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.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, January 25, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
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.
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)
(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.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
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.
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