WebM is based on the Matroska container MKV and encodes video with VP8 with audio with the Ogg Vorbis codec.

Development versions of Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Chromium already support WebM. Patches for FFmpeg, GStreamer, filters for DirectShow and a VP8 SDK are available. The latest built of VLC plays VP8/WebM as well.

YouTube offers HTML5 content, too. You can test it after joining the HTML5 Beta at youtube.com/html5. A search for webm on YouTube will return several demos available as HTML5, for example this WebM Demo, or Free Fall, the amazing film with world champion freediver Guillaume Nery.

Microsoft announced that IE9 will support VP8/WebM in addition to H.264.

Source: c’t issue 13, 2010

Links:

• YouTube HTML5 Test Drive
• Firefox Nightly Builds supporting WebM
• VLC with WebM support
• The WebM project, tools, filters, plugins

Previously

When I set this system up for the first time a few years ago I tried to find a good solution to access Windows files and resources while I’m working in Ubuntu, and Ubuntu files and resources while I’m working in Windows. I wanted to avoid booting from one OS into another all the time. Once I experimented with virtual machines and configured Windows with two Hardware profiles (one for the physical hardware, one for the virtual hardware) and I was able to boot Windows regularly as well in a virtual machine when I was working in Ubuntu. I don’t remember doing the same in the other direction. It was an impressive (looking) solution but it I didn’t find it very useful in the end. If I needed Windows, I really needed it with all resources and all memory available. Graphics and Video in a virtual machine just wasn’t optimal. And considering how much time I would normally spend in one or the other OS working on the one or other project, I realized that it really will not hurt me to boot Windows or Ubuntu once or twice a day.

But I still wanted to find a good way to share files and documents across both platforms. A few years ago I used a single folder as a shared directory, but I quickly grew tired of having to copy files from and to this folder all the time. I wanted everything in one place, easy to access and easy to backup. I wanted my documents to share the same partition and folder in Linux as well as Windows. The first question was which file-system to use for this drive D:\. Given the ext2-IFS driver for Windows I decided to use ext2 for this partition, native to Linux whenever I work there, and accessible from Windows when I work there. So I set up the following:

• Disk 0, Partition 1 (78GB NTFS) — C: for Windows and software
• Disk 0, Partition 2 (74GB ext2) — Linux
• Disk 0, Partition 3 (28GB ext2) — I: incoming partition for downloads, unsorted stuff
• Disk 0, Partition 4 (6GB swap) — Linux Swap
• Disk 1, Partition 1 (300GB ext2) — D: user-/home directories, web-server, projects, both for Windows and Linux

Both Linux, D: and I: used the ext2-file system, only C: is an NTFS partition. When I worked in Linux I had native access to these partitions mounted in /home and /incoming. When I worked in Windows, I had access to them with drive D: and I:. I figured that a driver would be more likely to fully support an open source file system than a driver that had to reverse-engineer a closed-source file system. I set this system up a year or two ago, and it’s been working pretty well for me since then. After a while and a few Windows crashes, however, I found ext2 with some corruption I had to fix manually. I’m not sure if anything or how much got lost in the process, but I didn’t like this at all.

Ext File System in Windows, or better NTFS in Linux?

When I was surfing the web a few days ago to find some thoughts on file-systems and recommendable backup-software I stumbled on a discussion about this issue. Somebody asked the same question: Is it better to use ext2 and the ext2-IFS driver on Windows, or NTFS and FUSE/NTFS-3g on Linux?

One of the answers made a pretty good point and confirmed the issue I encountered myself: If Windows crashes it can corrupt ext2/3 partitions after a while. Linux, however, doesn’t do the same with NTFS. Without fsck you won’t be able to check or repair ext2/3 filesystems in Windows, but Linux on the other hand has ntfsfix if you need to fix an NTFS partition. NTFS-3g (which I don’t think existed when I was first looking into this a few years ago) is supposed to handle NTFS better than Windows with ext2-IFS can handle ext2/3.

I’m wondering if I should reconsider my configuration and just keep all Windows files on a single NTFS partition C: and mount it as a /windows folder in Ubuntu. That won’t be a problem at all. But what should I do about Linux documents when I work in Windows? I’m not sure I would want to mount the Linux home with ext2-IFS again. What are your experiences and preferences? What route would you take if you needed a shared Windows/Linux system?

Cross-Platform Network Backups

Which tools would you recommend to create automated backups of Windows as well as Linux files, perhaps even across the network? I don’t want to create drive images but run quick frequent file backups for everything that changed in a day. I’d love to be able to do this automated, across the network, using the Athlon as a backup server, and each household computer as a backup client regardless of the operating system.

Originally I wanted to back things up on a remote site and wrote a script to gpg-encrypt zipped archives of files I wanted to save. But the web hosting providers don’t like it when hosting space is used as a backup drive. And providers that offer storage space for backup purposes charge ridiculous amounts of monthly fees for this service. I have about seven Gigabyte at GMail, I wonder if Gmail could be used as a backup drive for important things, and how safe and reliable it would be in terms of data-loss.

Anyway, if you stumble across this and want to share some ideas or best practices, go ahead! Every thought is appreciated. :)

Update: Voted for Simplicity

Update: I finally entered the 21st century by installing Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows 7 on PC #1 and Ubuntu 10.04 on PC #2. I installed 64-bit versions on both machines. I decided to not overconfigure the dual-boot system and went with the easiest route: Windows (NTFS) on one harddisk, Ubuntu (ext4) on a second. If I need any files from Windows when I’m in Ubuntu, I will just mount the Windows partition. If I need files from Ubuntu when I’m in Windows, well.. then I will just deal and copy everything I need to the Windows partition before I start Windows. I want to avoid the ext2-IFS driver. I also don’t know if or how well it could handle the ext4 file system. A clear separation will also make it easier for backups.

Amanda Network Backup

I found Amanda Network Backup and Zmanda which might be just what I was looking for to backup all systems across the network to my AMD server. It also supports cloud backups to Amazon S3 which might be worth for a smaller subset of the most important files. If I keep the volume small enough it could be very affordable at $4.95 monthly licensing fee plus $0.20 per GB data transferred in/out and $0.20 for backup storage. When I upload and store, say, 2 GB it should be $5.75 per month unless there are some hidden costs. And 2 GB is more than enough for the most critical data that would have to survive a disaster.

Do you know and use Amanda/Zmanda? What are your experiences with it? I installed it and went through a painful configuration procedure, but I finally made it work and was actually able to run a backup across the network. However, after a few gigs it appeared to have crashed. I don’t know if the network was overwhelmed or if I made a mistake with the configuration. I will have to read more about it. I found it a bit cumbersome to configure, but I think once it’s done properly I will never have to touch the configuration again. So this may be worth the effort. What’s most important though: I need to make sure these backups can be restored as safely, easily and quickly as possible when needed. As soon as I know more I will write a separate post about Amanda/Zmanda.

Mama

From Russia, by Yelena and Nikolay Renard with Ludmila Alyohina and Sergey Nazaro.

Ludmila Alyohina

With the film Mama, Russian husband-and-wife directing team Yelena and Nikolay Renard have achieved something quite remarkable: they have crafted an emotionally resonant and deeply insightful film out of the completely unremarkable lives of the two main characters, all without the use of dialogue. The story revolves around the complex co-dependent relationship between a mother and her morbidly obese 40-year-old son.

This spare film uses the camera to achieve an almost painterly quality in each shot. The static camera frames a scene and then waits patiently as the actors come and go, often leaving the scene devoid of characters, but never empty. In keeping the camera firmly rooted in one position and letting it dwell on the scene, the Renards achieve a smoldering intensity of feeling that many flashier films would die for. Exquisitely long takes, few edits and a complete lack of dialogue (although wonderful use of sound) allow the viewer to become engrossed in the lives of the two main characters and afford an almost extra-sensory glimpse into their thoughts and feelings. [...] (J. Scott Braid)

—from the Film Festival Guide

Mama was one of the most intimate and beautiful movies I have seen in a while. I’m eternally grateful the filmmakers allowed me the time to rest in these long scenes, and take in the images, details, mood and unspoken expressions.

Sometimes I discover a movie or a series of pictures that manages to bring back childhood memories, and I don’t mean vague or foggy memories, but very strong and vivid memories that include a sensation for all senses…memories of touch and smell, sounds or silence, facial expressions or movements that have become a person’s signature after many decades of daily routines.

Two examples — one movie that brought such memories back a few years ago was The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. This movie had nothing in common with Mama, but it activated a childhood memory of my granduncle’s apartment in this 5 or 6-family house. When I saw the stairway and some of the interior I was thrown back in time. Something similar happened when I discovered Helga Paris’ work. About two years ago I wrote a bit about her photographs which brought some memories back as well. If Helga Paris made a movie, I can only hope she would do it like Yelena and Nikolay Renard with Mama.

Mama by Yelena and Nikolay Renard

And Mama was even more astonishing as it brought my grandmother and her kitchen as I remember it back to life with an unbelievable number of similarities. From what she was wearing, the way she cooked instant coffee or tea, the way she prepared breakfast, the ritual before going to sleep, and the amount of movement and care, the routine of housekeeping, her facial expressions, even her hair, the kitchen interior with the old table and the vinyl table cloth. Of course my grandmother talked more, but the silence in Mama I think added to the magic of familiarity. A voice might have destroyed the illusion. There were so many little details that seemed so very familiar to me. I was absolutely amazed.

What are the odds to watch a recently produced movie and recognize so many details I grew up with 20-30 years ago?! What a coincidence that there were not only similarities in the environment, but also an astounding familiarity with actress Ludmila Alyohina’s appearance?

Ludmila Alyohina

It’s possible that I might tend to look for such similarities in movies and pictures. If I compare the now and here with then and there I find so many differences… It’s hard to imagine that somebody would be able to bring back something that I believed was just a personal memory and not a global trend or fashion phenomenon of a decade like the 60s, 70s or 80s. This here wasn’t about clothes, hairstyles, furniture or design of a past era… the carefully composed pictures in Mama are timeless and subtle, transcending the short-lived waves of changes that came and went in all these years.

I have to admit that these and other personal impressions occupied me a little during the movie, but I was still able to appreciate what I didn’t feel familiar with before. The sound, images and pace, everything was realistic, natural, organic and masterful. When Scott Braid introduced this film he said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that this film will reward your patience. I didn’t feel like I had to be patient, but Mama was an absolutely rewarding experience from beginning to end. Another of my top-favorites at the film festival this year.

Faces

I mentioned in other reviews I wrote in the past couple of years how much I liked movies like Frownland, Yeast, Baghead, Medicine for Melancholy or this year’s Daddy Longlegs. But I didn’t know a lot of movies–if any–before this young generation of filmmakers defined their new genre [to avoid overusing m-word again :)]. I’m ashamed that I wasn’t familiar with John Cassavetes before. Well, I have seen him perform as an actor before, but I didn’t know of his work as director with movies like Faces or Husbands which I have seen shortly after the film festival.

John Marley

Nominated for three Academy Awards, Faces tells the story of middle-aged husband Richard Forst (John Marley) and wife Maria (Lynn Carlin) trying to escape the wreckage of their disintegrating marriage by seeking comfort in the arms of others. The film focuses on the night in which their mutual dissatisfaction comes to a head. Richard spends his evening cavorting with a young prostitute named Jeannie (Gena Rowlands), while Maria and friends pick up an eager-to-please young beatnik (Seymour Cassel) at a club. As the night wears on, it becomes clear that a passionate fling cannot reverse the tides of years of unhappiness.

John Cassavetes is one of the most important cinematic figures of the latter half of the Twentieth Century. A pioneer of American independent film, he remains one of its most recognizable names. Using the money he made acting in Hollywood studio projects, Cassavetes financed his own largely improvised films — films which to this day are some of the most poignant and devastating ever committed to celluloid. Faces is a prime example.

Faces has been selected by guest-host Bill Callahan, who will introduce the film and discuss it afterwards, joined during the Q+A by Faces cinematographer Al Ruban. (J. Scott Braid)

—from the Film Festival Guide

I wasn’t familiar with Bill Callahan before either. But he piqued my curiosity when he gave an incredibly peculiar introduction after Scott Braid raved so much about him and his long musical career. I just wondered “Who is this guy, and how does he relate to this movie?” When I looked up more about him and his work I found especially interesting that “critics have generally characterized his music as depressing and intensely introverted [...] view into an insular world of alienation” [wikipedia]. He is also described with a tendency to black humor. One day I have to listen to some of his music that gave him his reputation.

But back to Faces. The film guide above already gives a good summary of the film. First you join Richard in his nightly adventure with a prostitute, then you follow his wife on her night with her friends and Chet, until they are finally both back home. The film felt largely improvised, unscripted and spontaneous with raw and realistic dialogues. Cinematographer, editor, and associate producer Al Ruban explained during the Q&A, however, that they indeed had a script when they shot the movie. It wasn’t as unscripted as it may have seemed.

Faces by John Cassavetes

He also talked about his idea to shoot on different film stocks for different places and light conditions. He didn’t realize how much trouble all the different formats would give him in the editing stage. This may have been trouble but I’m sure they added a lot to the unique look & feel of this movie.

Made in 1968 I felt this movie was way ahead of its time, especially for American cinema at the time. I don’t remember having seen any other movie that would focus on individuals, emotions and realistic psychological relationships, presenting the way it is rather than the ideal way it should be or they want it to be. I have seen other movies of this era with a similar focus, but they were often set in a much more controlled environment with introverted, isolated subjects. What makes Faces especially unique and special is the seemingly uncontrolled environment, the interactive and a bit extroverted characters.

If the festival gave any awards, the award for the best teaching moment would have to go to Faces. It really filled a important gap in my movie and director knowledge. Shortly after the film festival I saw John Cassavetes’ Husbands which was at least equally as impressive as Faces. I have no doubt his work has influenced a whole generation of filmmakers. I can’t believe I haven’t known of him before.

And Everything Is Going Fine

Spalding Gray, a product of the seminal 1960s avant-garde theater troupe The Performance Group and co-founder of its successor, The Wooster Group, is best known for championing an extraordinarily simple and compelling form of live theater: storytelling. His stories were entirely personal, recounting his struggle with macular degeneration (Gray’s Anatomy), his experience acting in a big-budget movie on foreign soil (Swimming to Cambodia), or just a day in his life (Morning, Noon and Night). Anyone lucky enough to see him perform one of these monologues (and he performed twice at Centerstage) will never forget their dramatic power and insight.

These stories fascinated a number of top filmmakers; Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme filmed Swimming to Cambodia, legendary documentarian Nick Broomfield helmed Monster in a Box, and Steven Soderbergh brought us Gray’s Anatomy. Spalding Gray died in 2004, in the midst of working on a new monologue, an apparent suicide. Now Soderbergh returns to pay tribute to his friend and collaborator with this compilation of seldom-seen and never-before-seen footage. An exploration of Gray’s life and art that is at once thrilling and heartbreaking, Soderbergh has given us exactly the right tribute to a man who loved to uncover universal truths in the smallest details of daily life. (Jed Dietz)

—from the Film Festival Guide

I don’t remember exactly when I discovered Spalding Gray. I think it must have been sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s when I first visited Baltimore. I remember when I watched Soderbergh’s Gray’s Anatomy for the first time, maybe on television or a video rental. It was in English, so it must have been here in Baltimore. Anyhow, I was absolutely captivated and fascinated. It was such a simple format: a desk, a glass of water, a microphone, and Spalding Gray telling the story about his eye condition and the journey he undertook to find an alternative to surgery. I can’t even explain what exactly fascinated me so much about it.

Spalding Gray

Perhaps it could have been the unusual format of a monologue made into a movie. Before Gray’s Anatomy I would have never thought that a monologue about an eye condition had the potential to be so enthralling, although I knew ever since Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio that a focus on a single talking person can be incredibly intense. But that wasn’t it… It wasn’t the camera moving around Spalding Gray here, or the background imagery, no… it was Spalding Gray and his story that captivated me most.

After seeing Gray’s Anatomy I sought other projects he was involved in and watched Monster in a Box and his role in The Killing Fields which provided material for his Swimming to Cambodia. Then life became occupied with studies, work, move, this and that, and I wasn’t very up-to-date about Spalding Gray’s more recent projects until I read one day about his death — I think about a year after he died.

Spalding Gray’s view of the world and incredible gift of telling his stories is something I have never seen anywhere else before. It’s as much the person Spalding Gray as it was his monologue I fell in love with and I regret I have never seen him live. One day I have to catch up with his contributions I haven’t seen before.

When I read that a documentary about him was coming to the festival this year I didn’t hesitate a second. It was clear to me I had to see this film. And I enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. Instead of talking about Spalding Gray, his life and work, Soderbergh let him talk for himself. The result was a fascinating collage of footage throughout the years and decades that concluded with the most heartbreakingly moving and beautiful closing scene shot in 2001 by Barbara Kopple accompanied with a coincidental “Chekhovian howling dog” in the background. I wish I had a video clip available to insert here, but Theresa Smalec recalls:

Shortly after his devastating 2001 car accident in Ireland, Gray returns to America, where he is interviewed by a longtime friend, Barbara Kopple. “What are you worried about?” Kopple asks the artist, who now looks gaunt and pale, and walks with a visible limp. “The next accident,” Gray replies solemnly. Since their interview is set in the Hamptons, they talk about life on Long Island. Gray confides that he thinks he drinks too much in the Hamptons: “When I drink, I feel like I’m coming closer to my mother.” In the background of this sad conversation, a dog starts to howl. The dog sounds heartbroken, utterly forlorn. “The dog is already howling for the late Spalding Gray,” Gray says, chuckling softly. As the dog continues to howl, Gray laughs until his eyes fill.”

When he paused to listen to the dog’s howl, this final moment and his face encapsulated everything I found and loved in him on first sight: a lifetime of brilliance, clarity and thoughtfulness. I would love to see this film again sooner than later.

Liverpool

The next screening was another special international treat during this year’s film festival. Liverpool. Unlike other international selections this one was presented by director Lisandro Alonso who traveled all the way from Argentina to host this screening.

A hard-drinking worker on a massive freighter, Farrel (Juan Fernandez) requests a shore leave as his vessel returns to Argentina. The leave granted, Farrel begins a long journey to the remote, bitterly cold region of Tierra Del Fuego off the southernmost tip of the continent. He hitches rides and sleeps and drinks wherever and whenever he can, his interactions with other humans scant as he heads for territories less and less populated, more and more remote. While the purpose of his journey has been stated, his pursuit of it becomes more and more dogged and mysterious as time passes.

Lisandro Alonso’s brilliant film offers a real challenge to open-minded viewers – and ample rewards to those who accept. Liverpool has unsettled and even angered some viewers; indeed, at times the film feels singularly transgressive. However, it accomplishes this not through graphic or offensive content (the film has next to none), but through unusual pacing and disarming narrative choices that violate outmoded storytelling conventions.

Liverpool by Lisandro Alonso

Liverpool’s use of (brilliantly natural) non-professional performers, long takes, and sparse dialogue may recall world-cinema heavyhitters such as Reygadas, Bresson and Antonioni, but the specifics of his characters, settings, and storytelling announce a major new voice. Alonso’s film is a triumph for those open to something new, and a slap in the face to those who feel the history of narrative film is a closed book, taking us to places we’ve never been before (places both literal and figurative). (Eric Allen Hatch)

—from the Film Festival Guide

After reading this synopsis I was a bit worried, but how could I not take the challenge?! :) First off, this movie was brilliant. Neither setting, pace, characters nor story made me lose interest for a second. Farrel’s journey was mesmerizing, fascinating beginning on board of the freighter, and ending with his short stay in his home in Tierra del Fuego before we walks off again.

I thought Liverpool had a few things in common with Mama I wrote about earlier. I didn’t find the degree of familiarity in Liverpool, but both movies worked with very long takes, resting and observing eyes on scenery and surroundings, long lasting moments of silence, meditations on the ordinary turning into something extraordinary and memorable, and both featured (unusually) introverted characters. I can only hope to see more of this kind of film making in the future. It’s such a contrast from the fast-paced entertainment industry that seems to dominate markets and society.

The movie felt very realistic and natural, almost as it was trying to achieve the objectivity of a documentary. Liverpool allows you to observe the main character Farrel, but you never get a point-of-view perspective that could allow you to identify with him or feel like being him for a moment. Instead you follow him as a subject until he disappears. The people in this movie all were real people and not professional actors, which without any doubt has contributed to the movie’s authenticity as well. The places and people, as Lisandro Alonso mentioned during the Q&A, were pretty much the same in real life as you saw in his film, as foreign as they all may have seemed to a big-city audience.

There were several scenes I still remember well (now a few weeks after we’ve watched this movie). It all started with the opening on the freighter. These scenes reminded me a little bit of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, a 1995 film by Marion Hänsel about a radio operator of a merchant ship that arrived in Hong Kong. The character in this movie was as introverted, self-destructive, and locked in a state of ‘unfinished business’ as Farrel in Liverpool. One smoked opium, the other drank vodka all the time, one was sad, the other was numb. Perhaps Marion Hänsel’s character Nikos could have become Farrel one day if he hadn’t met the Chinese girl in this movie? Anyway, the many weeks and months on the open sea seems to create a special emotional state. When I once looked into freighter travel I read about some of the characteristics compared to a standard cruise. I’m sure I would love it, I only wish I had a month or more to spare.

Another scene (short and perhaps insignificant compared to the movie’s scope) took place in a room with a few people when Farrel was waiting to catch a ride on the back of a truck. A television in the background. Some guys waiting, eating, reading? Not sure anymore. I didn’t catch whether it was a gas station, rest stop, a place of business, too. But the scene felt very unusual but at the same time absolutely ordinary. Like the transportation I took in Turkey many years ago. To me it was absolutely unusual and adventurous, but for the people there it was as normal as taking a bus or a cab here. This just was a tiny moment but so believable it added a lot to the movie’s authenticity.

Lisandro Alonso

The scene in the canteen was similarly unusual yet ordinary as well. I’m used to the standard American dining formula now, but whenever I visit Germany again I have to adjust, and whenever I travel to other places I will find slightly different customs again. Things that seem unusual to me but are ordinary to others. And Liverpool took me on a journey to such a different place. Again, this is probably an insignificant moment in this movie, but one that somehow stuck with me. Perhaps it was thanks to the pace and authenticity, perhaps these were just some of the few moments with other people. Every interaction with another person gets a much higher significance when compared to the lack thereof in most of the movie.

Then of course there’s the key scene that gave this movie its name… but I think I already revealed enough spoilers. Overall it was a brilliant movie that left a lot of room for thought and your own interpretations. You might spot a brief hint of humor in it as well. It surprised me with a different point of view and doing something with the main character I didn’t expect. Really interesting was the degree of objectivity in this movie. Was Farrel likable? Was he not? It really was up to the audience to decide and project onto the character. I found that quite extraordinary.

Off to the next, and last one…

Until the Light Takes Us

Few music scenes or subcultures have caused as much controversy and generated as much sensational press as Norwegian black metal in the early 1990s – not least because several key musicians in the genre have been convicted of serious crimes, and one was himself murdered. Their beliefs are certainly baffling to the average person — not to mention the crimes they committed or inspired, which include multiple murders and a wave of church burnings. Yet behind the violence, posturing, media hype, and (in some cases) hateful rhetoric, these musicians possess deep intelligence, have challenging viewpoints regarding Christianity and consumerism, and have created complex, sometimes beautiful music that has thrilled and moved as many people as it has shocked.

To capture these larger-than-life figures as real people, directors Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell moved to Norway, living with some of their documentary subjects. That proximity results in a documentary that’s intimate character study, cultural history, and true-crime thriller all at once [...]

—from the Film Festival Guide

Well. To be frank, this was the least favorite movie I watched this year. I struggled a bit to make a choice about how to conclude that Saturday. There was the Total Recall screening presented by Dan Deacon in one theater, and Until the Light Takes Us in the other. Total Recall is a classic and I have seen it so often before, and the summary of Until the Light Takes Us sounded promising and so I went with a new screening. A documentary.

I love documentaries, no matter what they are about. So often they added something to my knowledge about a topic I was already interested in, or managed to pique an interest in new topics I didn’t expect to be interesting at all. Until the Light Takes Us interested me as well. I thought this film might be challenging perhaps, but enlightening in the end. But it wasn’t. It just wasn’t good.

I have seen news footage of Vikernes’ arrest and trial on television many years ago. The media likes to take the same footage out of their box whenever they run a report about satanists, occultists or metal bands, alongside with pictures of Hendrik Möbus, or the Ruda couple that received a lot of press in Germany a few years ago. When I read about this documentary I thought it might shed some light and also provide a less tabloid but perhaps a more balanced view of the music scene.

I have to admit it did present a different point of view than the rest of the media usually does. But I felt it was just as subjective, biased and unbalanced as the average tabloid report. Only on the opposite side that isn’t any less ridiculous. Generally, it was good to let the documentary subjects talk and explain their point of views instead of presenting someone talking about them. But the film did nothing but focus on the sensations that make good headlines and took sides with them. The filmmakers seemed to be sympathetic to their subjects and support their actions and philosophy. They didn’t seem as neutral and balanced as I expected them to be. Perhaps they lived too long with them?

To be fair, the audience in the theater surely added their part to my impression of the movie and its intent. Several people cheered in excitement and appreciation about stories that included taking a photo of one of the band members after he committed suicide and using his corpse and blown out brain as an album cover, burning churches, or committing other violent crimes. Some of the audience clearly endorsed these actions and sympathize with a group of people who may be very intelligent but extremists on the wrong side of the political spectrum. But was it just the audience?

This documentary made this music scene look as if it is made up of nothing but a bunch of Nazis, feeding right into the image the media so often likes to portray. This reminds me of similar silly prejudices about the dark wave, goth, industrial scene back in the 80s and 90s.

The documentary subjects may have long hair and not dress up like skinheads, but they are Nazis nonetheless. In the film they explained how and why they want to rid their homeland of the bad influence from foreigners, capitalists, or the American influences, and destroy Christians as they robbed them of their pagan identity and inheritance. Same body of thought you will find in other extremist groups. But is this true for an entire music scene? Granted, this documentary was not just about a music genre but the “Norwegian Black Metal” scene in particular. But how many people would know how to draw a distinction between “Black Metal” and “Death Metal”, or “Doom Metal” etc?

Metal and other music listeners are not all the same, they are not all on the right extremist side of the political spectrum, they are not all Nazis, murderers, criminals, satanists, or suicide candidates. In my youth I have listened to a good share of metal myself. The majority of people I’ve met during that time– fans as well as musicians–were just as normal as most, or even nerds, who appreciate perhaps the entertainment, energetic sound, lyrics, riffs, instrumentation, etc, and they often had a much wider range of musical interests than just that single sub-genre. None of them were the loud mouth extremists, racists, ‘white trash’, political activists or far right-wing fanatics. Perhaps this may be different from country to country. As far as I understand, Brazil known for their huge metal-fan base is probably quite different from Norway, UK, Germany or fans in the US.

But I digress, I know this wasn’t a documentary about the different music genres, but I wish it provided at least a more balanced view if not a more critical one. It should have placed the Norwegian black metal incidents into perspective as a singular exception. I didn’t like the fanatics in the audience, they may have changed how I felt about this documentary. But I think the film was more propaganda than documentary.

This film, by the way, reminded me a lot of Radio Werewolf’s Charles Manson Superstar in which Nikolas Schreck conducted a feature-length interview with Charles Manson in jail. To some degree it was interesting to see Manson talk, but the intent and neutrality were as questionable as this documentary.

It’s difficult. How would you make a documentary about this topic and these people? I don’t have the answers, but I do think it’s possible to be more critical verbally as well as non-verbally. There are documentaries that manage to exercise criticism without a single spoken word. And just by adding some footage and views of the other side of the “argument” would have created more balance. This film didn’t present anything about the victims or the cultural and religious changes in Norway they were protesting so violently against. This wasn’t Charles Manson Superstar but Mayhem Superstars.

After the movie we had to run and didn’t sit through the Q&A although I wish I’d been there. I read that there was a heated discussion afterwards with the film makers becoming combative when some audience members questioned their appreciation of the musical genre leading into an argument about liberal people appreciating a culture created by extremists like those in their documentary. But I wasn’t there and I don’t know anything about the discussion and argument.

This film was uncomfortable to watch in a Charles Manson Superstar or Triumph of the Will kind of way. Perhaps all these films don’t need to be more critical because their subjects already speak for themselves and show how ridiculous they are. But just like Triumph of the Will still manages to fascinate quite a few people enough to be drawn to the Nazi ideology over half a century after WWII, there were quite a few people in the audience who found these Blackmetal heroes just awesome and cool. Free speech and expression all well and good, but I don’t think they should be presented in a non-critical and rather laudatory context.

…and this is the end of Maryland Film Festival Saturday, May 8, 2010 :)

The first movie we watched on the first full day of the film festival was Mundane History from Thailand, directed by Anocha Suwichakornpong:

Mundane History

Ake, a young man recently paralyzed from the waist down, sits sullenly in bed all day long in his family’s declining mansion, refusing even the little pleasures available to him. His mysterious and stern father Thanin hires a male nurse, Pun, to care for Ake and keep him company. But a jaded Ake rebukes and ignores Pun’s quietly good-natured attempts to cheer him up, challenging Pun to find new ways to distract his patient. When the thaw finally comes, secrets and changes emerge – both personal and cosmic.

—from the Film Festival Guide

The film community in Thailand was a completely unknown entity to me until we saw Syndromes and a Century in 2007. I enjoyed Syndromes and a Century a lot, and I had the feeling I might like Mundane History as well.

Both films shared some similarities in their quiet, meditative pace and non-linearity. And the way Syndromes and a Century was previously described as “a stream of haunting sci-fi imagery worthy of Kubrick’s 2001″ could actually apply more to a few moments in Mundane History. But that’s were the similarities end.

A few minutes into the movie the screen went black and presented something that looked like end credits. I was puzzled and amused that several people left the theater in this very moment. Did they really think they bought a ticket for a 20 minute short? Maybe they just filled some time while waiting for another screening. Later the film burned and caused a few minutes interruption. I was very surprised. After all it was the first movie on the first day of the festival.

But the movie presented a few surprises as well. Most notably the music which reminded me a bit of post-rock bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Explosions in the Sky. Responsible for the music in this movie were Malaysian band Furniture and the Thai group Photo Sticker Machine which are worth a closer listen.

Another surprising moment was a scene featuring masturbation and full-frontal male nudity. I thought this might have upset the American MPAA judges who are known to appreciate violence but make a fuss about scenes with male-nudity or masturbation. I still remember Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut years ago, when certain scenes had to be blacked out for a non X-rating. These scenes turned out to be not as all as scandalous as they made you believe. I was wondering how would Thailand treat such an unusually graphic scene? When I looked up some information I found that this scene indeed caused it to become the first Thai film under Thailand’s motion-picture rating system to be given the most-restrictive 20+ rating. Be sure to bring your ID if you want to see this film in Thailand.

In contrasting moments of silence, weariness, frustration and anger, bitterness and disappointments, dreams and hopes this film also made some comments about Thailand’s class society. Mundane History surprised again later with the psychedelic cg-animated exploding star and the Cesarean birth of the child, a graphic scene during which made a point by showing how the umbilical cord was cut twice. Perhaps symbolizing the separation from the mother followed by a separation from father, class, expectencies?

I don’t want to attempt to analyze and over-interpret these scenes, but I couldn’t help to think of 2001 — A Space Odyssey when they hit the screen. No doubt, Mundane History was totally unrelated to Kubrick’s movie, but these two scenes were so unexpected and felt so out of place, I had to wonder if this could have also been a nod to one of the most remarkable movies in history of cinema. This was probably nothing but a coincidence…

Too bad there was no Q&A afterwards. I’d have been curious to hear more about this film.

Beijing Taxi

After a short break we entered our second screening of the day with Beijing Taxi, a documentary by Miao Wang about…

Three Beijing taxi drivers – two male, one female – prepare for an explosion of international customers in the days leading up to the 2008 Summer Olympics. Fifty-something Bai Jiwen came of age during the Cultural Revolution, and faces some harsh realities with hardened humor; Thirty-something Zhou Yi, remains optimistically grounded in his traditional lifestyle; while thirty-something mother Wei Caixia is a financially-minded go-getter driven on finding a more comfortable life.

—from the Film Festival Guide

This synopsis interested me. I had the feeling I would see a different, more realistic view of China’s people and culture that transcends the stereotypes the media generally seems to be most attracted to. When I read that it was co-shot by Sean Price Williams, who already caught my eye last year with Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo and in 2007 with Frownland, I had to put this film on my must-see list.

Beijing Taxi absolutely met my expectations, even exceeded them. It not only presented a character study of three individuals with their dreams, hopes and daily lives, but also details of Beijing I haven’t known or heard of before. In old Beijing, one of the taxi drivers explained, people didn’t need to be ambitious. The new and changing Beijing with the generation born in the 80s is very different and driven in comparison. I also didn’t know that to control traffic on Beijing’s roads they only permitted even license plate numbers on some days, and only odd numbers on other days.

The music in Beijing Taxi was remarkable, too! Beijing artists and bands like Sand, Zhou Yunpeng, Sound Fragment or Miserable Faith deliver music I would have never heard without this film. I may not understand the lyrics, but I love the sound and mood of Together by Sound Fragment. Sand’s Consumer’s Song is great, too. A few tracks can be found on the movie website at www.beijingtaxithefilm.com. The site also has a playlist of the beautiful score by Stephen Ulrich and Itamar Ziegler. Beijing Taxi was one of my highlights at the festival this year.

Dogtooth

Father (Christos Stergioglou) lives with his wife and children on an estate not far from the big city. He’s raised three teenagers in a gated community of sorts – except that the community contains only his house, and his children have never travelled further than their own backyard. Despite having no friends, no knowledge of telephones or computers, and a limited understanding of television and radio, some “tainted” words pertaining to sex, violence, and travel do somehow enter their vocabulary. Thus, they’re told that “telephones” are salt shakers, that “the sea” is their living-room armchair, that the cat that scampers into their yard is a rare and dangerous beast, and that the airplanes they see in the sky are no larger than toys – leaving the teens to play (and live) in the distorted world Father’s lies create.

Far from understanding that they’re prisoners of a sort, the children believe Father when he tells them that they, like him, will someday experience the outside world – as soon as their third set of teeth comes in.

This unsettling vision offers a riveting hybrid of dark comedy and psychological thriller as it explores language and morals, and probes the point at which unconventional parenting crosses over into social experiment or even abuse. Dogtooth won the Prize Un Certain Regard at Cannes, played Toronto and New Directors/New Films, and, in the humble opinion of this programmer, stands as one of the great accomplishments in recent world cinema. (Eric Allen Hatch)

—from the Film Festival Guide

Doogtooth. Wow… I don’t think I have ever seen a movie from Greece, and this debut has definitely left a lasting impression. It created memories I will not easily forget. It was probably the biggest surprise of this festival, too. This movie wasn’t what I expected after reading some comments and watching a clip. I expected a dark comedy… and what I saw was dark, yes, but not a comedy in my opinion.

There were scenes that would have been somewhat amusing in a different context and a different movie. In Dogtooth’s context, however, I quickly lost any desire to laugh about what presented itself on the screen. And I don’t mean it in a negative way. Not in the slightest!

Dogtooth was a true masterpiece in how effectively it managed to establish an uncomfortable, disturbing and nightmarish microcosm of years of psychological abuse. It took what could perhaps be called parenting to new and perverse extremes. But if you step back and take a look behind the atrocities taking place in this family, you might find some analogies to the real world.

Dogtooth

We grow up with truths and imprints provided by our parents and closed family unit. These truths don’t necessarily match with other families’ truths. If we expand our social circles and look at what’s happening in other families, a class room, office, or in the society, culture, religion, country as a whole… these truths or half-truths are often biased, and may not represent the ultimate reality we believe or trust it to be.

The more closed the borders of this social unit are, the more likely are these alleged truths further away from reality than its members might realize. It’s easy to find examples in closed neighborhood communities, prisons, religious cults, East Germany when it was still separated, or dictatorships throughout history. But even in the open enlightened world most of us live in nowadays, the truths presented to us, for example through the media (tabloid or serious), are often just a very distorted image of reality.

Truths need to be shared and transported very carefully, with reason, especially to children who have to rely on their parents and authority figures in their lives. What took place in Dogtooth, even though it appeared very extreme and out of this world, could really take place somewhere, sometime, more easily than one might expect.

Dogtooth reminded me a bit of Michael Haneke. I didn’t think it was a dark comedy. Dark comedies, in my opinion, present terrible and horrific events or actions in a humorous manner. I would count films like American Psycho, Heathers, Secretary, Very Bad Things, After Hours or Fight Club to the genre of dark comedies, but not Dogtooth. I was surprised to hear people in the audience laugh. But yes, maybe it was just their way to cope with the horror that unfolded in front of their eyes.

Dogtooth was really excellent and extraordinary, definitely one of my favorites this year. But would I recommend anyone to go see it? I don’t know — I always hesitate to recommend very disturbing movies even if I appreciated them personally. This doesn’t happen very often, I think the only other movie I felt a similar hesitation about was Lars von Trier’s Antichrist a year or so ago. Maybe I don’t want to anger my friends with uncomfortable or traumatic movie experiences :) However, if you are ready and willing to take a challenge, I’m sure Dogtooth will give it to you, make you think long after you’ve left the theater, and provide you with a memory for life.

Funny People Shorts

There are not many opportunities to see short films, especially not on the big screen. But you can’t watch them on television or rent them on DVD either. The film festival provides some great and rare opportunities to discover some mini masterpieces. Several short film programs looked really interesting to me this year, especially Dark Comedy Shorts. I would love to see Daniel Martinico’s Bike Thief! And The Armoire by Jamie Travis’ whose Saddest Boy in the World was one of the short film highlights a few years ago. But, I didn’t manage to fit it into our schedule.

What I did manage to fit in were the Funny People Shorts which seemed like a nice way to ease the weight of some of the other screenings we attended and would attend later. Funny people could be found in…

Good People

On her way to work one morning, Amy comes across a suicide note. She doesn’t know who wrote it, or where they are, but she is convinced she needs to take action. The problem is that she only has until 5 o’clock to find the person who wrote it, and help them to do what’s right…

—from the Film Festival Guide

Haha… a few weeks have past now after the film festival, but I remember how much I enjoyed Alex LeMay’s short. Completed early 2009 it’s not the newest film anymore, but it was great to have it in the series. The conclusion was great, and quite surprising (to me at least) :)

Planet Sun

Over-tanned and distracted employees of a strip-mall tanning salon ignore and insult customers as they obsesses over themselves and their boyfriends in this comedic short, which had its world premiere at Slamdance 2010.

—from the Film Festival Guide

What I still remember best about Matthew Atkinson’s short is Jim Annan whose name I didn’t know before, but his face that looks a lot like somebody’s face I know. Every time I saw him on the Verizon commercials I had to ask Alice “Isn’t that Tim?” It’s an old face recognition game I’ve been playing for years. And there I spotted him in Planet Sun. I looked him up later, and there: I was right! It really is the guy from the commercials. However, it also proves that Jim and Tim are not the same person or even related :)

Poi Dogs

Poi Dogs is the story of two local Hawaii teenagers and their awkward attempts at expressing a budding romantic interest in each other. Toa, a tough-acting lineman on a crappy high school football team, has just lost the big game. Distraught and alone, he drives home on his old ramshackle moped, which breaks down in the shadow of an abandoned sugar mill. Enter Anela, the tough-acting tuba player on his team’s marching band.

—from the Film Festival Guide

Joel Moffett’s short was sweet and amusing. I especially appreciated the moped. The background scenery reminded me of an area I pass through on one of my bicycle routes.

Gayby

Jenn and Matt are best friends from college who are now in their 30s. Lately, their relationship has dwindled to the occasional social-networking exchange. In an effort to ‘reconnect,’ they decide to have a baby together, taking the easiest, cheapest route of just having sex—even though Matt is gay and Jenn is straight. From the award-winning director of Woman in Burka (MFF 2008). Warning: this film contains an incredibly awkward sex scene.

—from the Film Festival Guide

Gayby with Jenn Harris and Matthew Wilkas

Absolutely brilliant and funny! I loved it. This 12 minute short by Jonathan Lisecki was my favorite in this short program. The title alone was great, but the interaction between the stars was priceless.

We also saw Trevor Cohen’s

Public Access

A satirical short about a dysfunctional suburban couple whose problems are falsely resolved by watching a talk show on public-access television. When the show is cancelled, the couple is forced to take matters into their own hands.

—from the Film Festival Guide

and James Johnston’s

Receive Bacon

The charming tale of a raunchy bathroom tryst interrupted by an unfortunate case of the giggles. From James Johnston, the director of the short Merrily, Merrily (MFF 2008) and producer of the feature St. Nick (MFF 2009).

—from the Film Festival Guide

Both were funny, and I enjoyed them both, but I can’t think of anything meaningful to say about them. So I will just leave it there. :)

The last screening of the day was

Daddy Longlegs

Thirty-something film projectionist Lenny (Ronald Bronstein) lives in a studio apartment in New York City, jumping from adventure to adventure and, when possible, from bed to bed. His love of spontaneity and loathing of structure collide with his responsibilities as father to two precocious children, 9-year-old Sage (Sage Ranaldo) and 7-year-old Frey (Frey Ranaldo), who he cares for just a few weeks out of the year. While his freewheeling ways and vivid imagination often delight Sage and Frey, it also makes their stays with Lenny frantic and chaotic, filled with impromptu babysitters, unexpected daytrips, and bizarre encounters on the streets. When one of Lenny’s hasty solutions to a scheduling conflict at work leads to high drama, Lenny and the people around him are forced to take a hard look at his parenting skills and the blurry line between childhood and adulthood.

This is the Safdie Brothers’ singularly offbeat ode to their own father and childhoods, concentrating on the emotional truth found in their memories rather than factual autobiography. As with Frownland (MFF 2007, directed by Daddy Longlegs star Bronstein), Daddy Longlegs seems to exist simultaneously in the present day and the New York Cities of the 70s and 80s. The instinctive connections their lens makes to the last 40 years of their city’s cinematic history – from the underground to big names like Cassavetes, Jarmusch, and Ferrara (who also appears) – help the film stake its own major place in that still-unfolding timeline. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, and never predictable, it all culminates in a stunner of a closing shot, one of the most resonant in recent memory. (Eric Allen Hatch)

—from the Film Festival Guide

I hadn’t read much about Daddy Longlegs before we went to see it, so I was quite unprepared and didn’t know what I was about to see. I have to admit, it took nothing more than reading about Frownland director Ronald Bronstein’s acting debut in Daddy Longlegs to spark my interest.

Frownland a few years ago was one of the most memorable favorites at the Maryland Film Festival. And although he didn’t direct Daddy Longlegs, I had the feeling I was going to watch something special, personal and real, a film you would only find once in a few years. I compared Ronald Bronstein to one of my master filmmakers once in one of my posts and I still think he is member of a new generation of filmmakers who could add a lot of timeless brilliance and depth to cinema as an art-form, and produce movies that will find new fans even decades later when many of today’s major or independent productions are long forgotten.

I haven’t been familiar with Josh and Benny Safdie before, but I was curious to find out if they, too, created something that would speak to my taste in filmmaking. And after watching Daddy Longlegs I have found the answer. Their movie was a total success, brilliant from beginning to end!

In Daddy Longlegs I watched and followed Lenny who had his children with him for one of the brief periods in a year, as he slips further and further down the spiral of stress and chaos. I was wondering how much further he could let it go on like this without taking control and responsibility for once. A grown-up child trying to take care of children who were more grown-up than he was. For a good while it was easy to forgive him for his irresponsibility, take his side and defend him when mother and teacher of the kids give him a hard time, but eventually he takes it one step too far and it doesn’t seem so easily forgivable anymore.

Funny that John Cassavetes was mentioned in the film festival guide above. During the festival and shortly afterward I was introduced to his movies with Faces and Husbands both of which he created in the style of cinéma vérité. I love the style and perspective both of these films presented to me, and that’s what I really loved about Daddy Longlegs, too. Other movies in the mumblecore genre have this in common as well.

Daddy Longlegs surprised me with an appearance of Abel Ferrara and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo. The two boys in the movie are actually Lee Ranaldo’s kids Sage and Frey Ranaldo.

I couldn’t conclude it any better than this reviewer on IMDB:

It’s autobiographical, yet collaborative and imaginative. It’s improvisational, yet very well planned. It’s appalling, yet also appealing — a film that sticks in the craw but also lingers in the mind and the heart. It signals the arrival of yet another team of film-making brothers whom we need to watch.

—Chris Knipp

That’s so true, I couldn’t agree more. I absolutely loved this film and know I will be watching it again sometime. One of my favorites this year. Congratulations Josh, Benny, Ronnie, and everybody involved in making this movie. With Daddy Longlegs you have created a masterpiece. Oh, and the best opening scene I have seen in a long time! I’d love to insert a clip of it here :)

I wonder why its title is listed as “Go Get Some Rosemary” on IMDB. Legal issues?

From left to right: Josh Safdie, Ronnie Bronstein, and Programming Administrator Scott Braid

This was the end of our amazing movie-trip on Friday of the MD Film Festival. It took me forever to write this, but I hope I will find some time to write a bit about Saturday and Sunday very soon!

The Charles Theater

During this year’s film festival I once again realized how much I love the Charles Theater and the Maryland Film Festival. I always appreciated classic, independent or international movies and documentaries and was eager to see them on the big screen, but when I grew up I didn’t have easy access to them. My hometown in Germany used to have a hand full of screens for the big mainstream releases, and everything used to be dubbed in German, so if I wanted to see something the way it was intended I had to import videos from other countries, and make sure my vhs-player was able to handle the foreign video-formats. In those days it would have taken years to download a video. Occasionally I could tune to arte, a French/German tv-channel that sometimes presented movies with subtitles and original audio tracks. This channel helped me discover a number of interesting and unusual movies, but I also imported many of my favorite movies and directors from the UK, Belgium, Canada, and the US.

When we attended the Maryland Film Festival for the first time in 2002 I knew what a priceless treasure we had found with the Charles Theater — not only during the film festival, but also all year long. Where else would you ever get an opportunity to watch a dozen Ingmar Bergman movies on the big screen? Where else could an event like the film festival take place if not at the Charles?

Last week I thought to myself: “What if the Charles had to close one day?” Would there be a film festival? Would there be any alternatives? Other theaters, like the historical, famous and celebrated Senator had to struggle for many years. I can only hope the Charles will continue to do well. Baltimore would become a film desert without it. Or even worse, it would be the death of the city. It is really important to support this theater. If you are slightly interested in good movies, I recommend to check their schedule on a weekly basis. Some movies are only there for a week, so be sure not to miss them! But enough of my shameless blatant advertising insert.

Preparations

Eight years ago we attended the festival for the first time, six years ago we joined the Friends of the Festival sponsor program, three years ago we decided to attend the festival with All Access passes rather than buying so many single tickets. This year we increased the number of movies we were going to watch on a single day from previously three or four to a lot of five per day! We also broke with some of our old traditions and decided not to watch the classic 3D movie, the silent movie with live music, and the annual selection by John Waters. We also skipped the closing night this year in favor of Mother’s Day and a mother’s pleasure to have dinner with us and the rest of the family.

We kept the Opening Night of course, but on the other days we decided to focus on the amazing selection of new and international films in this year’s line-up. It was quite difficult for us again to come up with a weekend schedule. But I think we are getting used to it, facing the same problem every year. I just added the movies we were not able to see to our Netflix queue. Hopefully they will get released one day so we can catch up with them later.

So this year we were going to see:

• Opening Night Shorts at MICA
• Mundane History
• Beijing Taxi
• Dogtooth
• Funny People Shorts
• Daddy Longlegs
• Mama
• Faces
• And Everything is Going Fine
• Liverpool
• Until the Light Takes Us
• General Orders No. 9, and
• Earthling

I will write a little bit about them in this and my following blog posts.

The Opening Night

Jed Dietz opened the 12^th Annual Maryland Film Festival a few weeks ago on Thursday, May 6 at the MICA Brown Center with a series of seven short films all of which I enjoyed. I don’t remember the exact order in which these shorts were presented, but one of the first films was Bikini Lighters by Andrew Blackwell and Andrew Goldman. It was about a few kids who shoplifted a bag full of cigarette lighters to create an explosion in the woods.

We also saw Junko’s Shamisen by Sol Friedman which stood out as one of my favorite shorts that evening. A young girl in old Japan returns to her grandfather and finds him murdered. When she leaves to find another place to live she encounters the evil samurai who killed her grandfather. This film was a hybrid of live-action, cell, stop-motion and computer animation. Stylish, visually attractive, funny and dark… I can imagine watching a full feature created in a similar fashion. Thinking of hybrids…imagine Sol Friedman had added some of his creative magic to A Scanner Darkly a few years ago! I could have loved this film.

The Late Mr. Mokun Williams by Kenneth Price was about a letter that sends a farmer on a mission to help a girl in Nigeria. It didn’t take long to figure out where this story was going, but that didn’t matter at all. It was a great idea, and very funny. I can imagine a whole series of shorts to visualize certain mail or email pieces I received over the years.

Patrick Bergeron’s experimental short film LoopLoop can be described as moving photographic sculpture. Short films that withdraw themselves from a standard form risk to be misunderstood like some I have seen in previous years, but I was fascinated and impressed by this one. The film festival guide describes it as a sequence “[...] mimicking the way memories are replayed in the mind,” and if I think about it, it really did succeed with it.

Monroe St. by Durier Ryan is a film about finding the courage to open up — the story about a teen who is passionately capturing his neighborhood in Brooklyn with a borrowed video camera but keeps his creative ambitions a secret from his girlfriend.

Another remarkable short film was Slow Pitch in Relief by Mark Cummins which was set in 1957 and told the story of Bill Herman, a door to door salesman who meets Jolene, a working single mother. To impress her son he told him the story that he once played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. This film’s look and feel reminded me of something that really could have been produced in the 50s. Mark Cummins, who played Bill Herman looked as if he traveled through time and arrived straight from the 50s. I was fascinated and impressed. Mark Cummins is no newcomer. When I looked him up on IMDB I found that he’s been active as actor since the early 80s.

My favorite of the opening night was Voice on the Line by Kelly Sears. Voice on the Line was a brilliant collage of vintage archive footage, bit and pieces from many different sources, tied together to a unique fictitious document on the history of telecommunications since the cold war era. Brilliant from beginning to end! I loved how the animated wallpaper background served as a glue throughout. It was very inspiring. I felt invited to begin collecting media artifacts myself. During this film I was wondering if Kelly Sears had the story and narration first and looked for clips to support her story later, or if she started off with the clips and then added the narration & story to it later. During the Q&A she explained that she had all these telephone operators and thought she needed to do something with them, and the story kinda grew around these clips.

Left to right: Andrew Blackwell (Bikini Lighters), Mark Cummins (Slow Pitch in Relief), Durier Ryan (Monroe St.), Kenneth Price (The Late Mr. Mokun Williams), Festival director Jed Dietz, Patrick Bergeron (LoopLoop), Sol Friedman (Junko's Shamisen), Kelly Sears (Voice On the Line), Director of Programming Eric Allen Hatch, Programming Administrator Scott Braid

We concluded the opening night with a fine bottle of imported beer outside the crowded MICA hall and were ready for the 3-day movie marathon. Were we? Stay tuned, my next post follows shortly :)

So what happened in the last few weeks and months? To be honest, mostly work and not much play. My day job as graphic designer has become very busy approaching the end of the year. Not only is it the biggest season for sales and advertising with Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas and New Year, but everybody is trying to tie up their loose ends before the new year. And this crashes down onto my desk like an avalanche.

In addition to my regular day job I have done some freelance graphic design work and also taken on some programming work again: some osCommerce customizations for one client, two custom WordPress plugins for another. I hope this work will eventually lead to a full-time role as web-developer again.

Will 2010 become a new year as a web-developer? I really hope so, it’s been much too long to be out of touch with technology. :)

I haven’t posted any pictures yet, but I did carve a movie-themed pumpkin again last Halloween. This year it was based on Pan’s Labyrinth. I wasn’t able to carve more during the week. And I have to admit that I never got into the right Halloween mood this year. I think next year I should start thinking about pumpkins a bit earlier.

In the little spare time I found I started to knit! It’s the perfect way to relax and forget about the work and computers after a long day. Slowly but surely I managed to complete my first scarf. Next I will work on a hat, then a simple sweater, and eventually I would like to attempt an Icelandic sweater.

I also started playing with a NerdKit to learn about practical electronics, microcontrollers and how to program them. In the near future I plan to share more posts about this as well, including photos, diagrams, perhaps also a few videos and screencasts. I would like to add more technical and educational content during the next year. While it feels good to share some impressions and thoughts with the world, it’s even more rewarding if I’m able to help somebody with an article.

My bicycling and fitness journey has moved a bit into the background. I still ride my bike every day (rain or shine) for transportation and commute, but I didn’t have the right mindset for an extensive exercise regimen in addition to my daily rides. I did complete the 100 (consecutive) push-up challenge. I actually enjoyed and appreciated the little time required to do them.

So this is a brief summary of what has moved my world for the last few months and what will come up on my blog very soon. If you are interested in PHP, WordPress, osCommerce, Java, Javascript and some C/C++ development, Ubuntu Linux, hardware-/software, electronics, graphic design, music, film, photography, knitting, bicycling, and fitness, or just in a bit more about me personally… this space will hopefully not disappoint you. Stay tuned for more in the next few weeks! :)

Armée des Ombres by Jean-Pierre Melville

Chatte à Deux Têtes by Jacques Nolot

Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran by François Dupeyron

Les Quatre cents coups by François Truffaut

Les Triplettes de Belleville by Sylvain Chomet

Les chansons d’amour by Christophe Honoré

Une affaire de femmes by Claude Chabrol

De battre mon coeur s’est arrêté by Jacques Audiard

Alphaville by Jean-Luc Godard

Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux by Jean-Luc Godard

Later, when the first few warmer days arrived in spring I was happy, but I still struggled to recover from the injury and the overall exhaustion from my winter rides. Quite pitiful considering I didn’t ride any long routes for two, three or more hours but only my daily commute to work. In June, I finally began to feel up and ready for a few longer rides again and started to work on it again.

Last week I started to record my rides and workouts again, inspired by the MapMyRide.com Tour de France challenge, and I will continue this until later in fall or winter. Next winter I plan to walk more, especially on bad-weather days, and perhaps keep the rides for the less ugly days. I’m not sure if I can keep myself off the bike yet, but I will try. Hopefully I can get through the cold months without doing that damage to myself again.

Today I went out for a 50-something minute ride to Druid Hill Lake, passing the Baltimore Zoo, continuing on the Jones Falls Trail through Woodberry and back to the Hopkins campus on Clipper Mill Road, Falls Road, Wyman Park Drive. I totally forgot how pleasant and relaxing a ride can very early on a Sunday morning and not having to deal with rush-hour traffic, maniacal motorists, bus-drivers, trash trucks and filthy alleys. I had a hard time motivating myself, but as usual, I didn’t regret getting out of the house around 6am and riding on calm and quiet streets and through a beautifully smelling green of the park. What a contrast to the weekdays! It was just what I needed after a long week. Perfection.

My condition was surprisingly good, too. Usually I struggle my way up/down to work, but I didn’t have this problem today. Even on the uphill segments I managed to keep my calm and climb it without much pain. The mindset, unforced and stress-free mental state and the quiet, calming roads without any doubt have a huge impact on my own condition. Something to keep in mind whenever I don’t feel very motivated! Some stats:

Date/Time:

07/12/2009 06:16 AM

Route:

Homestead, Charles St, Hopkins Campus, Druid Hill Lake, passing the Baltimore Zoo, continuing on the Jones Falls Trail through Woodberry and back to Hopkins Campus on Clipper Mill Road, Falls Road, Wyman Park Drive, and back to Homestead.

Length:

Approx. 9.7 miles

Traffic:

Easy going most of the way.

Weather:

Warm and a bit humid, but still pleasant enough.

Bike:

Jamis Durango Hardtail Mod. with 26×2.2 Maxxis Holy Roller

Heartrate/Elevation:

(Heartrate recording didn’t work properly during the second half of the route.)

If you do man nano, you’ll see there’s a /etc/nanorc config file. Edit this to comment out #set historylog.

This will prevent sudo nano commands from creating the root users .nano_history in your home directory, which nano can’t read when called by your user account. After commenting it out, then delete it with sudo rm .nano_history.

Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=204307