NYFF Update
Actually no updates. I was hoping against hope to get the tickets of Inland Empire but no such luck. I begged them and told them I will stand at the door or sit on the floor but no, they didn't budge. Actually there were people more desperate than me. A couple of them even had small placards saying, "I need tickets" or something like that. Anyway, I think this is what happens when you are not proactive. Isn't it one of the seven habits of highly effective people?
Anyway, after the disappointment at the Alice Tully Hall, I made a move to the adjacent Walter Reade theatre which is holding the annual "views from avant-garde" film festival. There was a screening of some short experimental and abstract films by Ernie Gehr, whose name I hadn't heard before. The filmmaker was in attendance too. There was a brief introduction and a question answer session followed the screening. Gehr said that he finds things like "space", "movement" and "geometrical shapes" more interesting than human figures and faces. I really wanted to admire him for this but I had a mild headache and was lost somewhere else. Anyway, here is something I found on the internet about the director. It seems the film center booklet copied the same content.
Also, next month there is a retrospective of Hungarian cinema (minus Bela Tarr) at the film center. The occasion is the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution which was crushed by the Soviet invasion. I was surprised today to see a giant billboard at the Times Square advertising this, sponsored by the Hungarian cultural center. One of them says, "Our revolution was not a movie." Here is the website they are advertising. And an article on Hungarian cinema from the guardian. I think the same retrospective is happening in London too.
2 comments:
ah--that's the tibor fischer article you've linked to? i was a little annoyed with it. ok, it's specifically about films that deal with the 56 uprising, but to pinpoint some very minor films of some major directors is quite an injustice.
of course, he's probably only talking about the films that formed a part of the package. but that's probably not the best of hungarian cinema on show.
actually the one which is planned in ny is quite big. There is even a subsection of films by Miklos Jancso, none of whose films I have seen. It also has lots of films from recent times, something like the current best of Hungarian cinema.
I saw an interesting and stylish though lightweight hungarian movie Kontroll last year. It is there in the list too.
Post a Comment