anim'est (3) : the movie marathon mood

blurry sheep being deflated at the end of the movie day

i was at cinema 'victoria' every day over the weekend, for series of movies. not one show, but waiting around for the second and the third. waiting in the cinema lobby with tea or coffee, buying junk food from across the street - all the chocolate bars and the mini-bagels and chips and cheese puffs and biscuits of the universe. it's been a long time since i last had this movie marathon mood.
there are festivals, and i've been to some, in vancouver and montreal and back here too, where you see a movie every night for a week and hang out with friends after. that's very cool, and maybe more culturally constructive, but the movie (festival) marathon thing is a compulsion that sucks you in, keeps you there immersed in the event itself, fearful of losing anything. at least as much as the movies it's the running between cinemas, the cold (or suffocating heat) in the cinemas, the chairs squealing, bag squishing, the people who keep coming back.
plus this time i got to sit upstairs for a couple of shows, with the subtitling crew.

it was a cold gloomy weekend, and it's a small offshoot of a festival, so not many people showed up, with one exception: creepy animation night. very well placed, considering it's closed to halloween...and...i don't know, people think creepy is good entertainment? the cinema was full, and thus met the expectations for full house. yes, there were people who left after the first part...i mean, what did they think they'd get for their price? i'm not a fan of creepiness, but was determined to survive it! :)

there were 2 or 3 'creepy' short films that were atmoshperic, sensuous, fascinating - the nick cave, edgar allan poe kind of horror. that was perfectly ok by me. then the big majority of the night was INCREDIBLY OUTRAGEOUSLY GORY PLUS REPULSIVE IMAGERY all piled on ad absurdum. i am glad to report that i slept with no nightmares....have been trying to ponder the benefits of me sitting through that though, and no answer yet.

here are some much less frightening photos of carved pumpkins, since we're in season. i seem to have grown out of the joy of pumpkin-carving (or costume-wearing, for god's sake) but it's hard to ignore it when it happens all around:

this one's eating a gummy bear! or is that a tooth?

i mostly took this pic for the wig - and it's blurry because furtive, as i still haven't mastered the art of asking for permission

anyway. back to me praising the selection on the last day at anim'est: 3 adorable mixes of international animation. some very short, but most of them medium length (15-20 mins) movies. a respectable number of them really well-done and as serious as ANY  movie re: transmitting stuff. i'm still thinking about them. i wish they were on youtube so i could link to them, but all i could come up with are the trailers for some:

"head over heels" is about smart compromise in a relationship. as facebook would say...repairing what you've got instead of throwing it away. we all went "aawwwwww"

then there's "bisclavret" (in french), based on an old french tale/song about a werewolf. the images are stained-glass-like, the perfect combination with the rhymed text, and the content of the story (troubling/funny). this excerpt is about how the werewolf's wife finds out his secret and decides to betray him:

and "la garde-barriere", an old lady who lives by a train crossing with her cow and violin, and dreams of being one day appreciated for her art:

otherwise, it's been so cold and nasty these days, i agree we need celebrations in order to survive.
also, i've been US election-watching (duh) these days, and lately refreshing for impact-of-hurricane news...my view of the future of the human race is not at its brightest today. but i still believe we have to do what we can - in small and bigger ways. sometimes it's just waiting for the storm to roll out.
love,
c.