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Friday, September 28, 2012

Film Short Film Fridays

Posted by Charles Mudede on Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 9:23 AM

This week's film is “Our Time Together,” a short directed by David R. Lipson and made from the “resources leftover from another production.” The film sets the harsh realities of loneliness and longing against the blurred background of the city. The city almost never comes into focus; its merry/magic lights are, for the urban loner, as cold as all the distant and wandering stars.

Some film news. Tonight, Local Sightings, Northwest Film Forum's festival of regional features, shorts, and documentaries, opens with a screening of International Sign for Choking, a film by Zach Weintraub, the director of Bummer Summer. My review of International Sign for Choking, which was shot in Buenos Aires, compared it with the cinema of Ozu. But now that I've had more time to think about the film, I think I should have compared it with Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together.

The advantage of that comparison is that it reveals this important distinction: Happy Together is about Buenos Aires, is about the city, about getting lost in the city, finding and losing love in the city. International Sign for Choking is not about Buenos Aires; it has little local color (something Borges despised) and no touristic value. Instead of the beautiful city in the background, Choking places beautiful wall paper.

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These sound fun!

Sadly, busy seeing the New Spanish Film Festival at SIFF Uptown this weekend. The producer of last night's film, "No Rest For The Wicked", which is being picked up for a US remake by Stallone, will be on Univision today.

Posted by Will in Seattle