The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

It's here! The full schedule has been released, which means we can officially announce the arrival of the: (insert town crier voice)

CHICAGO FILM FESTIVAAAAAL!

Pardon me as a geek out for a second. Unfortunately, as I was last year, I will be in tech during the festival, proving that the gods of theatre and film jointly have it out for me. And, as last year, I am promising that next year I am going to completely blacken my calender for the first half of October, buy a full pass and have my very own two week filmic vacation. Swear to god, it's gonna happen this time. I will still have four days and two weekend evenings to fill this year, so's I'm picking up a ten film pass. And I will be doing it today, because I have an irrational fear that everyone will suddenly discover how freaking amazing the film festival is and shit's gonna sell out instantaneously. Hey, it keeps me on my toes.

Here's the probable Paul Rekk Viewing Experience so far -- much of the lunch hour will be spent in a daze over the film schedule and my planner.

Noise (Matthew Seville, Australia)
Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao-hsien, France)
4 Months, 3 Weeks, & 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, Romania)
Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/France/Netherlands)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel, France/USA)
One Hundred Nails (Ermanno Olmi, Italy)
Scream of the Ants (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iran/France)
The Walker (Paul Schrader, USA/UK)
A Walk Into The Sea (Esther Robinson, USA)

and one of the following:

The Duchess of Langeais (Jacques Rivette, France/Italy)
The Man From London (Bela Tarr, Hungary/France/Germany)

It's going to be a tough choice.

I know this request will be met with the same unblinking response it is every year, but if anyone has any recommendations or disrecommendations, these ears are open for biz-nass.

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Also, I probably shouldn't completely go without plugging Signal Ensemble Theatre's foray into S-LP's 365 Days/365 Plays project. It's going on tomorrah night at the Signal rehearsal space (the same place as Per Diem's slam bang) at 8 pm. Deets are to the right. What's my connection? Who knows? Maybe I'll be directing! Maybe Bries'll be acting! Maybe I'll be directing and Bries'll be acting!! But I will be there -- first sign of a good time -- and so will Signal -- second sign of a good time -- so make yourselves the third sign. Or the sign of the cross. It might be necessary.

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I have also been tagged for the Five Strengths meme by scholar and gentleman extraordinaire, David Alan Moore. I'm in a much less conceited mood today, so I'll let the previous five resound rather than coming up with another five backpats.

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Theatre lessons learned and reinforced in the past two weeks (without going into too much dirty laundry):

• You can learn a lot surrounded by artists better than you. You can also learn a lot surrounded by artists worse than you. The latter is far less enjoyable.

• If a director has a character-related question for an actor but only sees one answer as acceptable, it's best to forego the whole question process and just give the only answer that will be acceptable.

• Organization is not everything. Planning ahead is not everything. But god damn it if they aren't a lot of it.

• Paul's Priorities: Character, then stage picture.

• Paul's Priorities: Blocking, then off-book.

• Shit don't have to make sense in regards to the real world, but shit gotta make sense within the created world.

• Lesson still in progress: the effects of zero marketing (I have a hunch I know the outcome.)

• If you can't remember worth a good god damn, Write. It. Down.

• Rehearsals involve actors. If you're going to turn one into a glorified production meeting, call it a production meeting and release the actors.

Needless to say, I'm in a frustrating situation artistically. I'm almost a bit hesitant to post this, as it'd be easy enough for it to make it's way back around to the wrong parties. However, I'm baring much less teeth than I would like to and if I don't get it out I might just explode.

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And, I'm sure you've seen them by now, but be sure to check out Scott Walters and Tom Loughlin's series on the state of theatre education. It's wrapping up and is an enlightening read. I'll put some of my thoughts (and experience) up next week.

P.Rekk
2007