Thursday, March 18, 2010

Cleveland International Film Festival

Posted by Laura / 2 comments » / , cleveland, food, life, movies

Tonight is the opening night of the Cleveland International Film Festival. We decided, after seeing 20 films last year out-of-pocket, to “splurge” this year and go for all-access passes. As a result, this means we get to see as many films as we can possibly stomach for the eleven days. That works out, if we go to all the films we’ve picked (even at the 9AM block, which is unlikely), that we could see a total of 58 films this year. The films that we’ve definitely planned to see total 53.

What we’re planning to see:

TiMER 3/18 7:00PM [Opening Night Gala @ 9:00PM]

Twenty 3/19 11:45AM
The Big Gay Musical 3/19 2:20PM
Cosy Dens 3/19 4:15PM
Dear Lemon Lima 3/19 7:10PM
Applause 3/19 9:50PM
Midnight Shorts Program #1 3/19 11:30PM

Love Hurts 3/20 11:45AM
Trailerpark 3/20 1:45PM
In the Heat of the Night 3/20 5:00PM
Bomber 3/20 7:20PM
The House of Branching Love 3/20 9:20PM
Down Terrace 3/20 11:40PM

Ingredients 3/21 11:45AM
Turtle 3/21 2:10PM
Accident 3/21 4:30PM
Divided We Fall 3/21 6:50PM
Disco & Atomic War 3/21 9:00PM

Adrift 3/22 11:45AM
Fire in the Heartland 3/22 2:00PM
Black Sheep 3/22 4:50PM
Inside Hana’s Suitcase 3/22 7:30PM
Bare Essentials of Life 3/22 9:30PM

Forgetting Dad 3/23 11:50AM
The Happiest Girl in the World 3/23 2:10PM
Hipsters 3/23 4:25PM
German Shorts Program 3/23 7:20PM
Fire Keeper 3/23 9:25PM

The Baby Formula 3/24 11:50AM
Three Days with the Family 3/24 2:15PM
Chameleon 3/24 4:30PM
The Girl on the Train 3/24 7:10PM
Small Crime 3/24 9:40PM

If I Knew What You Said 3/25 11:45AM
Best of Times 3/25 2:00PM
The Last Days of Emma Blank 3/25 4:45PM
Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats 3/25 7:20PM
A Call Girl 3/25 9:45PM

Protektor 3/26 11:30AM
Father and Guns 3/26 1:50PM
Convention 3/26 4:05PM
I Am Love 3/26 6:50PM
Ivory 3/26 9:50PM
Storage 3/26 11:45PM

Independent Shorts Program #11 3/27 11:20AM
Bananas!* 3/27 2:15PM
French Shorts Program 3/27 4:10PM
Mid-August Lunch 3/27 7:30PM
The Taqwacores 3/27 10:00PM
Midnight Shorts Program #4 3/27 11:45PM

Honeymoons 3/28 11:45AM
The Enemy 3/28 2:10PM
My Year Without Sex 3/28 4:50PM
Paper Man 3/28 7:10PM [Closing Night Reception following]

We’re both pretty excited for the festival to start tonight. There were a lot of films that we picked out that didn’t make the cut due to time constraints and our disinterest in staying until midnight then turning around and coming back for the 9AM. Some of the ones that didn’t make it are: Will You Marry Us?, A Shine of Rainbows, Together, Please, Please Me!, Quest for Honor, Saviors in the Night, Nora’s Will, My Heart Goes to Hadippa, Cow, Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride, The Girl, Harvest,  and still yet others. I think 25 or more from my list didn’t make it, and Johnathan had about 12 or 13 that didn’t make the list. One that we did pick and fit into our schedule but won’t be seeing is 8: The Mormon Proposition. We were even going to do the film forum. It ended up getting canceled, and we found out that it’s because the film got a distribution deal. Good for them! I hope it will get a wide release so that we can still see it.

Planning this many films was no easy task, I can tell you now! We each got a program in the mail since we’re members of The Cleveland Film Society, so our game plan was this: we each went through and highlighted the films we were interested in seeing. I went through both of our guides when we were done and made a list for each of us. With our lists, I made a combined list of films that we both wanted to see. Then I picked out showings of each one of those so that we would be able to see all of them. That, in itself, took some juggling. Then I went through and filled in all the remaining time blocks with films from each of our lists, alternating so as to try to be fair. More of my films ended up on the list simply because there were more on my list and more of them that fit into our open spots. It probably took a couple of hours of planning, all-told, but it means no guesswork when we get to Tower City this week. We can just check out our Google calendar and cross-reference with the program to ensure that we’re not missing anything that we had planned.

Since we started eating better in January and losing weight, we wanted to make sure that we had a solid plan for what to eat while we’re there. Last night, we made two pasta salads that should give us quite a bit of food. We’re going to supplement with sandwiches, yogurt, fruit and veggies and other snacks as well as a couple of times eating in the food court (with pre-planning so we can still fit it in our plans). I’ve got all of the food that I “plan” to eat from Friday to Tuesday (the farthest SparkPeople would let me track when I started – I may add Wednesday and Thursday today) so that I know everything will be balanced and that I should have plenty of food. I’m looking forward to this. It will be a true test of our new lifestyle to see whether we can maintain it in some semblance of normalcy while our lives are turned totally upside down for eleven days.

The planning is done. My hair is “styled” and my makeup is on. We have our tickets and director-level passes in hand and we are ready for the film festival to start.

Let’s go.

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