Mexico City: Frida, tourism, traffic, art, sadness - food.

Tangerine - West Hollywood, CA

A day in the life of two transgender hookers in West Hollywood, CA. Not just any day, but Christmas eve and the day that Sin-Dee is released from her 28 days in prison. The movie takes place in one day and revolves around Donut Town where they hangout. The filmmakers say that they met the transgender women first and then the story developed from their experiences. "The film was shot entirely on several iPhone 5S cameras (with a prototype adapter lens). The end product combines intimate wide-angle photography with a saturated palette as colorful as its central characters and a soundtrack as vibrant and varied as the neighborhood." They paid less on the filming but industry standard quality on the sound. I did not know and couldn't tell it was filmed on iPhones (Three iPhone 5's). I kept thinking the color looked like it was tuned up via the Instagram lens X-Pro-II. I was right in that they did enhance by saturating the colors toward the red and orange (One of the reasons for naming it Tangerine). The color and the music made it visually pop. One of the filmmakers said that he watches Vine (an app my nieces showed me) videos a lot and liked the music on a 17 year old's video. He asked to buy it and they just gave it to him. The story they said was partially improvised except for a part with an Afghani family. This was the weak spot of the film for me.

Welcome to Me - U.S. Indie?

Kristen Wiig is a quirky bipolar obsessive TV watcher, especially watching Oprah. She takes her lacy parasol to the local store to buy her O magazine and lotto tickets compulsively. One day she checks her lotto numbers on TV and finds out that she has won 86 million. So what does a bipolar, borderline personality person (off medication) do with her interests and money? Buy her own TV show of course so she can be like Oprah. Except she has no guests, the talk show is about herself and she floats in on a swan. Things eventually turn dark as she turns sicker and more narcissistic. After a hospitalization, all ends well in one big show finale. In fabulous style she is able to regains her friends that she has alienated.

Click Here for the Movie Trailer

p.s. I loved this movie that I saw 5 years ago and it never got distributed. I thought it was a great idea and story. 

A Few Cubic Meters of Love - Iran/Afghanistan

*Favorite Film of the Festival* "Amid a cluster of corrugated-metal shacks in a desolate industrial suburb of Tehran, love blooms between a young Afghan émigrée and an Iranian metal-punch worker." I hope I never forget the visuals of this movie. It was horrifying to see the conditions that the Afghanis lived. They were metal shacks in an iron scrap yard where the men worked. The people had very few possessions and even a former doctor was doing back breaking work like helping pull a truck out of a ditch. "Afghan refugees without work permits or ID cards who are routinely subjected to the humiliations of being paid half the wages of Iranians and raided and chased by the police." Amid this difficult life two teenagers, the boy Iranian and the girl Afghani somehow fall in love and find a deserted container yard where they can visit (a few cubic meters). They have beautiful smiles, pure hearts, playfulness and a sincere deep love for each other. "Saber and Marona have become convinced by their happiness that the world will bend and align with their impossible dreams." Two of the most lovely and likeable characters I have seen in film. An Iraqi worker gets into a fight with an Afghani male and argues with the boss that they shouldn't be allowed to live and work there. Although many have been there up to 10 years. He tells the police where they hide during the raids and they are all caught hiding in a half submerged sewer pipe. This forces the Afghanis to have to go back to Afghanistan where they left due to the Soviets bombing them out of their houses. They really have nothing back home. Saber and Marona are so in love they can't control their tears and especially because Marona is pregnant and can't let her father know. Saber has the manager stand up for him on his behalf to ask for marriage. The father becomes hysterical when he finds out. He doesn't want his daughter to live as a second class citizen never accepted in Iran as none of them have been. He wants her to live knowing what it is like to be respected in a society as an equal. This is where the Romeo and Juliet theme turns tragic. They meet in their abandoned container as he wants to convince her to stay with him. She accepts, then the container is blocked in on all sides and they will soon die. The last words are I love you, which she was never able to say before. What makes the movie special is that they filmed it on location in Iran using factory workers. The cinematography of the workers lives and homes was fascinating. I don't want to forget because I'm so fortunate with my life and I don't know how these workers can tolerate even one day the way they have to life to survive. They are innocent and dignified people who did nothing wrong but survive a war.

Here is the trailer to this amazing movie:
Click Here

Vincent - France

When I saw this picture I thought it wasn't that enticing a movie shot. Seeing the movie it goes with it's unique rhythm. The French superhero's powers revolve around water and with the flow there is a calmness and tranquility. There is little dialogue as the director said that he feels that besides getting the audience to like and relate to Vincent he didn't like a movie that spells everything out. There was a lot of calm and beautiful scenery and then a fun and quirky girlfriend which brings this out in him. His super power is superhuman strength which happens when he is in water or wet. When it is discovered, because he stopped a violent fight, the police chase him and then it is fun to see his super powers by outrunning the police. He has to leave town again because he is discovered, but this time his cute girlfriend has said she will come once he has settled somewhere new. I'm chatty about this film because the director was also the star. He was a charming Frenchman and talked with a lot of enthusiasm. Someone asked why he directed and starred in the role. He said it was because he would never want to critique someone else's acting work.

Parisian director Thomas Salvador.
Click Here to see the Movie Trailer

Goodnight Film Festival

I took this picture on my way out of the film festival tonight. The skyline was beautiful.

Boomtown: Remaking San Francisco - San Francisco made and featured

Movie shorts and performance pieces. Sounds better than it was. The shorts were previews of movies in process. Program description: "The modern history of San Francisco is marked by booms and busts and continuous reshaping". This part was a guy with a slide show about increasing rent costs and the irksome Google buses bringing the techs up from Silicon Valley. The mayors starting with Feinstein were boo'd when their pictures came up for increasing business without increasing housing, even decreasing it with evictions and condos that will be unrented but are foreign buyer investments or 2nd homes to the wealthy. The other documentary shorts were on Coit Tower, The Lexington lesbian bar, a type of ode to SF with Vertigo themes and a tribute to The Mission. Oh, I forgot - a partial showing of The Last Black Man in San Francisco. It is being filmed and I liked this the best.

Wonderful World End - Japan

Seventeen-year-old Shiori’s Gothic Lolita garb attracts a lot of fans to her interactive video blog, a stepping stone she hopes will launch her career as a model and actress. The film has the two girls with Goth Lolita or school girl outfits. They are kawaii cute girls with a dark twist. Shiori has big dreams in the city and a pop boyfriend but with her dishonest agent she gets into increasingly sleezy work. A stalkerish fan Ami snakes her way into her life and then tables turn and Shiori becomes the stalker and possibly lover? The dream sequence ending with giant plushy outfitted pandas and Shiori running through the field with Ami while her zombie exboyfriend watches, appears to be a post suicide scene. It reminded me of anime, cute and twisted.