Gee, sorry this wasn't worth your time, voting-down person. Maybe it was the Tropfest organizer?
Sunday night I made the unfortunate decision to go to Tropfest 9 in The Domain. Tropfest is a short film festival that exists to support emerging filmmakers and gives them the opportunity to show their work to an international audience. They whittled 16 films to show on Sunday from nearly 600. And Toni Collette was there, as a judge.
That's great and all, but I hated it. The films were good, though I only saw several, but I could have better spent my night hitting my forehead with a heavy piece of splintered wood.
I went alone, because Y had a cold, and let me mention that The Domain is a vast field used for public events.
Free entertainment (which sucked, btw) started at 3pm; films started at 8pm.
I got there at 6, because I wanted to get a good spot. After buying a flat white, I found a decent spot pretty far back from the screens.
I couldn't believe how many people showed up. It was like the previous def con. I hate crowds, really hate them, and don't usually like being around people in general. And nearly every person right in front of me smoked, cigarette after cigarette. It was constant. I think it's gross, and hate it, but would be very hard pressed to ask someone to stop. So I sat there, studying for my next certification test, for three hours. Breathing in smoke with my cold, and hating being there.
But I didn't want to leave before the films started. And finally they did start. A summary:
1) A Matter of Life: The lengths a gardener will go to to save his plant. The hose isn't long enough, so the gardener finds one by a car, where a woman is trying to kill herself. "Don't try to stop me!" she screams, but he doesn't care; he just wants the hose she's using.
2) Tickler: A couple wrestle over a horny dilemma. A married couple sit in their car and argue over buying a vibrator. He is adamant about it not looking like a penis. And he really doesn't want to go in to buy it, so they get someone else to do it. Clever and funny dialogue, but the directing was just a few minutes of the classic soap-opera two-person dialogue angles.
3) Muffled Love: A feel-good comedy about getting the romantic bits right. A woman's new boyfriend cups his hands over her ears whenever she says "I love you." She doesn't know how to tell him what he's doing, so she does it to him - and says "I can't hear you."
4) The Lighter: One driver, one smoke, no lighter. The driver can't get his cigarette lit. While trying to find another match in his glove box, he hits a woman with his car. He gets out of the car and sees her crumpled on the ground - but doesn't seem to sweat it. Instead, he sees something on fire, with a big blaze at one end, and lights his cigarette with it, obviously satisfied.
5) Just Not Cricket: Whites, zinc on the bottom lip, cap on the head, sunnies on the cap - it's just not cricket. A man is painting a wall green, and there is cricket-like commentary while he does it. Really amusing, and probably my favorite.
6) The Art of Farewell: Two men, one loves his wife - one loves his art. Can they meet in the middle?. An old man asks a surly, reluctant tattooist to tattoo his dead wife, as well as himself.
7) Beep: Cape Town's first car-horn symphony.
8) Like It Is: A stricken bird, a grieving owner, an unscrupulous vet and his troubled assistant. An old woman's bird dies, and the good-hearted assistant jerry-rigs a pet cemetery so she can grieve.
And that's it. I had to leave. Like I said - the films were good, and I wanted to see them all. But I couldn't take it anymore.
Today I'm studying for the test. It's blazingly hot outside. According to the paper, it's "sultry."
The air conditioning here is making us sick. I think it's moldy. sigh.