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.