For Saturday, I was thinking film again. Next most interesting on my list, at the same rating, is Black Book - the story of a Jewish singer who infiltrates the Gestapo during WWII. Now, I've already seen something along these lines - but having watched the trailer for this, it isn't familiar, so I'm willing to give it a shot. However, I was suddenly presented with an alternative - Experience London Events, Concerts & Parties advertised the World Cinema Film Festival, which was online this year, and streaming for free over the weekend. Tickets from Eventbrite. I couldn't get many details of the programme, but it started on Saturday, and consisted of talks and short films. So I booked a ticket.
And that is indeed what I watched. The ticket included the link to the festival page - this is still available until Sunday, I believe, so with or without a ticket, you should still be able to watch, if you're interested. Very little information on the page, mind, just a couple of videos, and the names of the filmmakers and people questioned in the 1-1 Q&As. Each video runs for about 2.5 hours, and covers that day's entire content - annoyingly, although the filmmakers' names are given, as I say, no film names or durations are given, and no timings. Me, I skipped through all the Q&As, by the simple means of watching for long enough to see what the interviewee looked like, then clicking ahead, 10 minutes or so every time, until they weren't there any more. At which point I'd click back a little, catch the very end of their interview to make sure I wasn't missing anything, then just keep watching for the film.
Of the first day's films, honestly, the only one I felt was worth the effort was the very first, which was an interesting series of snippets from Caribbean immigrants to the UK. The younger ones' poetry and music mixed nicely with the older ones' stories of how they were discriminated against ("No blacks, no Irish, no dogs" on boarding house windows, for instance). They had tales to tell of the educational system - some had come over as children, but far from the UK system being superior, as one man tells it, it is designed only to educate the top 20%. As blacks, they were automatically lumped into remedial classes. One woman, who came as an adult and had trained as a postmistress, applied for a job in a post office when she arrived. So she left the hospital where she was initially housed, full of expectations. When she arrived at the post office, however, they showed her where the cleaning equipment was.. Naturally enough, she immediately quit, and returned to the hospital, quite upset. When the nun in charge heard what had happened, she said, "Well, if you're just going to be offered work as a cleaner, then you might as well work here!" Happily, they paid better, at least.
The second piece is about an Italian drum maker. I found the musical snippets more interesting than the actual description of drum making, personally. The third piece has yet more immigrants - in this case, all from Jamaica. And for the last piece, it's just as well I listened to the continuity announcer (despite her impenetrable accent!). Because she informed us that the last film dealt with sexual abuse following a party. Just as well - the film itself is an equally impenetrable piece of art school drivel, all animated paper cut-outs, and I couldn't make any sense of it at all. Finally, I should add that the entire video is captioned, and I didn't seem able to turn the captions off!
I actually only finished the first video on Sunday afternoon. (Ironically, I had to use my mother's old laptop to watch it, as my work laptop wouldn't stream the videos - firewall, perhaps.) Unfortunately, I stayed on that laptop for the next call - which meant the reception was so bad, I had to turn off my video! Can't win.
Later that afternoon, London Social Detours (LSD) was hosting a "virtual visit to the Galapagos", complete with a chat about Charles Darwin. So, off I went again with them. A decent presentation included a couple of short films, and a slideshow - one of the group had been there a few years ago, and could elaborate on what it was like - sadly, another couple on the call had been supposed to go there this year, until Covid scuppered their plans! We can only hope that we can all get travelling again one day. Anyway, the quiz afterwards was fun, with the fastest person to type the answer getting the point. (I only managed once to be first.) There were quite a few prizes, although the winner elected to take a tote bag rather than a book, having too many already! The runner-up also got to choose a prize - the rest of us, I'm afraid, had to make do. As for the chat that finished the session - as usual, it ended with one topic dominating discussion; this time, it was, of all things, Morris dancing. The American on the call was intrigued..
That night, tv scored a hit with the Sunday night film - they showed The Post. Directed by Steven Spielberg, this tells the true story of the "Washington Papers" - documents leaked during the Vietnam War that showed that the US government had known for years it was unwinnable, but had been sending over troops to save face. The film follows the story of the Washington Post, which watches jealously as the New York Times (NYT) publishes extracts.. Meryl Streep is the publisher of The Post, Tom Hanks the editor, but jeez, they just cannot get a scoop like that! Readership is falling, the paper is in trouble - until Nixon slaps an injunction on the NYT, preventing them from publication! When somebody slips into The Post's offices with a box that just happens to contain some of the papers.. well, what would you do?!
This is a great, tense, political / journalistic thriller, which of course resonates with today's presidency. And you just have to love the final scene, with a security guard reporting a burglary at the Watergate Hotel.. "the next instalment", you might say!
Monday was a UK bank holiday, which I took as such, even in Ireland. Helen was good enough to suggest a video call - it's been ages since we saw each other, of course, and yes, it was so good to see each other again! With all the platforms available to us, we chose Google Meet - which was fine (especially since I was on my work laptop). Differs from Zoom - which I seem to use most - in that your own video, while visible, only displays as a thumbnail at the top! So we had a lovely, long natter - Zoom would have kicked us out after 40 minutes.
Afterwards, I finally caught up with the second World Cinema Film Festival video. Again, no film names, no timings, and no indication of where anything starts in the video. However, on the whole, this is far better than the first day's fare! Interestingly, in this one, no captions are displayed - and yes, I did try to turn them on and couldn't. The presenter's accent is, as mentioned above, impenetrable, so I could have done with them here.
Anyway, we start with Hush, about a young girl with an impossible family. By not speaking for a day, she manages to bring them together in a surprising way! The second film is the least successful - a photoshoot with a North Korean defector to South Korea, she tells us (in what I assume is Korean) about her experience. However, half the subtitles seem to be missing - I can only assume that this is deliberate on the filmmaker's part, designed to show how we're not getting the whole narrative. Very weird to watch, though.
The third film, Roots, in contrast, has no dialogue at all - we see an (Indian?) immigrant couple change their image to fit in. Quite striking. And the last, Carla's Room, is again without dialogue - we see a series of snippets of life from a girl's bedroom, which summarise her story, and her relationship with her mother. Works well. As for this Meetup group - it was my first time with them, and it's obviously one of those that just exist to advertise events.
So, I was pretty busy over the long weekend, and decided to wait until I'd finished watching the film festival to blog. Then I was busy yesterday, and tired at the end of it - so here we are, at last. Hello again.
This coming Saturday.. tan ta ra! The Old Vic has taken to streaming shows live in camera (so, played to an empty theatre). And coming up next is Three Kings - a one-man show with Andrew Scott! Showing from today to Saturday, it replicates a live theatre show, in that you have to attend at the scheduled time - so the only show I can make is the Saturday matinée. For which I snatched a ticket asap! Caveat - despite the different ticket prices, the view is the same for everyone - it's just a question of how much of a donation you feel like making. They're supposed to send me a Zoom link tomorrow - oh, and these are non-transferable, you can only use the link on one device. But boy, do I love Andrew Scott.. Postponed from weeks ago, as he's been in hospital (neither serious nor Covid-related, we're assured!). At last..
Wouldn't you know it, it's clashing with the next weekend LSD Meetup. Can't be helped - I'm not missing Andrew Scott for that..
No comments:
Post a Comment