Absolutely Seattle

The film: "Puppet Show.".

The story: The feature follows a Seattle-based troupe of "avant-garde puppeteers" as they prepare a production entitled "Tiny Madcaps," the latest in a series of shows that includes Handel's "Messiah" and "Madame Bovary." Along the way, these artistes hold forth, fight and agonize - in a hilarious parody of a PBS-style documentary.

The creators: Crooked Beat Films, the partnership of New-York based filmmaker Jeffery Aguirre (writer and producer of cable TV programs) and producer Margaret Traub-Aguirre (writer for ABC TV's "Good Morning America").

The player-puppeteers: A real-life group of Seattle-based artists, whose work and loft dwellings provided props and sets.

These actors include: Locals Bryan Yeck, painter and co-founder of Zeitgeist Art & Coffee; writer David Butler, author of the novel "The Slavonic Dances of Josef Vidich"; actor and musician Billy Hall, who scored the film, and also has released the solo CD "flo"; actor and computer consultant Mike Richan, owner of local company QCOM; actor, screenwriter and novelist Patrick Dunn; actor Tim Turner, the founder of Capitol Hill's Coffee Messiah cafe; and painter Clayton Marsh, who shows at the Kurt Lidtke Gallery.

Viewers may recognize the stars: From some of their other day and night jobs, in theater, art, film - or in coffee bars and restaurants such as Marco's, Campagne, Zeitgeist and Coffee Messiah.

The awards: "Puppet Show" has been featured at more than two dozen

festivals, winning Best of Fest at the Utah Short Film & Video Festival, Best of Fest at the Tacoma Tortured Artists Festival and Best Comedy Short at Film Fest New Haven. "For sheer, wonderful goof value," wrote the LA Weekly, " `Puppet Show' simply cannot be beaten." The future: Spurred on by the film's success, Aguirre is planning an autumn reunion of his cast. They will make a Seattle-based follow-up mockumentary, with a working title of "The Toast of the Town."

See it for yourself: For those with cable modem access, "Puppet Show" is featured on the Independent Film Channel's Broad Band Screening Room (http://broadband.thoughtbubble.com/ifc/cah/). For others, it's in rotation on the Independent Film Channel.