The Ultimate Entry

I've been back in Canada for almost a week now, and I thought I should end off with a recap of things that I miss about Venice.

I miss the humidity and the clear air. I miss "I need a Coca Light" and 8:30 screenings. I miss the good food and taking a boat to work in the morning.

There are things I don't miss, but for the most part everything is turning up roses in my memories.

When I got back to Toronto and was immediately whisked off to dinner with a tour group.* They were entertained by my stories and wanted my opinions of films that were showing in both Venice and Toronto.

The next day (after being awake for 23 hours and sleeping for only 6) I went to see 3 films at TIFF. I saw Who Do You Love, Slumdog Millionaire, and Les Plages D'Agnes. While I wouldn't recommend seeing Who Do You Love, the other two are worthwhile, and I particularly enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire.

I'm back in Kingston now, so this blog has become obsolete. The next time I go abroad, I'll start up a new blog and post the link here. Thanks for reading!


*My dad plays tour guide to some people who go to TIFF every year through Smithsonian Journeys. They are for the most part not cinematically trained, but they do enjoy watching films (obviously).

Day thirteen - The Final Countdown

By the time Courtney and I got up this morning (we went to bed at midnight and got up at 6:30, best sleep I've had so far), Alex had already left. After a slow breakfast and last minute packing of toiletries, we were ready to go. Wakterwas staying over till Monday, as was Armand, who came round the house just in time to say goodbye. Ariela, Hannah, and Courtney were all on the same flight, and mine left 15 minutes before theirs, so we all left together.

I will reiterate that the vaporetto is a wonderfully majestic way to travel. Aside from the smell of the canals and the occasionally rocking from a cruise ship, it is one of the coolest ways to travel. Getting up and going to work via boat made me feel good every morning, and I'll miss that. I went in a water taxi just once this trip (when picking up Lika Minamoto from the airport), but I have a great love for public transit all the same.

We were lucky: just as we bought our bus tickets to the airport (Marco Polo Airport is on mainland Italy, and a 20 minute drive from Piazza le Roma) the bus wooshed us away. Upon checking in at separate stations, we met up with Mary inside. Mary was on the same flight as the others, but lived in the Dude Ranch, so we just met there. My flight was called first (obviously) so I left them at around 12:45.

The flight has been uneventful so far, other than a child who started screaming just before take off and would not be comforted until she was able to see her mother 20 minutes later (she was seated with her father). I a currently amusing myself by righting my penultimate blog entry and composing emails to people I met at Venice.

I avoided the two films that played on this trip. After the Venice Film Festival, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Kung Fu Panda just don't cut it. Happy to be coming home, but sad that I won't see the people I met here for a while.

Day twelve - Last day

The church bells woke me up at 7:30, I'm usually up by that point, but I slept in today. Courtney rolled over and said, "It's 7:30 and our screening is at 8:30." I said, "that means making the 7:55 am vaporetto and I'm not ok with that." She rolled over, and the who should walk in but A-Diz who shook us both awake and said that he had just walked 30 minutes and we had to come with him. Courtney complied, I did not.

Apparently, The Wrestler was a good film, but another one that probably is not best seen at 8:30 am. Alex and I managed to make the next film though, Il Seme de Discordia or The Seed of Discord. Somehow, this film made it into competition, but it is terrible. Not only does it not follow a decent plot, but in the end, it essentially says that rape is ok if one party is in love with the other (no matter what the secondary party says).

Mary, A-Diz and I went back to Venice and I did some shopping. I hadn't had any time before this, so I took my time. I'm not a very good consumer though, so I didn't buy that much stuff, but the stuff I did buy is really awesome and hopefully not too tourist-trappy.

Packed my bags, and now we're heading out to Harry's for Bellinis and then to the Shark Bar so I can post these. Catch ya on the morrow.

Day eleven - Kathryn Bigelow

Another day, another early movie. This one was at 8:00 am because The Hurt Locker is 2 hours long, and it's heavy. Before the opening credits, a quote appears with the words "war is a drug" marked out. That is the essence of a film centred around a squad of bomb diffusers stationed in Baghdad. I'm not sure how well it will be received in the States, considering the protest yesterday.

Aaron David (A-Diz) had a meeting with Matt and Liz from Premiere to work on the above-mentioned film. I stuck along for the ride, and we both helped out for a couple hours. We got to meet Kathryn Bigelow very briefly before she went to lunch and then we went off to see our friends. Jose had informed us of the closing night party for the Short Film Festival on San Sorvolo, so we headed back early to get ready.

Before that though, was a party thrown by SAGindie to celebrate our end of internships. Alexis and Scott came by and Armand put his event planning skills to good use. There were speeches and we had a good time. Then we went to San Sorvolo and had a blast at the party.

Mary and I were the first to leave at - get this - 2:20 am. There was only one vaporetto after that one, at 3:20. We crashed into bed after 3:15 after a longish vaporetto ride to San Marco and a 15 minute walk home from there.

Day ten - In which we meet Evan Rachel Wood

This has been a really good day. First we got up early and saw the 8:30 am screening of Rachel Getting Married at the PalaBiennale. Everyone left stunned by the performance by Anne Hathaway as Kym and by Jonathan Demme's direction. He is definitely back on track with this one. I confidently predict awards in this film's future, despite (or perhaps in spite of) it's not-so-cheerful subject matter.

After that was done, we headed over to the Excelsior for our round table with Evan Rachel Wood. We were all excited and doing a bit of last minute research on IMDb. She walked in looking glamourous, but more importantly, looked like Marilyn Manson's girlfriend, not Lucy from Across the Universe. She was our most engaging speaker of them all and she stayed with us for an hour. Tips for journalists: ask her about Julie Taymor. Apparently Ms. Taymor became something of a surrogate mother to her (we sensed some overbearing mother issues). At any rate, Evan Rachel Wood was very candid and grounded and swore a lot.

I'm trying to remember what happened after that, but not much good if I recall. So let's just leave it at that.

Oh wait, we started watching a series of short documentaries, but the first two were so awful that we left, only to discover that there was a protest over The Hurt Locker going on outside.

Day nine - Nothing Dirty Going On

So every morning, Walter walks into our villa (nicknamed The Chicken Ranch) and sings, "And there's nothing dirty going on." He is referencing The Best Little Whore House in Texas, for which my villa is named. THe other house is the Dude Ranch, even though it's co-ed.

Today we met John Landis of Blues Brothers, Animal House and Trading Places fame. He is a member of the jury this year and very candid. He was free with his advice and his cynicism, which was nice to here. He also had a cane from some unknown but recent injury and kept dropping his cane on the ground. He also has a prodigious memory: after we introduced ourselves to him he repeated everyone's school and interest, just to show he could.

After John Landis, we all went to seeHooked, which is screening at TIFF too, but is, in most people's opinions, a badly filmed film. It is shot entirely in hand-held POV shots and the editing needs to be done again. We met with the director afterward, and we had nothing to say to him. A-Diz liked it though.

Not much happened today, so I'm peace-ing out early. Ciao.

Day eight - Federicco

Today I got up early and saw Birdwatchers with a bunch of others. Birdwatchers is a fantastic film and doesn't overplay anyone's role in the victimization of the Guarani people in Brazil. All today I worked with Federicco, letting in the reporters who wanted to talk to the director, the Italian actor, and the Guarani actors in the film. It was complete chaos at some points and very educating. I had a great time. Federicco and Luis (Richard's assistants) are two great people and they are good to work for and to work with. I had a great day because I got to see a flim (yes I wanted to spell it that way) and got to meet some journalists. I am realizing that speaking only English and limited French is not going to cut it in Europe so I'm going to have to brush up on my French. Everyone here speaks at least one, usually two or three languages.

I went out to dinner with Courtney and Alex, and Walter and Armand happened to go to the same restaurant. It was very nice and good food (even though they charged us all sorts of ancillary fees). Walter took a video of us on a Flip thing that is the size of a cell phone and includes a USB plug-in and takes a good picture. I'm now at the Shark bar using the internets nad looking forward to another day working for Federicco.

Day seven - Terrible films and the Jewish Ghetto

Ok, so today I had meant to go see Il Giorno Perfetto but did not wake up in time. I spent the day trying to go to the beach and missing out. I saw a terrible film that somehow got into both Venice and Toronto. Basically, not a fun day.

Ariela and I had hoped to go to the Jewish ghetto (the first one in the world) tonight but that didn't work out. We got the wrong directions, went completely the wrong way and were so tired that all we wanted to do was go home. We tried to get internet and the bar was closed. This is a short post, but I'm keeping this all positive so it' got to be.

Actually, I had three round tables today: Ramin Bahrani, John Landis and the director of Hooked (whose name I cannot pronounce). Ramin was totally into himself and completely interesting, John Landis was hilarious. We kept laughing every time his sweared. The Hooked guy was awkward because only A-D liked his film. I felt nauseous after seeing it.

Day six - Missed boats, missed parties, found films

We decided to get up early (i.e. about 8 of us from the two houses) and go to the 8:30 am screening of THe Burning Plain. Helin and Ariela left earlier than me and then called frantically from the boat to say that Helin forgot her accreditation. I went scrounging through Helin's stuff, couldn't find it, so Katrina and I ran to make the vaporetto, missed it anyway, thought we would be late, and then found out that it was actually Ariela who forgot her accreditation, went back, got it, and caught the next vaporetto. Kat and I spent the entire trip over thinking that we wouldn't be let in because we were 10 minutes late, but luckily the theatre had seats left and we were able to see the film.

Go see The Burning Plain when it opens. It's a romance of sorts, and explores the character of the protagonist at three different points in her life. The cinematography is quite stunning (New Mexico is beautiful) and Charlize Theron gives a good performance.

After that I went to work for Richard Lormand (well, I was actually working for Federico, Richard's assistant). Micah and I spent a few hours signing in reporters for their interviews with Takeshi Kitano about his new film, Achilles and the Tortoise, after which we went to see two more films. Bo and Larry joined us for these ones: Goodbye Solo and Nowhere Man, both of which I would recommend seeing, but I think you'll have to search for them.

Goodbye Solo is in English, but really hard to follow because the protagonist has a strong Senegalese accent, his foil has a strong Southern-U.S. accent, and his step-daughter has a strong Mexican accent. The film itself has many stunning views of Winston-Salem, NC in Autumn, but which seem out of place with the deep plot. I'd see it again though.

Nowhere Man is Belgian, but in Flemish, and has some typical Scandinavian elements such as a total lack of conclusion and some graphic sex scenes. I really liked it though, and Bo said it was her favourite film so far.

By this point it was 7:30 so the four of us headed back to mainland to get ready for the Queer Lion party. We ate dinner, dressed and then I went out with Courtney and Alex, wandered around for hours trying to find the party, couldn't find it, went to the party for Plastic CIty, got free Mojitos at 2 am, wandered for a bit longer and finally got home at 4 am.

Definitely looking forward to the omelets that Armand promised to make us.

Day five - L'Oreal Make-Up Room

So you know how Project Runway always mentions the L'Oreal Make-Up Room? Well, there's one here too. And the access is restricted. I spent the morning running around finding the right dress for the actress I'm assisting, bringing the wrong one and then sitting feeling incompetent for the rest of the day. Everything is a learning experience though, so I'm trying to learn from this by thinking that I will never be a personal assistant. I had to work my magic to get into the L'Oreal Make-up Room twice, and then sat listening ti Japanese interviews for the rest of the day.

On the up side, Ryo Ishibashi is really nice. He is a Japanese actor of some report and we had a nice chat about Canada (ahh, the Canada card works wonders here in Italy) in between his interviews. Also, I found a bunch of co-interns and we went to see $e11.0u7 which starred my new crush, Peter Davis. Then we went to see Lonsj (Cold Lunch) which had great cinematography and acting, but the most Norwegian (read: weird, depressing) story line that I've seen in a while and that didn't really have an ending.

Tomorrow I'm planning on seeing the early screening of The Burning Plain. Will see how that goes.

Day four - Tilda Swinton

So, I was this close to meeting Tilda Swinton today. Walter scheduled a round table with her for 3:30 pm, but I was picking up an actress (Lika Minamoto) from the airport at that time, so I missed it. Apparently she talks a lot (hmmm, reminds me of...me) and answered questions quite eloquently.

I traveled a lot today went to the Lido twice (total travel time c. 2 hours) went to the airport and back (total travel time 3 hours) and window shopped (read: went into the stores and touched the clothing) for another hour. Lika is very nice and luckily for me she speaks better English than I do French, so everything worked out well.

aside: The mosquitos are killer here. Not only are they huge, but the sting hurts for days. I have been bitten at least 12 times since I got here and it's taking all of my will-power to not scratch them. On the up side, Venice does not stink as much as people say it does. Certain canals, yes, but there is enough wind (and little enough rain) to dispel the smell from major ones.

Day three - Opening Ceremonies

Today was the red carpet. People started lining up before we got there at 9:30 am. Brad and George were not in appearance until 6:30 pm.

In my news, I showed up to work on the film Jerichow, but due to mishaps, I couldn't get into the daily press-only screening, so Richard bought Micah (the other intern) and me dinner and then took us to the press-only screening at 10:30 resulting in us getting back to the Ranch at 1 am.

By the way, the film is very good and I recommend seeing it. I'm not going to say anything else about it at the moment, except that it is a very quiet film, so you need to enjoy slower films and melancholy endings.

Got word that I might be able to work with a French-Japanese film called Inju, le bete dans l'ombre which pleases me. We shall see in the morning.

Day two – visit to the Lido

Last night four of us sat out in the courtyard for hours, drinking our wine and talking. Eventually we made dinner and then went out to find the Irish bar with free wi-fi (pronounced wee-fee) that we found earlier. The bar turned out to be closed on Mondays (go figure) but we went to the next one and had a good time.

So, next day, the boat to the Lido took about 30 minutes at which point Walter took us on a tour of the grounds (pictures available on Facebook at some point) and then let us go for lunch. The eight of us who went together got kicked out of a restaurant because we wanted food, but managed to find a nicer restaurant farther on. After lunch there was a lot of hanging around, waiting for publicists to come and give us jobs. Oh! We got our festival catalogues today, which detail all of the films showing here and also has a list of the producers/distributors attending the fest. Score! I’m going to helping out/observing publicity work on Jerichow, a German film, and Nuit de chien (Tonight) a French/German co-pro. Going to take it easy tonight, ‘cause the fun starts tomorrow with the opening screening of Burn After Reading.

Day one – the opening act

So I went to bed at 9 pm last night. Passed out actually. I woke up at 7 am and was one of the first up. We had an indoor breakfast because it’s cold in the morning. No cloud cover = no heat retention. Although by the time we sat down for lunch it was hot enough for people to be complaining about their long-sleeved shirts.

Walter sat us down in the courtyard and made us introduce ourselves (again), which turned out to be nice, turns out there are 5 Torontonians and one Quebecer (Armand). We were tourists today, we saw the place where the festival is showing certain features the day after they are screened at the festival. Then we saw San Marco, which was packed. We spent a lot of time learning where we were in relation to our villas. Hopefully I will not get lost now.

Oh, I love Europe for one very good reason: we housemates and I just bought 3 litres of wine for…€5.55. I gave her a tip.

I took many pictures, which will appear on Facebook soon for those who wish to see them. Walter wasn’t very clear about our internships, so I still don’t know what I’ll be doing. Tomorrow we visit the Lido!

To Arrive in Venice

My journey started with a car ride to the airport, 30 minutes give or take. Upon entering Lester B. Pearson Airport, I boarded an airplane and flew to Venice. Landing in Marco Polo Airport, I was met by Walter Harris and Armand LaChance who took me to meet the other participants, we sat on chairs for 2 hours, give or take, until we rode a bus to get to Venice proper. A beautiful ride from the airport to the island resulted in boarding a vaporetto which took us to the other side of the island, the stop being Celestia. From there, the 7 girls (myself included) and Armand walked on our feet to our house.

Car, airplane, chair, bus, vaporetto, feet. Phew. Walter greeted everyone by saying that this is, “like a reality tv show. Remember America’s Next Top Model, well you’re all going to be in twin beds, with 3 or 4 to a room, randomly assigned.” Hopefully there won’t be any cat-fights, everyone seems friendly off the bat, if a little jet-lagged. I have so far met, in order of meeting, Aaron-David, Courtney, Margot, Katrina, Micah, José, Helen, Hannah, Ariela. We are representing Canada, the States, and Spain.

Our house looks like this:

Well actually, that’s the gate to our courtyard. And this is the courtyard:

Our front door is actually this:

And this is the common area:

Quite nice don’t you think? We eat breakfast together then commute via vaporetto to the Lido, where the festival takes place.

I’m quite lively right now, partially from excitement and partially from homeopathic meds, which allowed me to have no jet lag at all, even though I only got about 1 hour’s worth of sleep and another 2-3 hours of resting.

Temperature today is gorgeous, not to hot or humid, the canals don’t stink (well, the big ones don’t), it’s sunny, and it’s Sunday, so there are very few people about which is nice for exploring.

p.s. Blogger won't allow me to upload photos. But you get the picture.

Go Time

Leaving for the airport in about 2 hours. Had to make sure that I have all my stuff in the right place, i.e. the tweezers and scissors in the checked baggage, the sunscreen and water bottle (empty) in the carry-on, etc. Nothing new to report really, except that I don't think it's possible for me to be more excited than I am now.

I got all my packing done despite thinking that I would be chasing things around at the last minute, and I even remembered to get some Euros. This looks like it'll be a smooth take-off from my end, now it's all up to the pilot.

Ciao!

Almost there

I am looking forward to Venice for a number of reasons, one of them being that I will get away from all the construction! Currently in a my neighbourhood, my entire street is ripped up to do something with the gas pipes (they ripped up everyone's driveways too - but don't worry, they gave us plywood to cover the holes), Bathurst St is closed for TTC construction - not sure exactly what, but probably something to do with streetcars, My back-neighbours decided to add an extension or do something equally exciting that involved a jackhammer, and to top it off, my roof was leaking so it had to be replaced too. AAAHHHHHH this is why I left Kingston in the first place!!!

Ok, back to business. Venice may be sinking, but at least it's doing it quietly. There are no cars in Venice. None. just boats, probably loud boats, but I'll deal. Also, Venice looks to be the same temperature as Toronto (well, maybe 4 or 5 degrees warmer) but it's actually much hotter than that because of the 50%-90% humidity on a daily basis. Yes, you read that right, on any given day it feels 10 degrees hotter because of the wetness of the city.

Venetian Books

There are many, many books written about Venice, set in Venice, or that have a scene in Venice. I found a website (Fictional Cities) that has a list of many of them. From this list I realized there are two genres for stories set in Venice: Romances and Murder Mysteries. I decided that I've seen enough of Casanova for a while - the last time being the Heath Ledger film - I focused on the mysteries.

David Hewson's The Lizard's Bite
My favourite of the ones I read because I got a sense of the city both in terms of the people and the geography. The themes apparent in every book are the strong familial ties, an ingrained loathing-yet-needing of foreigners (read: tourists), and a laid-back attitude to everything.

Mary Hoffman's City of Masks
This was a childhood favourite of mine (read: high school) but I decided to go back to it because it is set in Venice. It still holds up pretty well, and sets the scene fairly decently.

Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities
This is a beautiful book, but I don't really like poetry all that much, so I found it a bit of a hard read. The premise is a good one: Marco Polo reporting back to Kublai Khan about all the cities he has visited so that Khan may know his empire. Others liked it better than I did.

Donna Leon's Death in a Strange Country
Yeah, not so much. I found the writing to be too...American. That might not mean anything, but to people who read as many mysteries as I do, it makes a big difference what country the writer is from. Also, the protagonist doesn't actually end up solving the crime, he just accepts the story given to him by someone else. Hmmm.

Ok, so I spent more time looking for Venetian novels than actually reading them. There is always time when I get back, and as my cousin has just told me about The Passion, I can see that there are many more for me to find.

7 things to know about Venice

Many of you will know that I have been preparing all summer for my glorious excursion to Venice, Italy, as an intern for the American Pavilion. Preparations have included reading every novel I can get my hands on which is set in Venice (mostly mysteries and a few romances, with a few childhood favourites thrown in). I have also been asking around to various relatives and family friends for advice on festival going. And a few things have come up in regards to my internship and Venice which I would like to clear up.

a) I'm going to Venice, not Vienna. I have added a map for clarification. Vienna is, I'm sure a lovely place, and is the capital of Austria. I'm am headed to Italy, a mere 436 km to the SW of Vienna.

b) I have no idea what I will be doing when I get to Venice. Katryna (a fellow Queen's filmie) did the same program as me, but in Cannes, did PR which involved making sure the right people went to the right parties. Maybe I'll get to do that too? Updates on that when I get them.

Ok, so now down to business. 7 things to know about Venice, since I will be leaving in 7 days to go there.

1) Venice is an island. Well, several islands. Including the Lido di Venezia (the Beach of Venice) which is where the festival actually takes place.

2) Venice is a mercantile city. It has existed for thousands of years and has made lots of money from foreigners. During the Crusades, the Venetians built ships and sailed the French and German crusaders over to Constantinople and when the kings couldn't afford to pay up, the Venetians got land instead, land that made them rich for several hundred years after they gave it back to the Byznatines.

3) Venice is female and goes by several names including Venezia (Italian), Venezsia (Venetian), and La Serenissima.

4) Venice's heyday was in the late 13th century, when they traded heavily the Byzantines and Europe.

5) Venice is shrinking. The city is disappearing into the sea as water erodes the sides of the canals (did I mention the canals yet?) and the population is getting smaller too, only ~ 62 000 people live in Venice-proper.

6) Venice's head of state is traditionally a Doge, or Duke. The full title (in English) was Duke of the Most Serene Republic of Venice.

7) Venice once belonged to Austria, which might explain the confusion. Napoleon Bonaparte signed a treaty in 1797 giving Venice to Austria, but only until 1805, when he then gave it to the Republic of Italy, but when Napolean was defeated in 1814 (Waterloo anyone?) the Austrians took it back. Venice wasn't part of Italy again until 1866!

That's all for today.