Sunday, June 6, 2010

Female Shorts Film Festival Day the Third

Yesterday was a relaxing day. I had nothing too spectacular planned, mostly because the trip to Georgetown wore me out. My leg were pretty mad at me yesterday and felt like they weighed a bazillion pounds each. No matter. I had a very simply breakfast and then went to Candi’s Candies and, surprise, got some candy! You pick up a basket and pay by the pound except on certain “specialty” or pre-packed items. They have an entire room dedicated to salt water taffy, too. I probably undid any weight I lost during the Georgetown hike, but that’s okay because omigod candy!!

After that, I roamed around their weekend artist’s market. We have something similar in Sarasota, but ours is huge in comparison. Ours also starts and ends earlier, which I don’t like. And there’s only one food vendor here, which I found to be strange for something that, on the internet, is called a farmer’s market. Pretty interesting stuff, but nothing caught my eye so I mosied on over to the venue for the first of three special screenings today: Wedding Advice: Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace. Karen Sosnoski started to make the documentary when she was trying to decide whether or not to get married. Most of the arguments against marriage are from a socio-political or individualistic standpoint, though there were some who simply said “Why should we? We’re committed to each other, we don’t need a piece of paper and a ring to say that.”

The doc did briefly touch on gay marriage and those against it both due to religion and, again, from a socio-political standpoint. Like any good documentary, it didn’t say yes you should or no you shouldn’t. It just gave every viewpoint and let you, the viewer, decide.

My personal belief is that you should do whatever makes you happy that doesn’t hurt anyone else, but if you’re going to get married, you’d better think very carefully about it and realize that it’s a true commitment that’s going to take a lot of work from both parties. It’s a contract on a state, moral, and spiritual plane and isn’t something to be taken lightly.

After that, we had an hour break so I went over to the same divey little food court I went to when I first got here and went to the Spanish place for a turkey wrap. I kept getting strange looks from the Spanish people behind the counter as well as a Spanish family and I couldn’t figure out why. Then, I remembered that I was wearing my Spanish Inquisition shirt. Jesus...surely even Spanish people watch Monty Python...?

Anyway, after a delicious lunch and ice cream treat, I went back to the venue for the last two special screenings: Karen Cantor’s The Danish Solution, which is about Jews in Denmark during World War II, and Last Rights, which is about the Right to Die. A pretty heady day of films if you ask me. All good stuff, but heady...

After that, I came back to my hotel room, had a bit of candy, wrote a little bit, and relaxed. Not too exciting, I suppose, but a really nice day.

Today’s the last day of the festival and the special screenings start at 2 so I’m going to take a shower and get ready here in a moment, then head on down to the venue and walk the gallery since I haven’t done that yet. The place is pretty spectacular: it’s three storeys and houses 82 galleries into which one can walk and talk to the artist and buy their work directly from them. They show over 150 artists in the various galleries, not to mention the fact that they house the Alexandria Archaeology Museum. It kind of reminds me of the Art Department’s Level Four studios back at Booker High. The seniors all had individual work spaces (or they shared, if the space was big enough) which I always thought was pretty damn cool. I thought my friend Stacy’s studio was the coolest. She shared with two other students, if I remember correctly, and it was relatively private and pretty comfortable, a really great workspace.

So, that’s it! This time tomorrow, I’ll be on a plane heading back to Sarasota. I’ll have a little over 24 hours after landing before I have to be back at work and start thinking about the New York festival. I’m so glad my co-workers have been nice to me and haven’t called... I’ll be sure to post about today when I get back to the hotel room after the closing night party.

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