Day 1

Day 1. If Thursday was Day 0, today, Friday the 19th, is Day 1.

So last night we premiered 'In Bruges', a film starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleason, and Ralph Fiennes. Colin, the lusty leprechaun himself, was there, though I didn't see him. The closest I came was talking to his Sundance entourage handler.

Today I tried to get into two films, and succeeded at one. I saw Shorts Program IV, which included: the story of a black woman coming out as a lesbian; a Romanian film that covered two interwoven groups of people at the beach one summer day; a short film about a high school wrestler who breaks his winning streak after losing a match; an Australian short that played at times like a soap opera, about a long-lost brother who returns to attend his brother's wedding, but leaves in the end after realizing how he doesn't really belong; an English short about a how a man and his son confront the hoodies in their neighborhood.

I thought I saw a common thread between the Romanian and English short. Both had allusions to European racism, which is different in tone than American racism and anti-immigration bias. In the Romanian short, a middle class Romanian couple observes a Turkish or Central Asian couple making out prominently on the beach and they refer to 'those people' and how their lack of class will bring the nation down.

The English film is more direct. The son has already been beaten up by the hoodies, and after they follow the father home from the corner store, the father insists up to the last minute that fighting back will only make things worse, even as he gradually edges towards confrontation, until the son finally comes out with a cricket bat and starts wailing away on the head bully. One can experience the internal struggle the UK is experiencing regarding immigration, the muslim population, and the Middle East all at once.

I tried to go see 'Up the Yangtze', a Chinese film about the disappearing ecology of the Yangzte river as the Three Gorges Dam nears completion. Supposedly beautiful and shot in Sony HD, this film has already been picked up and should make it out sometime in the next year. I was number 47 in the wait list, and they barely broached a dozen from our line.