Arts & Entertainment Community

Gig Harbor Film Festival features cheese, furry friends and one big mountain

Posted on September 10th, 2026 By: Carolyn Bick

Choosing an opening night film for the annual Gig Harbor Film Festival is not an easy task. Pamela Holt, the festival’s executive director, weighs a number of factors, starting with the energy of the audience where she first watches the film. The film itself could be anything, as long as it “brings people together.”

“And that could be a compelling story that might be funny. It could be a compelling story that’s inspiring. It might have a very strong local connection, like The Dawgfather [a documentary about legendary University of Washington football coach Don James] did two years ago,” she said. “And then I get to meet the director, I get to meet the writer, I get to meet the subject of the film. And I just can tell if it’s going to be a fit for our audience.”

If it seems like there’s a lot riding on it, that’s because there is: That one film, among the dozens festival organizers choose, will set the stage for the rest of the festival, which this year runs Sept. 24 through 27.

Opening night film

This year’s festival opener is The Big Cheese, a documentary about the world of competitive cheesemongering that appears over the top but tells a deep, touching story through interwoven narratives.

When she visited Santa Barbara to see whether the film was a good fit for Gig Harbor’s festival, Holt remembers lining up 50 minutes before the showing.

“When I went in and it was packed — I’m like, ‘Oh, this is interesting for an 8:20 [a.m.] showing,” she said. “And then the director came out — Sara Joe Wolansky — and she’s wearing these spotted cow pants. And I thought, ‘Okay, this just got even more interesting.’ ”

The Big Cheese premiers at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 24, and will show again at 5:05 p.m. Friday, Sept. 25. One of the film’s subjects, cheesemonger Courtney Johnson, and its editor, Nick Weiss-Richmond, will join a Q&A after the first showing on Sept. 24. Weiss-Richmond also will answer questions after the Sept. 25 showing.

Made In Washington

Holt also highlighted a couple of this year’s made-in-Washington films. One, Man or Mountain, imagines the last hours of a man named Harry Truman, a real-life Washingtonian who refused to leave Mt. St. Helens and was killed in its 1980 eruption. The film festival will screen the world premier of the 18-minute short film, created by Gig Harbor filmmaker Collin Monda. Monda is also the filmmaker behind The Trouble With Wolves, a documentary the film festival screened in 2022.

“This film, I think, will be very interesting and relevant to a lot of us, particularly anybody that was here when Mount St. Helens exploded on May 18, 1980,” Holt said. Seattle band Massey Ferguson, whose music is featured in the film, will attend along with Monda and many of the film’s cast and crew for a Q&A after both screenings of the film.

Holt also highlighted Dead Deer High, a film created by a group of teachers and which features scenes shot in the Roxy Theatre in Bremerton. The film follows a group of students and their English teacher as they prepare for a slam poetry competition one year after a group tragedy.

“Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing it on the big screen,” she said. “I usually preview almost all of our films. This is one film I’m saving for the big screen. I want to see it that bad. I want to enjoy the impact on the big screen of being surrounded by all of our other guests.”

Man or Mountain will show during the Made In Washington block of films, which will run on at 12:35 p.m. Thursday and 12:05 p.m. Saturday. The block’s runtime is 84 minutes.

Dead Deer High will screen at 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 25, and 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26. Actors Ayanna Berkshire and Julia Prud’homme will answer questions after the Sept. 25 screening and Berkshire will do it again on Sept. 26.

Furry friends

While it wasn’t made in Washington, Holt is confident that 25 Cats From Qatar will reach hearts across borders. In the film, director Mye Hoang — who also directed 2022’s Cat Daddies — follows a woman who owns a cat rescue cafe in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She teams up with multinational, underground rescue workers in Doha, Qatar, to bring 25 cats back to the cafe.

“It’s the whole process that [the cafe owner] goes through in that country,” Holt said. “[Qatar] is actually a super wealthy country, but they don’t really have support services for homeless animals. And so it’s just a really fun … and uplifting [film] about how these cats leave the airport and they arrive in the U.S. And then they eventually go to their homes, and it’s a wonderful film.”

25 Cats From Qatar will screen at 12:40 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 24, and at 9:35 a.m. Friday, Sept. 25. Hoang will answer questions after both screenings.

More time to see films

Holt said that the festival organizers opted to add another night, because, without fail, when the festival ends, “people come up to me, and they are somewhat distressed because they have not been able to see all the films that they want to see.”

“And they say, ‘Pam, how, like, how can I see these films? I wanted to see this one.

How can I do this?’” she said. “Well, the challenge is that we are showing independent films. They may or may not ever go into distribution or go on to Netflix, so unless you see them at our film festival, or another independent film festival, it’s kind of hard. So we decided we would … give people more time on Thursday.”

Festival organizers also expanded their workshop and panel series. Most of these will be on Saturday and are available for filmmakers, VIP passholders and general admission passholders, as space permits.

Filmmaker awards

Thanks to an anonymous donor, Holt said, for the second year in a row, the festival can now offer a total of $5,000 in cash awards. The award money is distributed to winners of the Inspirational Award, the Founders Award and the Board Award.

Awards will be announced during the festival’s awards ceremony on Sunday morning. They are meant to honor Marty Thacker, one of the festival’s founding members who died last year at age 84.

“The founder award nominees,” Holt said, “inspire hope and action and remind us of the persistent good of humankind.”

The Gig Harbor Film Festival runs from Sept. 24 through Sept. 27. The Big Cheese will open the festival at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 24 at Galaxy Theatres, 4649 Point Fosdick Dr., but several films will be screened earlier in the day. Buy tickets here and find a full program here.