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US Premiere - The Adventure

This blog title sounds a great deal grander than it is and I thank the wonders of the mind for that. I was the last house guest up for a breakfast of Swedish pancakes (a less buttery crepe) and juice. By all accounts, they waited for me to wake up before breakfast. Perhaps this was the Lexington & Concord of the upcoming war of hospitality between North and South. If only...ho-hum. I was the only male at the table and I vaguely remember some girl talk before the very kind Jane ferried me to the Michigan Theater for my premiere screening. I arrived a few minutes early and chose to watch the three short films that preceded mine. Admittedly, I was distracted during all of them: a documentary, a narrative opus, an animated film. The final one was mine and I was proud of myself for staying in the theater this go-round. In Rotterdam, I left for my short because of 'noives' on both occasions, so this really was my personal premiere as well. Oh, before the film, the festival volunteer told the audience to stick around for Q&A and mentioned myself and another filmmaker who was present. In a Troy McClure moment, he told the audience that they might remember me from Blood Car.

People laughed in parts and were silent in others. During the Q&A, I received many questions and compliments, all ultimately flattering. Usually the first question is "How did you come up with the idea?" A gentleman asked me about the caliber of bullet in the 'gun' fired by the mime. I said I had no idea though I think the query was in jest. Afterwards, I met a fellow Georgian who does programming for the Savannah Film Festival and I dropped an unsubtle hint that this born and bred Georgia-boy had never been to Savannah.

My Google friends attended as promised which endeared them to me as lifelong friends considering they made that pledge the night before in a bar. The great thing about Ann Arbor is that most of the time, there are only two screenings taking place at one time, which I translated to larger audiences. In Rotterdam, I was constantly aware of how many films I was missing, but here, you can see half of the total program easily if you're feeling cinephilely. My kino-burners were on full blast so I went to a kids-themed shorts program and then two features. My favorite short was a doc called Beginning Filmmaking by Jay Rosenblatt about his daughter Ella, who he buys a small video camera and attempts to force her to make a movie. She just turned four. Any movie about kids hinges on having a cute (looking or acting) kid in the lead and it's as archetypal here as anywhere. Shame little Ella wasn't born sixty years ago and Carol Reed could have cast her alongside the boy from Fallen Idol. Ho-hum. It's a strange film because our father/director Jay is a filmmaker and it's hard to tell where his documentary ends and his 'follow in my footsteps' syndrome begins, if it does at all. What is amazing is watching his daughter interact with this camera on her own and the lessons Jay administrates about cu, medium shot, etc. By the end, she starts talking into the lens and recording her feelings and thoughts, having flipped the LCD around so she could see herself. Errol Morris would be proud.

I am compelled to call attention to a couple interactive pieces on display at this year's AAFF in the lobby of the Michigan Theater. The first was an old fashioned reel-to-reel editing setup with a length of clear, blank leader and dozens of colored magic markers. A sign encouraged you to color on the leader whatever design you wished and on Saturday night, the final film would be projected with a score by a local musician. The second and more popular installation offered more instant gratification. It was an animation station with a camera mounted above a white dry erase board that captured images on a computer by the click of a mouse. Tools here included more markers, magazine cut-outs, army men, etc. Talk about fun. All the animations were stored in the recesses of computer memory for your viewing pleasure. Lots of people used penguins and army men. I animated a short video which you can watch below which begins with a dinosaur drinking from a pond.

The two main attractions that night were this doc by DP Ellen Kuras called The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), which is an incredible story about an immigrant from Laos and his family. Larry Flynt was in attendance for a screening of new doc about his life, which could have employed a more compelling approach to match its subject. The Q&A became a tad redundant so we, as in my Google friends and I, left before he was finished. He is also a bit hard to understand in his condition as well.

The rest of my evening was spent visiting the Google office in town, which I wasn't allowed to take photos in, but that did not stop me from snapping a glimpse of the future when everything is named after Google, e.g. google-bed, google-milk, google-dad. "My google-dad drinks google-milk in his google-bed." Actually, we weren't there long, instead opting for the festival after-party.

You're in the midwest and you didn't even know it.

I'm taking a break from the Rotterdam Recap in lieu of illustrating a bit about my recent weekending at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in the great lake state of Michigan. Christen M. (the best dressed film festival director I've met so far) and her wonderful film festival staffers flattered me by inviting 'The Adventure' to screen in this very liberal Detroit suburb. It was the US/North American premiere, whatever you prefer. In addition to pictures, I captured a few short videos. Here was my first glimpse of the Detroit airport.

In broad strokes, the good 'ol USA of is made of four parts: the South, the Northeast, the West and the Midwest. I didn't even realize I was traveling to the Midwest until I was on the phone with a friend of mine from Illinois, who said, when I told her I where I was going, "Enjoy the Midwest." Lo and behold, when I arrived, this was corroborated by the relatively flat, snowy landscape laid out before me. It was strangely reminiscent of McCarthy's The Road, if only briefly. Ann Arbor celebrated its 46th birthday this year and they share this anniversary wealth with all the filmmaker attendees. A shuttle driven by Nick was there to meet me upon arrival and take me to Ann Arbor, about 45 minutes west of Detroit. This was the beginning of Nick's last week in Ann Arbor and by the time I finish this he will be on his way to leading sea-kayaking tours off the coast of Alaska. He's been an outdoors tour guide for several years in the Rockies and elsewhere. There is documentation that a German canoeist named Oscar Spreck who, after losing his job, left Germany via kayak and decided to 'see the world'. The year was 1932 and in 1939 he finally arrived in Australia and was promptly imprisoned as an enemy combatant.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival's giving spirit is fully supported by the local residents, as volunteer hosts often house filmmakers visiting from out of town. My hosts, Jane Allen and Mark Doman, lived on picturesque Brooks St. and my home for the weekend was their daughter Christine's(sic) room, who stays on campus at the University of Michigan, where the collegiate blood is equal parts blue and maize. Jane made breakfast for me every morning and I only saw Mark once because he and Christine were involved in some French trapper inspired outdoor society and they had several initiation functions that weekend. After dropping my bags off, Jane gave me a ride downtown to the Michigan Theater, AAFF's main venue and check-in. As always, I was early and the doors were shuttered, but I did see a sight that brought a great smile to my face. Talk about prime real estate. My first stop was an informative copyright/fair use panel moderated by Chris Gore at a small art gallery a stone's throw from the Michigan Theater, AAFF's cerebrum. After that, it was movies, movies, movies.

My first screening was a juror presentation of Bill Brown's work. I hadn't heard of him either, but I quite adored his three short travelogues shot on 16mm and they are really the films that stay with me most. Admittedly, my mind wandered about half way through the 'The Other Side', but as I sat there, Brown's eloquent, rich and reflective narration seeped through the cracks in my brain and heart and I was won. His photography is simplistic, functional, but quite gorgeous and at first, I thought these films were made thirty years ago, but then a shot of a sign that read "Terrorists Love Open Borders: Remember 9-11" appeared. A cursory visit to his website will undoubtedly hook you into his voice and compass. And he's kinda nerdy.

Later I saw the Animated Shorts Program and Bill Plympton's presentation of drawing and cartoons. Anyone will tell you that animated shorts programs are inevitable sellouts on the festival circuit, but I'm slowly realizing that I'm not that crazy about animated shorts. Admitting this makes me feel a bit like a monster. I mean, would you really like a person who says they don't like cartoons? I wouldn't and I do like cartoons, but I'm just not as amped about animated as live-action. I also went and saw a very amusing film at midnight called Leningrad Cowboys Go America by Kaurismaki. I enjoyed it very much and the movie was filled with college kids who resembled high school kids or perhaps the reverse.

Finally, I stopped off at the after party in hopes of befriending a fellow filmmaker or two. Instead, I met Google employees Lizzie, Lauren and Phil and non-Google employee Clint and we spent a good part of the weekend together. I find the best way to meet people is to look very lost. I really lucked out with this crew. When I arrived home, I went straight to bed and the house cat whose name escapes me was my companion.

The Pathe

This is the Pathe Cinemas. It's the multiplex in Rotterdam and in this photo doesn't look quite real, but I assure you, it's very big and the screens inside are as big as the one at the Fabulous Fox in Atlanta. Only here, there are six in one building. Even on sunny days, old movie stars kiss on the side of the building like they're secluded in some intimate bedchamber in Berlin. Here's the inside. My muse is 2nd from right on the top row. Before, I believed that such images could not be found in movie theaters in our southern metropolis, but then I kicked myself and remembered Atlanta's fallen time capsule, the Lefont Garden Hills and its lobby/hallway of b&w photos of French film icons. At this theater and this theater only could you buy popcorn.

Rotterdam Movie Theaters

This is the Cinerama. It has five or six screens, a bar fully stocked with beer and wines. It may be a full time amenity or just for the festival, but a sandwich/soup station was set up as well with delicious edibles and the kicker was a fresh OJ squeezing machine that was taller than me. Operators had to use a step stool to reach the top of the machine to feed in oranges. It was the best OJ I've ever had. Inside, the following posters could be found. Enough said. The best movie I saw here was a documentary about Dalton Trumbo. He's my new hero.

one photograph to rule them all and IMDB

This is the only photo of The Adventure's world premiere in Rotterdam. My film headlined a program of three shorts, all about 15-20 minutes long. The first was directed by a South Korean filmmaker whose name escapes me. He is center answering questions via an interpreter. I was incredibly nervous before this screening and so I didn't watch the other two films, but I did see them the next time around. The figure in the foreground, I think, is Bartosz, the polish/german film student whose film was second. I could be wrong and it could be a complete stranger. My mother's cousin Joe Houlihan, who she hasn't seen in twenty plus years and I haven't seen ever, lives/works in Maastricht, about two hours by car from Rotterdam, and he came to see the film. He was very kind and dressed in a dark suit with no tie and the collar open on his white shirt. He had silver hair and my mother's mother's smile.

The host of the screening and Q&A bought us all drinks afterwards and we chatted for a bit. My print was flawlessly projected and the house was big, but not full. I miss that festival.

A task for you: Go to imdb.com and in the search window, type 'the adventure'. This makes me happy.

Safety Memories

This is the the movie theater in Rotterdam where my film had it's world premiere. This tiny building with four screens and a bunch of bikes parked out front does not do the immensity of that day justice. It was more grand than I could possibly have imagined. My first night in Rotterdam I saw My Blueberry Nights here and my fears and scareds(made that up) disappeared completely for those 2 hours. I also learned a great deal about Wong Kar-Wai, his work and love during this movie. It is not his best film by any means, buy by any means, it is a cliff notes of his former work: clear as glass.















Can you see my poster? I did not slap it on the wall. That was perpetrated by the volunteers of Rotterdam and this was not the only one they put up. Between the 2nd and 3rd floors of De Doelen along the escalators was poster central and you could get face time with nearly every movie's adverts. It's only a memory now, but I'll never forget the company. Who knows where this poster is now, but I hope it's in some volunteer's dormitory or bedroom next to a poster of Scarface and Jimi Hendrix and Daft Punk.

Gear

This is the messenger bag and 'guest director' badge I received upon checking into the Rotterdam Film Festival. Every festival, it seems like, gives out a messenger bag. I uploaded that picture on my badge online and it was waiting for me on check-in. Had I not uploaded that photo, they had tiny cameras like at Sam's Club or Costco to take your picture. Volunteers scanned the barcode only when I attended a Press/Industry screening, not the public screenings. They also gave me a program guide the thicker than a bible with information about every single film in the festival in addition to information about travel, tipping, restaurant recommends, ATM locations, etc. Here is a blurry photo of the page my film appeared on.















They wrote their own synopses for my film. They appear below. The longer one is pictured above along with a condensed version of my bio.

An affluent couple on a tour meet an unlikely figure. The show is over, Marcel Marceau.

A well-to-do couple drives through an expanse of forests, reflecting about buying the area where the air is so clean and the roads are so beautiful. Then a strange figure crossed their path... Excellent, very strange fiction in which an unlikely event becomes likely. The show is over, Marcel Marceau.

Headquarters

This is De Doelen, the HQ of the Int'l Film Festival Rotterdam. It's an enormous performing arts center with one gigantic amphitheater and two smaller theaters. It opened every day at 9am during the festival, at which time there was always a queue of people waiting for entry. Box office, festival merch, info desk, full bar and a small cafe were all on the first floor. There were two box offices, one for guests/press/etc. and one for the public. On the second floor was another bar and a bunch of couches and a dining area where the Director's dinner was held. The third floor was check-in, the film office, a press desk, an accreditation desk, a bank of computers with interwebs, a small office with print, fax, and copy capabilities for producers and filmmakers on the go. I had my own mailbox for the festival, which they give all guests. And every night on the third floor, they catered dinner for the volunteers. So nice. I only saw a couple films here but one was a masterpiece - The Voyage of the Red Balloon.

Below is the bar on the first floor. Looks like a nightclub, doesn't it?

Wearing The Thing in Rotterdam the board game

At the tourist office in Rotterdam, where I stopped to pick up a map and use the internet for free for fifteen minutes, I saw this on the top shelf of a merchandising display. I picked out a street map to buy, but then the kindly woman at the desk told me about the free maps and gave me one. It was very handy.

I wore this the entire time I was in Europe(and to infinity and beyond). It uses velcro. It is from John Carpenter's The Thing. It's not as cool as the fork bracelet that kid wears in Elephant, but it's damn close.

Rear Window

So, I arrived in Rotterdam unscathed and after checking in to the Stayokay Hostel near the Erasmus Medical College, I found my view comforting and ordinary. Seconds later, the bus featured in this picture crashed into that 2nd car obscured by the branches of this dormant tree. Seconds later than that, an envoy of eager medical students converged on the scene prior to all other authorities and proceeded to pry the victim from the stricken vehicle and revive an elder Dutch matron, who suffered a cardiac arrest while on the bus. You might wonder why I didn't snap any pictures of that. Very curious.














This was my bed for the first few days. I took a nap immediately. Each bed has a sleeping bag in it and they provide you with fresh linens whenever you need them. On the third or fourth night, I arrived late to find a young German in this bunk, so I was forced to relocate to the top bunk. Luckily, there was a ladder. There were four beds total, a table with three chairs and a shelving unit, a sink, and a bathroom with a toilet and shower. This young German was soon replaced by Alexander, a charming middle-aged Dutch man with little glasses who was attending the Rotterdam film festival. He was very nice, spoke English, and one day, went to see a 9-hour film by Lav Diaz called Death From the Land of Encantos. There were four intermissions of 20 minutes each and I've seen the film make several best lists in the newest issue of Film Comment. Sorry I missed it. I've still yet to do one of those single film marathons. I'm itching to.

This is the hostel.

Time for a picture over the ocean that seperates the US from Europe

So, since I was either too lazy or too technologically inhibited to post any pictures overseas, then I'll repent with a daily slideshow here.


1.21.08
This first picture was taken in the belly of a Delta Airlines plane in the bathroom somewhere over Nova Scotia. It's a little fuzzy because as you know, I refuse to use a flash. I was very happy and excited when this was taken. I think at the time I was also thinking about how easy it was to leave the country. All you have to do is buy a plane ticket and go. It helps if you have a destination and some plans, but I'm still amazed at how simple the whole process is.



2.18.08
This picture was taken at Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson Airport on the day of my return to American soil. I was waiting for my bags at the carousel. Notice the growth of facial hair and limp haircut. I'm not smiling with teeth because they all fell out in Paris. I have no teeth.

More to come tomorrow.

Tirez/Poussez; or, a few days at the cinema in Paris, France near La Sorbonne

Our trip to Mont. St. Michel fell through for yesterday and today and so the French coastline will have to do its best to resist erosion and remain intact for me the next time around. I'll plan better next time and buy train tickets in advance. To replace the experience, I didn't have to look very much further than La Rue Champollion right on the Sorbonne's cheek. Paris streets are very narrow and this one is no exception, but very few cars travel down this road leaving it free for we pedestrians who like to stretch our legs and arms. La Rue Champollion has another characteristic that is unlike anything I've ever seen before in my life. Anything. In. My. Life. On this street, which is shorter than an American city block, are 3 cinemas right next door to each other. Three independent French cinemas! When I say right next to each other, I don't mean that there is an office in between one and a brasserie in between another. I mean RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO EACH OTHER. You walk out one door and take fifteen steps and walk right into the next one. It is astonishing and I'll put money on it that in this world we live in, I could count all similar places on two hands.

If your gums are bleeding now, than listen to this. Playing at Le Champo, the cinema on the corner, was a selection of Tim Burton films. They called it a 'cycle'. How fresh. But that is hardly the kicker. Also screening was a cycle of Antonioni, including Blow-Up, La Nuit, and others. I'm not finished! Showing five times a day all week long was Antonioni's Zabriskie Point, a pretty obscure film that WB buried back in the 70s that I just adore. I'm still not finished! Zabriskie Point played at this movie theater for two consecutive weeks, five times a day. Need I remind you it is 2008, not 1970. I think I can safely guarantee you that this has not happened ever in history and it would certainly never happen in the United States of America. I'm not bad mouthing. Just saying. I mean if you've seen this picture, then you know it's not a money maker. Exhibitors don't clog up phone lines trying to score prints of this movie. I'm serious. I really don't think this has ever happened before, notwithstanding my being famously naive. Never happen in the US. Never anywhere. Who's in charge over here? Dear lord.

A little more about moviegoing in France which I admit is limited to only a few tiny theaters and the Cinematheque Francaise, but honestly, what more evidence do you need, Counselor? The theaters are tiny(except the Salle Langlois at CF) and they make you wait outside until they open the screening room, which is about five or ten minutes before showtime. No concessions anywhere except maybe a vending machine. Bathrooms are unisex and an afterthought. No trailers or commercials. The lights dim and the movie just starts. If you stand outside La Filmotheque Latin Quartier, you can hear the sound of the projector clipping away through a vent, mixing with the sound of Parisian traffic. It's delightful. Finally, an air raid siren I can endure. The theaters are also very warm so remember to peel off any extra layers so you don't cook.

For St. Valentine's Day, I spent my afternoon with Zabriskie at Le Champo and a glorious masterpiece that is better than 90% of everything made nowadays called Les Chaussons Rouge, The Red Shoes at La Filmotheque. According to Powell & Pressburger, a bullseye. It is about how and why people die for art and much much more. When Lermontov says, "Put on the red shoes, Vicky, and dance for us.", you just want to stand up and scream, DO IT VICKY! No one has ever danced The Red Shoes since Victoria Page and no one will again. Hot damn. That's the ticket. I think this movie perfectly encapsulates the drive and ambition people have toward les beaux arts. Craster, Page and Lermontov are so ambitious, with the latter the apex of it all. He has nothing else but this drive to create the greatest dancer and ballet and art. It is insatiable and calculated and monstrous, but it is real and I have no doubt in my mind, and neither does Victoria, that Lermontov could indeed create the greatest dancer out of her. Holy moly. Holy crap. If there is any doubt in anyone's mind that the cinema is not worth preserving, then watch this movie and you'll be writing checks faster than you can say Scorsese.

Who's in charge over here? Mon Dieu.

Coming home on Monday. I'll miss many things, but Europe does not have everything. Yes, I mean great fish tacos and root beer.

In the mood and in the metro; in the streets and in the parks

When I was sick this past weekend and laying in bed, I wondered why I always get sick when I go on long vacations, i.e. ones longer than a week. A combination of poor diet, little sleep, a toussled routine and general travel stress all came to head at the Louvre on Friday afternoon, of all places. Though I was able to enjoy the armies of great art, I walked around like a zombie and had to sit down about every fifteen minutes to keep from falling over. On the one hand, I didn't take a single flash photograph of any piece of art (unlike many people), I was more than generous in doling out my germs to masterpieces like Rembrandt's St. Matthew and the Angel, Michelangelo's The Dying Slave, the Venus de Milo, a half dozen Delacroix, and countless others. The fact that the Mona Lisa is behind glass and you cannot get within 8 feet of it because of a barrier might have saved this darling muse from catching a 21st century cold. We'll follow the headlines in the coming weeks.
I spent all of Saturday in bed reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, which at times for me was tantamount to staring into a mirror even though I've never been to Pamplona or a fiesta or drunk for seven days straight. My gracious host Juliana took care of me with her mother's soup recipe, cough medicine and the French Alka-Seltzer. Prior to waking up on Saturday, I think I spent about 14 hours sleeping.

On Sunday, I was starting to feel better so I went for a walk on the metro two stops down and visited Pere LaChaise cemetery; where Morrison, Wilde and Melies are buried, amongst others. Morrison's grave isn't nearly as rock n roll as Oscar Wilde's, and Melies' is by far the saddest, tucked away in the shadows of a few family crypts with nary a single visitor except myself (And I was there for fifteen or twenty minutes.); he might as well have been selling toys again in the Gare Montparnasse. Sunday was also the auspicious occasion of L'avventura at the Cinematheque Francaise, for which Juliana would have been my guest if she had not been infected by whatever germs had nested in my immune system and spread throughout the tiny Parisian apartment. Something else to feel guilty about...but where better to work off guilt than the city with Notre Dame. Lighting a candle has a suggested donation of 2 euros. I put in a .20 euro piece and took two candles.

I was not in tip-top shape for the mother of all cinema experiences and I had a great deal more trouble with the French subtitles than I imagined, but I've seen it enough times to know the words beneath the words and I just watched the gorgeous black and white, Godzilla-sized faces of Sandro and Claudia waltz around the screen for 137 minutes. Vitti is just perfect. Every move and flutter and step is nuanced like a sonnet. She does not miss a beat. After the rushes, Antonioni must have been biting his fist to not implode with joy at what lay in front of his camera, and later on of course, on his bed. He is Italian and a director, mind you. A nice audience as well - very sizable.

I so enjoyed the moviegoing, I stayed for another film called TAPS, starring George C. Scott and Timothy Hutton, Tom Cruise and Sean Penn. It is an absolutely absurd premise, a mix of Corman and the Simpsons but rendered as the soberest drama. I was quite entertained despite many laughable scenes and George C. Scott has some greatly written speeches he delivers that are reminiscent of Buck Turgidson(sic). It felt a little like being in a porn theater because before the movie began, I looked around and saw nothing but a handful of men, each one alone, various ages, at the movies on a Sunday night. It may be my past, but hopefully not my future. HAHA.

That's all for now. Planning on heading to the coast of France thursday with Juliana and Jean-Michel to Mont. St. Michel and seeing the ocean. Should
be fun.

I wish Paris was a prison and I a convicted double murderer who will never be cited for good behavior

I am staying in a small apartment near the Metro station Parmentier in the Arabic part of Paris, though I haven't seen all that many Arabs. Juliana and Jean-Michel are my hosts thanks to Andrea and they are as kind as Mother Theresa. She is an artist and he is a schoolteacher of physics and chemistry. They include me in everything they do. Today, I went to table tennis practice with Jean-Michel and then to dinner at a friend of theirs' home in Montmarte. His name is Sylvan and he is a math teacher. We ate fondue, drank a seemingly unending amount of wine and I tried my best to understand their conversations in French. It was like being in a New Yorker article.

I do the tourist things during the day and at night, I hang out with my gracious hosts. I could talk about the Eiffel Tower for an hour and I will say the best part is being underneath it. I love it so.

Tomorrow, I am Louvre-ing. Paris is huge and abstract and real. It is not just a place on a map anymore.

On Sunday, the reason I am here, indirectly, is playing at the Cinematheque Francaise and Juliana and Jean-Michel are going with me. It is Antonioni's L'avventura in Italian with French subtitles on 35mm in a movie theater designed by Frank Gehry.

mike

I've seen Peter Lorre smoke more cigarettes than the Marlboro Man; or I'm going to have nightmares about ants tonight

So, I have more one film to see at the Int'l Film Festival Rotterdam and that will conclude my studies here. I did alright for a first time. Near-somnabulism put a dent in my numbers, but I was defenseless. Sleeping pills are evil and I'll never take another one again.

Feature Count: 26
Shorts Programmes Count: 15

I've told you about several of the short films and a feature or two of note that I saw here. A few more include:

Wonderful Town - This film is from Thailand and I saw it at 10am this morning and it is fantastic! There is a big difference between a 10am movie and a 930am movie. That half an hour makes all the difference. I was like a bird at a feeder for this film. It's going on to play Berlin. One writer once said there are only two kinds of stories; 1) A stranger comes into town. 2)I don't remember what this one is. Sorry. This was the first one. It's set in a small town in Southern Thailand that was destroyed by the 2004 tsunami. A love story and much more. Fabulous!

Trumbo - A documentary about the screenwriter and man of letters. Craig Zobel was the production manager. How about that? Kudos, Craig. If you like to write, you'll want to imitate DT and change your name to a much cooler one. He was blacklisted and went to prison for a year for contempt because he refused to answer the immortal question, "Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist a Party?"

Limite - This is the Brazilian silent film with 3 intertitles, all of which are in Portugeuse and not subtitled. I was waiting for them the entire film. Wonderful movie. Feels like something that inspired Terrence Malick and was inspired by Murnau and the surrealists.

Der Verlorene - German for "The Lost One". Peter Lorre directed and stars in this. He went back to Germany to direct it. I once heard someone refer to his eyes as 'heavy-lidded'. It's true. He carries this film with the help of 1000 packs of cigarettes. Seriously, he puts one out, he lights one up. There is never a second when he is not smoking...or drinking. And he plays a doctor. I loved it because it's old and Peter Lorre isn't playing a sniveling little weasel, at least not throughout the whole movie. Very talkative.

Film - Samuel Beckett's only film. Buster Keaton is in it. Boris Kaufman shot it. It's quite funny, especially if you like Beckett. I loved it. It's a short.

Fujian Blue - A Chinese film. Great. Original in conception and execution.

Momma's Man - I really enjoyed it, but I take issue with the film not revealing that one nugget of information.

I did not get to see Paranoid Park, which made me sad, but I'll see it back home, I'm sure. I waited until the last screening and could not get tickets. Distribution is a funny business. Many films open in their home countries after playing all over the world.

Those are the notables, I believe. There were some other great shorts, but I won't tell you about them right now. I only saw two pieces of trash. Two of them had ejaculating penises in them. What does this say about me? That is not the only reason I didn't like them. Actually, I saw a few other trash shorts, too, but the good always outweigh the bad by a long shot.

Rotterdam is all about this film festival. At the hostel, I met two Dutchmen who had traveled from home to stay in a hostel and go see movies all week. I'm serious. I spoke with one Dutch architect and he said every year he takes off work most of the week to go see movies, as do many of his friends. Can you believe that? Nearly every feature screening I attended was packed. Lines at the box office at 9am every morning every day like Cher was coming to town. Posters for IFFR in the windows of cheese shops, shoe stores, art galleries and nearly everywhere else. Billowing blue tiger banners in the streets, on rooftops. Extraordinary support for the cinema and the film festival. I was amazed. Well financed. Incredibly well organized. Good messenger bag though it's taken a beating. They put my posters up everywhere for me. In the festival HQ, in the venue itself, in prime spots. The staff was so nice. You walk in a door and they ask you, "What do you need? Who may I introduce you to?" It was the tops!

Tomorrow, I'm going to rent a bike and travel around. Monday - Amsterdam. Tuesday-Paris.

Oh, damn. I forgot to talk about Phase IV. Later. It's the awesome ant movie I saw. Fabbo!

mike b.

Now at the Pax Hotel on Schiekade Next to an Old Vacuum Cleaner Store Like in Once on the 2nd to Last Day of the International Film Festival Rotterdam

Yesterday, Dinderdag, was the coldest, windiest, rainiest day it has been in Rotterdam thusfar and it completely justified my bringing of this oversized ski jacket I toted along. It feels like I'm carrying around a bearskin rug. You couldn't stand perpindicular to the ground if you were driven into it like a spike.

I've compiled a list of comments people have made to me about The Adventure to give you an idea of how it was received.

"That opening shot was radical. I thought it was going to go on for the whole film. Not that I would mind." - Shalimar, short filmmaker (She seemed to be using the word 'radical' in the political/social sense rather than the breakdancing sense. I could be wrong.)

"I loved your film." - Peter, Shorts Programmer

"It was very funny." - Arthur, short filmmaker

"It looked like this film was shot in 35mm." - Bartosz, short filmmaker

"You captured what some Americans are like." - I forget the speaker's name. She went on to explain that I captured an unsavory side of Americans very well, or a stereotype that is held about them. We went on to hypothesize that no matter what country you are from, if a couple happened upon a mime in the woods, the reaction would probably be the same.

The most interesting story I have about the film comes from the other head shorts programmer, Juliette. We begin in South Holland, where the programmers rented a house for a weekend to watch and make the first round of selections. A couple of the programmers had watched the film and told the others, "Oh, you have to watch this movie with the mime." There was a chorus of "Oh, no! We don't want to see that. We hate mimes!" They watched the film and the rest is history.

This reminds me of something Bartosz said to me after our screening. He told me when he read about the film online before the festival, he was a little worried about screening alongside a movie with a mime because in his film school class there is a girl who always makes films with mimes in them and they're dependably terrible. Ironic, yes?

I thought I might also share some of the practicalities of being at the Film Festival Rotterdam and just being in a foreign country, though most of you have beat me to the punch and know these things already. First of all, I keep everything of value in my front two pockets even though I don't think there is much cause for worry. Back in the States, I keep my wallet in my back right pocket. Here, I've dispensed with a wallet altogether and just keep my paper and plastic money in my front pocket with a rubber band around it. Passport, room key and phone are in my left front pocket. That's it. For good luck, I keep a shell from the Sea of Azov in Russia in my shirt pocket that my very dear friend Andrea gave me.

Nearly everyone here does speak English, though I haven't found it true that they speak it better than native tonguers, which I heard from a few people before I left. Maybe they were joking. Some Dutch sound faintly British when speaking English so perhaps that is what they meant. Most people assume you speak Dutch and will start talking to you in Dutch until you look baffled, or say, paradoxically, "I don't speak Dutch" in Dutch. After that, you can hold a conversation in Engels. You can also just start speaking in English to people and they'll pick up on it, but usually this is only appropriate with festival staff. With strangers and store proprietors, I just ask, in Dutch, if they speak English. The answer is usually yes.

Most Europeans I've encountered here do not know where Georgia is or have even heard of it. For reference, I say it's in the South, and Martin Luther King, Jr. was born there. This doesn't usually help. If they've been to America, it's either New York or California. No one has asked me if I own a gun or an SUV, but I hardly look like the type that could lift a gun or an SUV, so I'm not surprised. No one has mentioned the war in Iraq or how much they hate George Bush. This will probably change when I travel to France.

If there's not a traffic light, you can basically just walk out in front of automobiles and they must yield to pedestrians. But you never walk out in front of a bicycle. Pedestrians yield to bikes. I guess it's harder to stop a bike than a car, which sounds counter-intuitive, but it makes sense after brief observation.

The Dutch can still smoke indoors, so if you walk into any building, restaurant(even McDonalds), or movie theater, people are smoking. This will change come July, when the indoor smoking ban takes effect. A short filmmaker from the UK made a tactless comment about how surprising this was that it's taken so long for the Dutch to institute this policy. He was accepting an award and E2000 for a short film he directed at the time, so that's why I say tactless. It was like an inappropriate political speech at the Oscars.

To come, a festival wrap up...

Oh so wrong, my loving goes; or I can't sleep in the Netherlands because of the time change and Fanta Orange is yellow here

1125am 1.27.08
At short filmmaker's breakfast. Slept like hell, but feel okay. Somehow, my two roommates snore like container ships. (scene missing) Best of the fest so far for me is a short titled "Dear Bill Gates." It made me almost cry. I love it. A young girl, twenty something, writes an email or two to Bill Gates and explores his Corbis project in which he's purchased over 11 million photographs of our US history and stored them 200 feet below the surface in a former limestone mine called Iron Mountain, which is in a small town in Pennsylvania that has been on fire for 40 years. About images, collective memory, photography's vulnerability, how no one really owns anything anymore or shouldn't and the pitfalls of said ownership. It's so personal and vulnerable and insightful. It's a wounded film. Little people vs. big people. Awesome. I love it.

The in competition shorts are weighted more towards experimental or non-narrative work.

I think I might depart from this diary entry style of blogging. I'm not really digging it. I'm still going to keep a diary but I prefer the Archie blog style. It kills me I can't post pictures. Oh well.

So, to bring you up to speed. I didn't win any awards, but I didn't expect to so no big deal. However, like any filmmaker worth his salt, I compiled my top 3 shorts list to see how I'd do if I were a Vegas man. They are, in no particular order: Dear Bill Gates, Mosaic Mecanique, Ah, Liberty! Mosaic Mecanique is a Charlie Chaplin short you can watch all at once. Experimental would be in this film's tag cloud, though that word doesn't do it justice. This Austrian took every shot(title card, intertitles and credits included) from a Chaplin one reeler, looped them, and arranged them in chronological order on the screen at the same time. So, you are watching the ENTIRE FILM at the EXACT SAME TIME. Yes, it was dynamite. You can watch the film all at once, or you can follow it, shot by shot, like you are reading a book on a 40 foot screen.

'Ah, Liberty!' was the only short I chose that won an award and I'm so happy it did. Ben Rivers, UKer, filmed a family, the Pococks, in Scotland in 16mm black and white cinemascope, aspect ratio 2.65 to 1. That is not a misprint. 16mm scope is my new favorite format. Reviewing the program prior to my Delta departure, I noticed the still for this short and said to myself, "I have to see this based on the still alone." Check it out here. It's a non-fiction work, but not %100 doc. So great. I'm hereby a firm believer that if you have an exclamation point in your title in addition to an interjection, you can't lose.

The other two winners were, As I Lay Dying (narrative) and Observando el Cielo (experimental). Don't remember much about the first one and I liked the second one. It's really cool.

On my plate for today are finding a proper adapter for my phone and ipod, whose battery just entered the red this morning during my 6am - 8am 'ican'tsleepwhytryatleastdosomethingbesideslayherewheresmyipod'. I really cannot adjust to this time change. How long is it supposed to take? World travelers chime in here. I took a sleeping pill the night before last and it sure knocked me out, but I was a disaster all day long. Crippling lethargy until about 6pm, when the drugs finally wore off and I was able to concentrate and not have to pinch myself, bite my tongue or tense my muscles to stay awake in the cinema. Won't do that again. I'd rather stay up than have to endure the Sominex side effects. I should throw those damn pills away. Dreadful. I don't dream when I take them either.

Tonight is the last night in the hostel before moving the the Pax Hotel Rotterdam. Pax is Dutch for Best Western. It looks palatial in comparison. The hostel wasn't all that bad, but the smells range on a day-to-day basis from indeterminate to suspect to foul. When I arrived home last night, a cadre of young blokes were in one sitting area with a blond haired kid jamming on the piano and everyone one was singing a song in Dutch. It was radical.

I saw two good features yesterday of the five total. War, Love, God & Madness: Shooting In Iraq was a doc that I loved. It's about this film director who travels to Baghdad during the occupation in 04 or 05 and successfully shoots a feature film on 35mm with a tiny crew, an 18 year old sound mixer, and a 16 year old boom operator. Director, sound mixer and makeup artist are kidnapped at one point towards the end of filming, tortured, released to American authorities, interrogated, and tortured some more and finally with the help of the Dutch embassy(director is Iraqi-Dutch citizen) are released. Great movie. Loved it. A little self-indulgent once or twice, but I'll overlook that.

Bela Tarr's The Man From London was the other. It's a performance, to be sure and the effect on me was rather complex because of the extreme stylization. I overlooked the horrendous dub/sync job and Tilda Swinton seemed out of place. However, I loved it.

The other movie I love the most is called Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge, directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, which is an homage to Albert Lamorisse's Le Balloon Rouge, a classic short film about a boy and a red balloon. The short is great and this feature is extraordinary. I adored it!

I have to go now. Yes, I definitely prefer this method of blogging to the previous. What was I thinking? If it ain't broke, why fix it?

The blog title is an homage to a Sufjan Stevens song title.

Polska Roadmovie

Friday 925am - 1.25.08

I don't know if I can keep this up. I wake up at 8 every morning to make it to the box office by 9am to get tickets to the films I want to see. I'm at the movies until about 1130pm or midnight every night. At least that is my plan so far. We'll see how long I can keep it up. There are some extraordinary artists here. I'll tell you about them soon. Especially these experimental guys. Well, I may have made my first festival friend. Guess what we talk about. That's right, movies...and culture. I find myself constantly saying Americans don't do this and don't do that. His name is Bartosz(pronounced Bar-tosh) and he's a Pole in film school in Munich. His film, Polska Roadmovie, plays before mine in the program and it's really good. I've just realized I haven't spoken too much in detail about the world premiere of The Adventure. I was a nervous Nellie and asked to see the projectionist and I wasn't able to tech the movie, but it was a flawless projection right out of the gate. I have seen only 1 tech issue so far and it was minor. I sat outside the entire time, except to make sure the film was okay. Sacha, a programme advisor, introduced us all at the beginning. All directors were present: Bartosz, me, and Kim Jong-Kwan from South Korea who doesn't speak that much English, but the festival has interpreters for everyone. You could speak Navajo and they wouldn't bat an eye. At the Q&A, no one asked me any questions which was disappointing, but Sacha said several people told her they didn't want to hear an explanation of the film, as if I would ruin the film with one! I do have a joke explanation saved up for my American premiere, whenever and wherever that happens to be. But Sacha asked me several questions about the film's inspiration, mime, etc. Our three films have been nicely selected together with a thought-out theme.

Every movie theater here within a 1 mile blast radius has been converted into an IFFR satellite. Every theater has stopped showing whatever movies they had been showing, presenting only IFFR selections for the fest's duration. At the multiplex here, called the Pathe, they've stopped showing all Hollywood films. And how about this... The Pathe (Regal or AMC to us), giant posters of Antonioni and Fassbinder and countless other film greats hang from the rafters. I told someone if you said Fassbinder in an AMC in the US, they'd hand you a napkin or a trapper keeper(haha). Other things I've done:

-Had a bottle of water from the Rhine, supposedly. It was crystal delicious.
-Lost a toboggin today. Have a knit cap at the hostel, though.
-Slept like hell last night. too much caffeine.

I've seen about half of the in competition short films so far. Most are non-fiction/experimental. I think only one is really awesome. There are two others I think are good. The best one I've seen is called Dear Bill Gates. Fabulous. Still searching for the girl who made it to tell her how awesome it is.

1.26 - 201pm

So glad I'm here. This is by far one of the coolest things I've ever done. Just had some hot soup and fresh squeezed OJ. Yeah! Best OJ I've ever tasted. Part of the IFFR at the Cinerama theater is a large orange jucier. Piles of crates of oranges sit in front of this machine and there is someone standing at it, constantly feeding in oranges. I feel like a million dollars. I hope it never ends. Overslept today and missed my first screening . Took a sleeping pill last night and it knocked me out. Slept like...something that sleeps well. It was more like an eight hour hibernation.

Blueberry Mountain

926pm - Tuesday night 1/22/08



Sitting in Venster 3 waiting for My Blueberry Nights to start. Student ID came through for me. 5 euros. Saw a few interesting things today worth a line or two. I saw a crowd of people standing around a man with a bloodied face. He was sitting on the ground like at a sit-in and looked as still as glass. People were kneeling down to help him. Must have been a fight. OH, I saw two soldiers walking in lock-step through the Schipol Airport carrying machine guns which I thought would make my brother say "Cool." On my way to the theater, I saw a man and a woman in a tight embrace, the man's arms noticeably looser than the woman's. As I passed, I heard a quick, sniffling cry. But Rotterdam isn't all sadness, fights and automatic weapons.

945a - woensdag 23 jan - scene missing

8.05pm - woensdag 23 jan
Heath Ledger is dead. WTF. I went and saw Brokeback Mountain in order to eulogize him and wondering if it holds up on a 2nd viewing. It does. It's fantastic and heartbreaking. Why can't people who want to be together be together? It sucks but it's ubiquitous.

It's opening night here in Rotterdam. I'm in a gorgeous theater that feels like the inside of a Godzilla sized lego. Lots of blocks protruding from the walls. It's huge. A place for symphonies and operas most likely. It's in the festival HQ building called De Doelen. It's night. People are dressed so fashionably. Kinda wish I had the white suit. Very kinda wish. Opening night film is about to start. Lights have dimmed. Lights have undimmed. Lights have dimmed again...for good. Haven't eaten dinner. Had a glass of champagne. I love the IFFR logo. It's sideways and the word 'Rotterdam' is cut off at the bottom. It's so damn cool. --scene missing-- I credit the boss IFFR messenger bag I've received. If you had any doubts about how grand this fest is, bear in mind my guest director badge has my picture on it and a bar code. I have a bar code! Rutger Wolfson is talking right now, thanking peeps and now he's introducing the Mayor of Rotterdam. There must be some royalty in the audience because they keep saying, "Ladies and Gentlemen and Your excellencies."

840pm - Thursday jan 24
My film is world premiering right now. I just ate a spinach and goat cheese crepe from the festival crepe station set up inside the Lantaren/Venster. (scene missing)

Film Count: 5
Short Count: 15

So, let me give you a festival rundown. As a GD, or guest director, I receive free tickets to everything. You can only collect tickets to films the day before they screen, with a few exceptions. I have a director's dinner on Saturday night which I hope will be fun. All the short films are concentrated in one venue so that's more or less where I'll be all weekend mainly to see the other shorts in competition. Unfortunately, they've very spread out in programmes. I've seen two really good shorts so far, but I've yet to see a good narrative fiction one. Those two blur the lines between fiction and non-fiction and experimental. It's on us the audience to decide. A couple of Germans are in the hostel with me. One I later found out was French. One of them took my bed, so I'm now in a top bunk. Kinda sucks but I've never there. Richard, a location manager at IFFR, asked me if Georgia was near Texas and I told him it was a few states over and he was embarrassed. (scene missing about how the Dutch wear their scarves) It's about time to go into the Lantaren and check on The Adventure. Didn't have time to tech it so I hope it's okay. Everything else has been good so I'm not worried.

more later...sorry I can't do this more often, but I just want to watch movies all day.

Stayokay?

I only have thirty minutes before I have to leave to go see My Blueberry Nights, so this will be thirty minutes worth of typing. I should have time to post some pics tomorrow. I 've taken a page from Mr. Orr and have been keeping a journal gonzo style. Here are some excerpts (Unfortunately, I will probably edit some of these so I don't seem as nervous about being in a foreign country by myself and so I don't come off as a pervert for writing about all the beautiful Dutch girls riding bicycles. It's like San Francisco. Only better. I also don't have time to write down every entry so you'll see (scene missing) whenever I skip over an entry.)

350pm - Atl airport atrium
At E29 atrium. At security, realized i had a small tue of moisturizer in my carry on. i threw it away. then i saw complimentary ziploc bags on a nearby table. the trash can was too big to I decided i better not try and retrieve it. a few blaring emergency fire alarm style warnings have gone off with an automated voice crackling instructions like "Please await further instruction." It's happened twice and people are just ignoring it now. The mood is gay, much happier than a domestic gate.

433pm - Last meal on American soil: tacos.

757pm - about to fly over nova scotia. we can see the lights outside our tiny window. i'm sitting next to a friendly Colombian named Maggie who is studying pure math in Utrecht. Pure math is numberless, so to speak, and focused on the abstract. You wouldn't understand. Her real name is Margharita(sic) and every time she meets or hears about another person with her same name, a little part of her dies. She says this sarcastically. She laughs a lot. (scene missing) Colombians are so nice. She might train from Urtrecht to see my film. Last I checked, we're traveling 632 mph at around 35ooo feet and it's 30 degrees outside.

(I just realized a lot more interesting things happened that I didn't write down. Will need to fine tune the journal writing.)

I'm writing this later, but we watched most of Balls of Fury on the plane. There was one line that made me laugh out loud and whenever Chris Walken says 'ping-pong', it's hilarious. The silliness was calming. Maggie had a book called "1000 Places to See Before you Die". We leafed through the US portion and some poor states only have one thing. Georgia has a couple and they're all either in Savannah or islands.

1015pm - scene missing

7am - scene missing

834a(netherlands time)
On crowded train to Rotterdam. Couldn't find a seat so I'm sitting on my suitcase in the doorway. someone brought a bike on board and blocked the lavatory door with it. A man in a suit with a nametag came by, asked in English who's bike it was then had a long conversation in Dutch with the owner. The bike was moved. Can't wait to get to hostel and check in at IFFR. Maggie's gone now. She took the 1 or 2 train to Utrecht. She was very tired from the flight. It was a quick goodbye.

11:28a - scene missing

I can't really write about Rotterdam yet for some reason, but I will. I must leave now. Time for Blueberries.

Het Avontuur

last night...
Tomorrow, I leave for Europe. It will be my first time in another country. First time in a hostel. First time In Competition at the Int'l Film Festival of Rotterdam. My short film, The Adventure, is lucky enough to already be there. I took this photo the day I mailed it overseas.

I have butterflies in my stomach right now. At first I wanted to say, "I had a bunch of butterflies in my stomach", but then I thought mankind must have assigned a proper word for describing a group of butterflies, something akin to a school of fish or a pride of lions, but apparently no such word existed until recently. NABA, the North American Butterfly Association, called on its members a few years ago to solve this crisis and this list of candidates emerged. My favorites are the violent ones like 'an explosion of butterflies', and 'a riot of butterflies'. I also like the completely absurd 'an ascension of butterflies.' Adult butterflies live approximately one month, which is about how long I will be Europe unless the unthinkable happens and someone gives me a job directing Russian candy commercials.

I've never been so excited and anxious about anything. The Int'l Film Festival Rotterdam is yet another feat of Dutch engineering, with more movies screening than one could ever hope to see in a day, let alone twelve. If only they could have engineered a longer day to see them all. I've only given a very cursory glance over the program schedule and I've thus far listed about 40 films and shorts programs I would like to see. I cannot wait to meet whoever writes the synopses to the films on the IFFR website because 90% of them are fantastic, clever, and intriguing. Some films I'm looking forward to are Bela Tarr's The Man From London, Van Sant's Paranoid Park, Limite (what I'm calling the Brazilian Greed...1931, silent, 120min. 3 intertitles), Peter Lorre's only directorial effort, Samuel Beckett's only film starring a corpselike Buster Keaton, a short programme called 'Japanese 8mm Kicks Ass Beautiful', the Swedish ping-pong movie, the in competition shorts, the filmmakers in focus (Robert Breer, Svetlana Proskoerina and Kobayashi Masahiro, all of whom I've never heard of) and basically everything else. I could go on for days. This festival sounds right up my alley. Everything sounds fringe, indie, foreign or experimental. Some sounds a bit too experimental. I think I've counted two films that are reputedly 'imageless'. As in...there is no image. For one of them, the IFFR website doesn't have a production still so I guess it's the real deal.

jan. 21...
So, I'm leaving for the airport in half an hour. To make sure I represent American cinema properly, I took a strip of 35mm film from John Carpenter's The Thing and made a bracelet out of it. I'll take a picture of it and post it here soon. This was a gift from Adam P. via John G. Thank you both. I definitely feel like a more serious filmmaker wearing half a second(13 frames to be exact) of Carpenter's frigid masterpiece around my wrist. The reason I have this was because during a test screening of the movie recently in Atlanta, part of it caught fire and well...they had to amputate a small sliver of it to save a movie in which no one is saved.

I'll arrive at about 830am in Amsterdam on Tuesday, January 22nd. First orders of business: Get to Rotterdam, check in, etc. and see My Blueberry Nights at 2130pm Netherlands time(1530 Atlanta time) at the Lantaren/Venster, where my film will screen two days later.

Wish us luck. Miss you all. I'll rotterblog post pictures with regularity. I'll be back in late February.

mike b.