are always provided free of charge.

The University Heights Center is located at 5031 University Way NE, just off 50th & University Way in the University District of Seattle. If you need directions, click here.

If you'd like a glimpse at our current program, then click here.

If you'd like our program notes from past showings, click here.