LAST DAY: Day Eleven at the FFM: Monday, September 4, 2006

A short and a feature length film to finish off the festival for us.

Left. Alexandre O. Phillipe. USA. 10 mins. No words. Alexandre is a french Swiss, as is the director of the feature. As he put it, the subject matter is about the loss of a loved one – not a nice subject at 10 am, and was filmed in Last Chance, Colorado, using only the sounds of this seemingly abandoned town. Shot in HD and 35 min film, I happened to be looking back for a late-joiner to our viewing, and saw the projectionist switch the lens on the projector mid-screening – I had meant to ask the director if that was part of the program, but forgot after the feature presentation. Apparently it was, since he was watching from the rear of the theatre and didn’t react. As for the film...interesting use of visuals, music and ambient sound.

La Vraie Vie Est Ailleurs (Real Life is Elsewhere). Frédéric Choffat. Switzerland. 84 mins. French with English subtitles. A train movie. What happens when you meet a stranger or sit next to one on a train – what are the possibilities of these chance meetings? Three stories of three different people happening to meet someone during a train voyage from Geneva. A man is returning to Berlin to see his pregnant girlfriend who is giving birth in a day or so. A woman is planning to move to Naples, Italy after growing up in Switzerland. A scientific researcher is on the way to Marseilles to present her research at a conference, hoping to secure continued funding. Each meets, unbidden, a stranger, who gets under their respective skins, and ends up changing their lives. There’s an element of danger that left me very anxious, particularly with the two women and the risk they seem to put themselves in, with the men that intrude on their trips. But ulimately (as much as this isn’t much of a spoiler), nothing violent ever happens. Instead, all three are seen to reach a crisis point in their lives, and the meetings carry them onwards, like the trains they ride.

My personal faves were:

Best comedy: Somoan Wedding

Best gentle comedy/drama with weird cultural interplay: Kamone Shokudo (Seagull Diner)

Best love story: Maria am Callas (Maria to Callas)

Best drama: Qué tan Lejos (How Much Futher?)

Best short: Un Filo Intorno al Mondo (A Wire Around the World)

Best film about a musician: Camarón

Best Documentary: hard choice! Fuck!, Jump, and Everest ER were all so good…

So that’s it for the FFM this year. Have no fear, though, there’s the Festival de Nouveau Cinema and the Adventure Film Festival in October, the Image+Nation LGBT film festival in November, and FIFA, the Festival Internationale de Films sur Art, in March. These are ones we’re planning to attend, wallets willing!