--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.