I’ve been attending this for six or seven years, although I did stand out for a couple of years because it is such an intense experience. Unfortunately, I cannot make myself attend just one or two sessions – as soon as I work through the program I grow too excited for modest exposure. This year, due to alignment of the stars, I’m particularly free on the festival’s final weekend, so I’ve loaded up over that period. All up, I’m down to see a couple of dozen movies.
The problem – and the very great appeal – of a festival is that you cannot predict how worthy the films will be. They’re all written up attractively and any mini previews in local newspapers also tend to be respectful. My solution? I choose according to a handful of ‘ideas,’ either grand themes or locations or subjects. This year I’m focusing on half a dozen conceptual categories:
- Life’s meaning and how to make it and how to focus on it (this is just my Undistraction ‘destination’ on the right)
- Vengeance (this happens to be a festival category)
- The spirit of The Clash, that is, rock music’s finer aspects
- My ‘destination’ Vietnam Redux, being any signs of exiting the morass of Iraq
- Genocide and related human rights blights
- Creativity
Here are the films in order: My Neighbor, My Killer; Sergio; Red Riding 1974; Citizen Havel; Amoz Oz – The Nature of Dreams; Red Riding 1980; Blessed; Van Gogh: Brush with Genius; Moon; The Cove; Examined Life; Paper Soldier; It Might Get Loud; Flame & Citron; In the Loop; Louise-Michel; Young Freud in Gaza; The Hurt Locker; Zift; Looking for Eric; The Entrepreneur; Shadow Play: The Making of Anton Corbijn; Villa Amalia; Burme VJ; Rem Koolhaas: A Kind of Architect; Letter to Anna. I’ll report back as I see them.