Best PNW Feature Film nominee "A Simple Machine" at SIFF Film Center Nov. 13

"A Simple Machine," the award-winning, Portland-made debut feature from filmmaker Mark Alan Hoffman, returns to Seattle November 13 at the SIFF Film Center, as part of its nomination for a Seattle Film Critics Society PNW Award, Best PNW Feature! The screening anchors a PNW and West Coast Tour taking place throughout the fall.

Shot entirely in Portland in luminous black and white, A Simple Machine is a deeply human story about economic independence, personal freedom, and the cost of wanting less in a culture built on more. At a time of housing instability, digital saturation, and cultural polarization, Hoffman’s film offers something rare: a grounded, thoughtful counterpoint rooted in the textures, contradictions, and creative resilience of Portland while offering universal resonance in its thematic content.

Inspired by Evan P. Schneider’s novel "A Simple Machine, Like the Lever" (Propeller Books), a modern cult classic within Pacific Northwest literary circles, the film follows Nick Allander (Richard Blackmon), a recent college graduate drowning in debt who quietly dismantles his own life in pursuit of radical frugality and self-reliance, all while keeping things secret from the woman he loves. What begins as a private experiment in minimalism becomes a reckoning with identity, responsibility, and the meaning of freedom in a market-driven world.

Central to the film’s visual and philosophical language is the bicycle as symbol and instrument. For Nick, the bike becomes both a practical solution and quiet rebellion: a tool of economic independence, mobility without debt, and a form of technology that enhances human agency rather than diminishing it. In a city where cycling is cultural currency, "A Simple Machine" reframes the bicycle as something deeper: a deliberate choice toward simplicity, dignity, and embodied presence.

November 13 at SIFF Film Center
Nominated for Best PNW Feature Film by the
Seattle Film Critics Society

Director Mark Alan Hoffman and author Evan P. Schneider
scheduled to attend, with post-film Q&A
moderated by film critic Mike Ward (Should I See It)