AFO Day 1

Olomouc is actually a very nice city. Later I'll quote what the guidebook said, which made it sound like the Bridgeport, Connecticut of eastern Europe. It's like a smaller version of Prague -- smaller cathedral, smaller old town square, smaller celestial clock (but this one was made by Communists, so instead of dancing saints, it has dancing chemists and volleyball players - pics TK). And no tourists. But all that old world charm. Seriously. And it's a University town, so it has a lot of energy since it seems that 75% of the people I pass are under 30.

So, yesterday was the first day I went to the festival. Very loosely organized, but nice. There are three venues going simultaneously in this museum building near the middle of town. Almost every film has English subtitles, thank goodness. Saw a couple of German documentaries, a couple of Czech student films (which are pretty much everything you would imagine) and three of Albert Maysles' films.

Mr. Maysles is getting a lifetime achievement award from the festival on the closing night and they are playing a couple of his films here (which is good, because I actually hadn't seen any of them). In the 50's and 60's he pretty much helped invent this notion of "verite" documentary filmmaking which I am into. (For you non-film geeks, that means just shooting "true life" without having interviews or narration and letting the edited images speak for themselves). I missed his most famous film, Gimme Shelter, about the Rolling Stones, on Monday during Transit Hell Day. But yesterday, they showed three of his shorts, a hilarious portrait of Marlon Brando being a badass at a press junket long before sabotaging your own press junket was cool, one about Christo and Jean-Claude looking spry and young wrapping something in 1978, and one about Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes. Anyways, afterwards, Maysles did a little question and answer. He's a sweet and charming old man. Myself and some of the other directors had drinks with him later and he kept saying we just needed to film everything (what else would have to say?). I'll see if I can convince him to get up and come to Adolph on Thursday.

Let again, my internet is about up. More later. Supposedly someone is going to interview me later, and I'm going to tour some quaint town this afternoon. Miss you all.