One down, thirteen to go.

It's done, and so am I. Still thirteen to go though (for the rest of New Zealand). The programme for the International Film Festival went to print yesterday afternoon after many hours of work by many people. My part consisted of laying out the programme (and salivating over the films). Checked out the proofs today which look great except of course for the occasional hideous ad. These morons pay heaps of money for the placement of the ad and can't bear to part with some cash to pay a designer to make a decent job of it - yes, it's DIY advertisement design. Of course, there are som gorgeous ones too. But who cares about the ads - you should see the films coming up! I've started my "must see" list - always difficult. I saw 40 last year, including a few that I took home on tape. Big one on the list for me is Catherine Breillat's Anatomy of Hell. I should see some more of her films - I've only seen Fat Girl (aka À ma soeur) and Sex is Comedy. She's so post-feminist. I love the way she cuts to the quick and fights against false morality. She depicts female sexuality in such a cutting but honest way. Not for the faint hearted, of course. And Sex is Comedy was such a piss-take of herself, portraying herself as manipulative, twisted and egocentric. I wonder if it was how she thinks others see her. I'm sure it's not how she thinks of herself. Maybe it was some of the negative aspects of herself she was drawing upon. If you are going to watch both these films, you must see Fat Girl first - Sex is Comedy shows the making of the controversial anal sex scene - almost as docudrama. We see the fighting and bitching between the stars (the lovers in the scene can't stand each other) and the director, who must make the scene work, has to cajole, flirt with, and shout at, the crew and stars, to get her way. She's such a bitch. I recommend it. I can see Breillat becoming a classic of this time.
Just found a cinema site that I want to explore more. After this I'm off to have a search around - looks like they have some good stuff going on. I only ended up there cos apparently they have a link there somewhere to my blog. Couldn't find it though. SOD found it out with some dinky web gadgetry he has mastered to find out interesting data about who looks at your sites and how they get there. It's very intriguing. He's turning into a detective. I could see him as a detective actually...