during a film festival, time goes by quickly. Between work, and then heading to movies, you run out of time for other things, like.. blog entries. For the duration of the Calgary film fest, My life consisted of: getting up, going to work, seeing 3 movies, and repeat. In total I saw 22 movies, and after the first 15 or so, they begin to blur together. Next year, I'll be more prepared, and bring a notepad.
Some of the movies I saw were short features, and I did try to see films from different countries, but a preference was given to Canadian features. The one Canadian movie that did stand out was EVE AND THE FIREHORSE, which also won the award for Best First Canadian Feature at the Festival.
There were others... CAPOTE was everything I dreamt it would be, and more.. I'm thinking this year the Best Actor Oscar is between Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Bill Murray (so far).
Ingmar Bergman's latest movie.. SARABAND was also a standout for me.
There was also a film shown from Singapore called 15 (Shiwu). It is the first work by Royston Tan and explores the adolescent world in a way that is dramatically marked with shots of a conflicted subculture and how a teenage boy can fall into a complete addiction to video clips and videogame aesthetics. 15 showed a side of Singapore most people never see. The visually dramatic film gives a haunting look into the lives of these five teenagers and emphasizes how people on the fringes of society desire the same love and companionship as anyone else. The boys of 15 only have each other, and their friendship is enough to get them through.
The Closing Gala was Beowulf & Grendel, a film by director Sturla Gunnarsson, had one of the more lively Q&As I saw all Festival
I learned a lot from this Film Festival, and next year I'll plan more carefully. A Notepad is a MUST, and I'll go for QUALITY, not QUANTITY, because I also learned that your bum gets quite numb after the 13th or so film.
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