Land of the shooting stars

So, I’m back. Of course since I didn’t post that I was going away you might have thought I was just being lazy again but in fact I was in the bloody middle of nowhere at a film festival. At the “Anonimul” Film Festival(click here for the official page). First off let me tell you a bit about the location. Remember when I said two sentences ago that this is in the middle of nowhere? I meant it. It’s in the Danube Delta and you can only get there by boat(more about why I fucking hate those boats later). So we arrive there Monday evening(not really evening more around 5PM-ish), walk the approximately 1.5 miles from the pier to the camp site, pay and go set up the tent. All goes well until we get to the stakes part. Apparently the ground hates me and is frozen solid(why yes, I do have Yossarian complex, why do you ask?). We kind of get them in, pray that our backpacks are heavy enough to keep the thing down and then we try to tie the ropes. Well, uh, I’ve only had the tent for 6 years how was I supposed to know that the pegs used for the ropes are supposed to go in at an angle? Yes, I suck at camping. After all this is done we go and look for coffee because gosh, darn it, I’ve been without coffee for a full 6 hours. We find coffee, or what they try to pass as coffee but seeing as the only other place that sells coffee is back near the pier…coffee, good!

Other then that it was boring. We’d wake up at 8-9 in the morning, go drink coffee, wait for the sun to move then go sleep/read under a fence and maybe if we were feeling energetic enough walk to the village or the sea(two different directions and a long walk either way). Then at 6 we’d plunk down at a good table, have more coffee, try to decide what to eat, eat and then watch movies and drink. Oh, yeah an exciting life. Friday we met a couple of guys, one of which really, but really, really looked like Rudolf Martin when he had his sunglasses on, but way less when he took them off(clicky here to see how Rudolf looks with glasses). Sad. They saved me and my friend from killing each other so it was all good in the ed. But dang, why did he have to take the glasses off? Did I mention I have a thing for Rudolf Martin? ‘Cause I do.

The worst part was the boat. We decide to go home Saturday morning. We get up at 6, pack the tent, and hike back to the pier only to be told that there are no more tickets. Cursing, then more cursing and even more cursing. Fine, ok, whatever. We walk back to the camp, set the bloody tent again. Next morning, we wake up a 5, pack the tent, walk tot the tent, hoping to find tickets for any of the boats that day. Guess what? No cigar, or in our case no tickets. They changed the system from the previous year so we had no clue that you could buy tickets in advance. We got bored and the prospect of spending another night sleeping in a tent was too awful so we found some guys with a speedboat and rode in style!

Also have you ever watched fireworks up close? Really, really close? Close as in burning parts falling 2 feet away from you? Oh, yeah…cool. And scary. But really, really cool. Made even cooler by the fact that it was also a moon eclipse at the same time. And that there were a lot of shooting stars(hence the title).

So, now for the movies:
The good: The Wave(Germany) was absolutely brilliant and I’d recommend you watch if you have the chance. I also liked the Lemon Tree(Israel).

The decent: It’s hard to be nice (Bosnia & Herzegovina)was ok-ish but I’m not sure I’d watch it again, Silent Light(Mexico), who also won the prize could have been a good movie but I didn’t make it to the end. It’s artsy and can be boring but I would like to make it to the end someday

The bad: Boogie(Romania) proved once again that we cannot make a decent movie to save our lives. It wasn’t as much bad as it was useless. Trust me, I spent 2 hours looking for the plot.

The ones I don’t have an opinion on: Egg(Turkey) and Help me Eros(Taiwan) were boring and we were tired so I think I watched 15, maybe 20 minutes out of each.

The short films were better. I liked a lot of them, with special mention for Bad habit little rabbit, The Yellow Smiley Face, Strawberries in April, Muli, Test and Cat-man-do(the last one is below…enjoy!).



Sorry, I’m still not exactly coherent right now so you’ll have to try to make sense of all that mumbo-jumbo.