AFO Birthday Party

So.

First off. It was a pseudo black tie affair. I certianly didn't pack anything approximating a black tie. I ended up wearing a black shirt (some of you will know it well) that has some weird sweat stains I spent all night trying to hide. Such is my luxurious life.

Anyways. It was held in Regional Center Olomouc (RCO, since everything in the Czech Republic, like the military, needs a three letter acronym.) I show up with my handler Jana (differant Jana, since in the Czech Republic, every girl under the age of 28 is named Jana, like Jennifer in the US). The RCO looks like a glorified cabaret theater. Eastern European fat cats sitting at little tables sipping wine, while dancing girls (DANCING GIRLS!) perform something that looks like the Fitch Drama club...except they're dressed like dirty devils in stockings.

This is when I realize I am not just in a differant country -- I am in a totally differant world.

The host of the evening, Jana tells me, is a Czech child actor now in his 20's. There are many tributes to Czech film professors whom I certainly haven't met. I could tell, it would be boring in English -- it's even more boring in Czech. Then the dancing girls come back...and do (I'm not making this up) a dance set to music from Mask of Zorro, with some Czech guy dressed like Antonio Banderas dancing between them.

Bob Redford eat your heart out! Match that at your pidddly little festival!

The showed a little film, though, that celebrated the 40 years of the film festival. It was pretty neat seeing archival footage of the festial in the 60's. Otherwise, I just hung out with Jana, who was very sweet and told me all about her studies at the university. She volunteered for the festival because her boyfriend (grrrrr!) is a film student at the AFO. Ate the buffet. Had surprizing delicious mojitos (Yes! The Czechs make great rum drinks! Who knew?!?) And asked Maysles to come tomorrow.


Oh....


One more thing. Apparently, when I sent the movie here, I said on one of the forms something to the affect of "I am anxious for this film to be screened in the Czech Republic." Which they've translated as "Geoff is scared to show this film to Czechs." (Totally not true....except that I'm worried that the transation will be missing too many haceks.) So that's the rumor going around Olomouc. I can only hope this translates into huge numbers at the screening, hoping to see me cry or something.

Another thing.

I sent my bio to them in English, naturally. In the program, it sounds like they transalted my bio into Czech...and then back into English, instead of just copying and pasting.

Big day tomorrow. We'll see.