phragmentation

This morning started early with a bit of history about Alexander Korda and his filmmaking empire. His nephew spoke afterwards and recounted funny stories, such as how Korda gave him $100 and told him not to save it or spend it, but to waste it.

Next we saw the utterly hilarious slasher film Severance, which had just enough Russian dialogue to get me really anxious for Kravchuk’s brilliant Italian. Those films were preceded by the short animation Film Noir, and the too-funny australian short about a single dad raising twins, Carmichael & Shane. Ronnie, you would love that one especially. You must submit your films next year!

The evening ended with a Penelope Cruz retrospective and award presentation, plus the screening of her new Almodovar film, Volver, which was unexpectedly much better than I ever thought would be. She is definitely a better actress in Spanish, as the only thing I’d seen her in before was Vanilla Sky. The final film tonight was The Last King of Scotland, which the director introduced as fiction but now I’m intrigued to find out how much of it was really true. Forest Whitaker (whom David met in the hotel lobby) is frighteningly amazing as Idi Amin.

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