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.