Oh, so there you are. I was wondering where you'd gotten to.
Wait, it was me that was missing, wasn't it? I get us confused sometimes. I think it's the haircut.
Let's ease back into our blogger-bloggee relationship with a recap of last weekend's Canadian Filmmakers' Festival fun:
I attended the Canadian Filmmakers' Festival. It was fun.
(Hmmm. I think it might take me a few posts to get back into the swing of this.)
The festival is the mad idea of Bern Euler and his wife Deana Beltsis. I'd met them both before, and even sat with them through a recent Digital Gun Awards short film festival. Good people, definitely. They both have an infectious charm that just makes one want to hug them or buy them candy.
Bern told me quite a while ago about his plans to put together a new film festival to showcase Canadian films, and he's succeeded wildly. Oodles of people talk about starting up festivals or making movies or buying this damn bar and keeping it open all night. Few ever get it done. Bern's one o' the few.
Most of my festivalizing was spent alongside Paula Kaye and Roger Fredericks. She's the actor who leant her voice to the character Nicki in the kids' show Ricky's Room, and he's a multiple Gemini winning comedy writer, so they're both bundles of laughs and a joy to hang around with.
I don't have a shot of Bern or Deana to share, but here's a photo of Paula being photographed by Olga Krywy (who interviewed Paula for her “Schmooze Buzz” radio show).
Paula's shown standing beside one of the filmmaker's from Quebec who insisted that not only did his film not look “Canadian” but that he didn't even watch Canadian films. Yet here he was submitting his film to the (*ahem*) Canadian Filmmakers' Festival. I asked if he'd stayed to watch any of the other filmmakers' offerings. Nope. And he also didn't have a problem with asking a Canadian audience to watch his own film or asking a Canadian festival to promote it. Quebec logic, perhaps?
The festival took place at my favorite reparatory theater, the Royal, also pictured above. The third snapshot is of Dragon Lady Comics, across the street from the Royal. After the first evening of movie gawking the remarkably friendly fellow working at Dragon Lady re-opened the just-closed shop to let me go in and pick up a copy of the Amazing Spider-Man issue that featured my bottom-half … though maybe the slinky dress Paula was wearing that evening had just a tiny bit to do with him unlocking the door, you know, just maybe.
At any rate, he was the friendliest comic shop employee in the history of the industry. He mentioned that he didn't want to be “that comic book guy” and there's no worry about that. We all talked about comics (natch) and old time radio shows and Terry And The Pirates and pre-code horror mags and movies and … well, we nerded out, basically. Much fun. I can't recommend the place enough.
I've got more fun to share, like how a picturesque laundromat caused my car to be towed, but I'll save that for tomorrow. See you in the funny papers.
