The Seattle International Film Festival, which begins May 21, has had a spotty record on the Eastside. It tried screenings at Lincoln Square in 2007, a nice gesture to filmgoers on that side of the lake, though there weren’t many offerings compared to the main venues over here in Seattle. SIFF

retreated from the Eastside last year, but it just announced that it’ll run a sidebar series at the Kirkland Performance Center during some portion of the fest. (Schedule is still pending.) I’m not sure the KPC is the best possible Eastside venue for screenings, but at least it won’t be the same maze of congestion that was Lincoln Square, where a dozen screens, parking and traffic hassles, and the proximity to Bellevue Square almost guaranteed you’d be late for the show. And, certainly, any Eastside presence for the fest is better than no presence at all.