SIFF reviews: “Wolf Lands” and “Suburban Fury”

SIFF coverage continues with more of the festival’s “Northwest Connection” curation, where Washington-based documentarians focus in-state and out with some relevant and fascinating topics, one of which won a major award as the in-person festival came to a close on Sunday, May 25.

One of the best parts of SIFF is its inclusivity, allowing anyone with an internet connection and a love for cinema to be a part of the “reel world,” as select features and shorts are available to stream at siff.net until Sunday, June 1.

“Wolf Land”

I’ve been covering the news in South King County for three years now and part of my job is subscribing to as many government agency newsletters as possible, which includes the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s gray wolf updates, where I get to see how the state’s 42 packs are faring since the first breeding pair of Canis lupus were confirmed after an 80 year absence in 2008.

So, when I saw that there would be a feature-length Washington-based documentary called “Wolf Land” at this year’s SIFF, I was over the (howling) moon.

Directed and produced by Sarah Hoffman, a senior video producer at Cascade PBS, “Wolf Land” the documentary is set against a Northeastern Washington wilderness backdrop — specifically ranch lands and forests near Colville — as it follows Daniel Curry, a former animal care specialist for a wolf sanctuary who now works as a range rider.

Part-conservationist, part-cowboy, Curry uses non-lethal deterrents to keep wolves from hunting cattle and, in turn, keep ranchers — and the state — from killing the wolves. “My goal is to prevent that wolf from losing its life,” Curry said in the doc.

With empathetic characters and a narrative that is both informative and highly engaging, the documentary does a good job of laying out Curry’s life and his work. One of the strongest aspects of the film is its inviting and gorgeous cinematography, whether it shows the breathtaking Eastern Washington landscape as Curry rides his horse over the hills, or the rare glimpses of a gray wolf crossing a rural road.

Curry currently works with Jerry Francis, a fourth-generation rancher whose cattle (aka, his livelihood) and property border a wilderness filled with three known wolf packs. The documentary shows their friendship and the work they both do to protect Francis’ cattle while also overcoming the stigma that wolves have in the ranching community.

“We knew that showing people that you might perceive to be on opposite sides of the issue, but kind of how they’re working together, could be a good way to illustrate the the story,” said Hoffman in an interview.

Hoffman said she was surprised to learn about the history of Washington wolves through filming the doc.

“I think in Washington, it’s interesting because [the wolves] came back on their own, but there are some states like Colorado that are reintroducing them, so that was something that I found really interesting,” she said. “I think it helped me also understand, from the rancher’s perspectives as wolves increase and conflicts increased, kind of the the history and the understanding of where that came from.”

“Suburban Fury”

Winner of the SIFF 2025 Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize, Robinson Dover’s “Suburban Fury” was a volcanic standout amongst the festival’s docs as it revolved around a single spoken source — Sara Jane Moore, a woman described as a “conservative mother from the San Francisco suburbs” turned FBI informant who tried to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975.

Seattle-based Director Dover, known for “Police Beat” and “Zoo,” does an impeccable job interweaving archival footage, government documents and some of the most bizarre interview locations to record Moore — whether she is sitting in the backseat of a pristine vintage station wagon, or behind a glass wall of a minimalist home, staring out at nothing as she tells her story.

A difficult interviewee if I ever saw one, Moore looks back on her life in a matter-of-fact manner, detailing her time in the Women’s Army Corps, her dive into revolutionary politics, her relationship to United Prisoners Union leader Popeye Jackson, her time as an informant for the government, her take on the Symbionese Liberation Army’s kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst and what led her to pointing a gun at President Ford and pulling the trigger.

The documentary does not shy away from the reality of politics at the time, using primary sources to illustrate these far-left movements that Moore became a part of, these people and organizations that are not at the forefront of people’s modern recollections as they’ve been relegated to the footnotes of modern American politics. Dover’s doc does an impressive job by reminding us of this recent history as we look to an unknowable future.

I see why the SIFF Documentary Competition Jury was “collectively obsessed by this film.”