--以片漆黑--

Athens International Film+Video Festival 2009

It has been almost two weeks since the festival over. I am still in the mood of sleeping until 2 and playing Metroid and Zelda nonstop. Except for working on that crappy bike frame. I did nothing, truly nothing.

The festival went well. Literally, every screening had a decent amount of audience. Make me feeling happy for all the filmmakers that got their works into the competition shows. No matter if you care about your work had been seen in this small Ohio town.

Features we got this year are wonderful, personally speaking. Although I didn't get to see all of them, most of time I saw a piece here and there when I worked in the booth (it was a fantasy for me to watch film in the booth before I got this job. Now I would say I love to watch in the auditorium, much much better).  

I saw the beginning of Silent Light (dir. Carlos Raygadas). This is one of a few films that I read articles about it before it came. The beginning is, well obviously, very silent. No dialogue for I would guess at least ten minutes (Almost gave me a heart attack when I projected it, because I got the frame way down on the machine, meaning, if the subtitle is below the bottom edge, I am in trouble). I was totally drove by the tension of the dinning table scene in the beginning. Nervous, but amazed by how the film plays the spectator so well.

I didn't get to see much of Wendy and Lucy (dir by Kelly Reichardt). Recently, I saw an article on Star Chu's blog (周星星的部落格）. Seems it is going to be shown in Taiwan soon. I believe the topic is easier to engage than Old Joy, which is the director's previous work, and Old Joy was not received well during the screening in Taiwan. Well, maybe I should get on PTT to see if Wendy and Lucy got some attention.

Mock Up On Mu (dir. Craig Baldwin) and O'er the Land (dir. Deborah Stratman) are two experimental films. Directors in the house introducing the film before head and leading the discussion afterward. Mock Up On Mu is a decoupage with tones and tones of film footage to satire humen's obsess with science development, especially for military. All in my head during watching the movie is a red light with siren, beeping: "information overload!!". After the screening, I can barely talk to anybody about how I see this one. Well, the problem is not whether Mock Up on Mu is my cup of tea. More likely, when a storm suddenly pour me with dog and frog, I would just look silly if I curse on the storm.        

Personally, I love how O'er the Land look, a lot. Especially it was shown on 16mm (yeah~, I am film fetish, required form my job). Nevertheless, I sense a lot of criticism toward how humen attempt to control the environment from the content, while the filmmaker really tried to say is that we all apart of the ironic. My point is, I agree more that we all apart of the control freak society. Rather, the film, to me, only shows the criticism but no self-reflectness.   

There are four other features that I have physically sit in the theatre watching. I'll spilt out my thoughts in the next post~

Time to play more Zelda.

我爸寫給我的信，總是有一種可以把細節寫的很重要，有莫名的情緒在其中的感覺。恩 家書~

新寧：
學校影展的事，告一段落了吧。
四月底的一個星期六，媽媽和我去竹東夏綠蒂看看，因為我聽說四號三樓要賣，而且不貴。我們找到仲介，看了三樓，光線比四樓的我們差多了，又看了四號七樓， 看到漏水的痕跡，而且是那種很難修得好的。看來三樓比七樓好，而且便宜。我們聽說一號五樓要出租，所以就再去看看，那是邊間三房雙衛，光線很好，感覺要比 四號三樓舒服多了。因為房價不好，房東不賣只租，前一個租戶就是游李興，四號二樓的鄰居，他租來開公司，現在把公司移到工研院，就不租了。
媽媽與我決定租下四號三樓，因為大唐的房子，完全放不下東西，羅小姐就說只有大唐和夏綠蒂，無法搬家。一號五樓比四號四樓小一點，但比大唐大，而且是空 屋，應該可以放得下我們挑選之後的東西。如果住下之後覺得不錯，不需大唐的話，大唐出租的租金可移用於此。對了，月租是一萬元，游李興開公司，月租是一萬 四千，所以他說不算貴。
我給學校的簽呈，要求住到十月底，學校已應允。我想十月初就應該把一些可以自己搬的東西運到竹東。如果你最近能回台的話，就可以開始動了。如果你要到九月才回來，我也可以一點一點自己先做。
哥哥一直反對買房子，尤其是竹東的房子，因為升值空間有限，他聽到我們是租一間，倒是贊成的。
今天寄一本書給蔣孝瑀教授，郵局說五月一日起，surface一律停止，只寄一本書，也要用包裹，比航空還貴。看來以後寄書要湊成一批寄才合算。
老爸