Film Festival!
фильм
фестиваль

continued from last post...
i was walking around taking the lost-tourist type of photos of things that are only fairly interesting:

голодны?
hungry?

when i stumbled upon a film festival!

at this theater:

(not my picture)

"Message 2 Man"

weeeeeeeeeeeeeee

this is a picture of people taking pictures

website -> http://m2m.iffc.ru/en/

“Message to Man” was founded to emphasize the important role of non-feature films in cultural life of the country and allow national documentary filmmakers become more familiar with the world of international cinema"

it has screened over 200,000 films from over 100 countries. it captures and shares new trends in international film very well. i felt lucky and grateful to be there. do luck and gratitude have any connection...???

Im finding very quickly that Saint Petersburg has this exploding culture of arts, in the wake of the soviet era, if you dig deep enough, although i just found this randomly.  The Russians have been making there place in international arts scene for a long time now, with incredible national pride, emotional power and sensitivity. 

Saint Petersburg is the capital of Russian cinema, with 25 film festivals a year. this years categories are Italian, Spanish, and experimental. 

It was a very festive opening event with many international filmmakers, producers, and writers attending, and in jury of the competition. They talked for a LOOOOONG time before the movie, about films, the festivals' history, accomplishments, and problems. maybe an hour and a half, but it was all interesting and relevant to the world around us, translated on stage in russian italian and english.

the president of the st. petersburg cultural committee read telegrams from the president of the russian federation and the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, congratulating the festival on its success, gifted filmmakers, and wished inspiration, continued cooperation, creativity, and a bright future.

this amazing band opened and closed the ceremony before the movie, playing traditional russian instruments:

this was a piece of music inspired by and dedicated to the legendary filmmaker Fellini:

founder of the fest:

the first movie was called 'vivan las antipodas!' 

which was VERY interesting. russian art house film with very

inventive shots and views of culture. 

antipodes are diametrical opposites ends of the earth, and there 

are only a few antipodes on earth that are on land. the film spends its time with long 

panoramic views and simple cultural observations of four opposite ends of the earth. 

the four antipodes are:

Entre Rios, Argentina <-->  Shanghai 

Miraflores, Spain,<--> Castle Point, New Zealand

Kilauea in Hawaii <--> village of Kubu in Botswana 

Lake Baikal in Russia <--> Patagonia in Chile

very beautiful, illuminating, tragic, all kinds of things. also really nice artistic connections 

throughout, like the drying lava of the Hawaiian Islands to the rough skin of an elephant in botswana, or a beached whale to a large rock in new zealand. it is spontaneous and captures many rare events, it is an impressively bewildering look at the world!

i urge you to seek out this film when it is available, and film festivals in your area as film in the ultimate conduit in sharing culture between nations and souls.

i met one of the photographers, a vegetarian girl. after the movie, she got me back on track and i made it back to the dorm. I will return on monday to watch an animation about the russian genius Sergei Prokofiev. im having a good time, it is stimulating to be here.

if you have a teenager that is interested in making films, I recommend this workshop in san francisco:

http://www.filmworkshopsf.org/

"new students are introduced to the fundamental of professional filmmaking while returning students refine and deepen their skills. The Workshop acts as producer, helping students to build a portfolio of work that will help them get into film schools and develop a foundation of skills that will serve them throughout their careers."

besides working closely with the student and their ideas, Sf Art&Film also inspires and cultures their students by exposing them to the finest music and art events in the bay area. 

and this is a good read:

Here’s a summary the Russian filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky’s (vivan las antipodas!) 10 Rules that he follows for documentary filmmaking:

1. Don’t film if you can live without filming.

2. Don’t film if you want to say something – just say it or write it.Film only if you want to show something, or you want people to seesomething. This concerns both the film as a whole and every single shot within the film.

3. Don’t film, if you already knew your message before filming – just become a teacher.  Don’t try to save the world. Don’t try to change the world.  Better if your film will change you. Discover both the world and yourself whilst filming.

4. Don’t film something you just hate. Don’t film something you just love. Film when you aren’t sure if you hate it or love it. Doubts are crucial for making art. Film when you hate and love at the same time.

5. You need your brain both before and after filming, but don’t use your brain during filming. Just film using your instinct and intuition.

6. Try to not force people to repeat an action or words. Life is unrepeatable and unpredictable. Wait, look, feel and be ready to film using your own way of filming. Remember that the very best films are unrepeatable. Remember that the very best films were based on unrepeatable shots. Remember that the very best shots capture unrepeatable moments of life with an unrepeatable way of filming.

7. Shots are the basis of cinema. Remember that cinema was invented as one single shot – documentary, by the way – without any story. Or story was just inside that shot. Shots must first and foremost provide the viewers with new impressions that they never had before.

8. Story is important for documentary, but perception is even more important. Think, first, what the viewers will feel while seeing your shots. Then, form a dramatic structure of your film using the changes to their feelings.

9. Documentary is the only art, where every esthetical element almost always has ethical aspects and every ethical aspect can be used esthetically. Try to remain human, especially whilst editing your films. Maybe, nice people should not make documentaries.

10. Don’t follow my rules. Find your own rules. There is always something that only you can film and nobody else.

goodnight

xoxoxoxo

next post:

Shostakovich's 'Leningrad Symphony"!

Lost

Russia is crazy! I'm on Nevsky prospect now which is the big street in st petes. I got lost by taking two wrong buses so just walked the streets for hours in the rain. Now I'm in a little chic coffe tea club to use thier wifi. So many women here I might bring a bride back with me lol. School is intense I just passed my last audition yesterday. Very smokey here everyone smokes cigarettes.
The musicians here are tearing me apart everybody is so good it's ridiculous. My teacher is a young woman who just won an opera composition competition, beautiful, and says my music is typically American, and 'resembles the work of my fingers, not my mind'. My other teacher is a weirdo who makes avant-garde music like the sound of hitting a piece of paper. I'm easily homesick but going to go through with it because it is hard here. Hope all is well in California, and that it doesnt disappear with the cometh of comet elenin. Sun is out now so I will go and find my way home.

tomorrow is my final 

audition/exam

that determines if i stay here.

and oddly im hoping they send me home so i can return my to old life.

i have about 10 scores to show them only 1 complete and maybe my score to 'waking reverie'

there is a famous composer here who studied with and worked with shostakovich, named sergei slonimsky. i will try to study with him but he is high in demand and sounds like he only accepts advanced students. there are two others im really interested in, one is named svetlana nesterova who is a young woman, russian composer that just won the mariinsky theaters opera composition competion. the other is anatoly korolyev who seems to be a good composer and teacher, and has some interesting music.

i have a base program which is composition lessons, harmony class, solfeggio class, russian language class, and i think one other class. piano! beyond that i can take additional lessons and classes like orchestral conducting, operatic training, etc...

here are some rehearsals:

tchaikovsky symphony no. 5:

tchaikovskys opera 'eugine onegin' :

this school is very classical. i will report back, when i meet more composers and teachers in composition,  and find some new music. 

some historical figures:

this is Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, rubbing his head because he was out really late last night looking for young boys to sodomize

this is anton rubinstein, the founder of the school, saying 'wish i diddnt build this school, now i have to stand here forever'
or atleast until the u.s. govt bombs russia

and to end the night: the stereotypical drunk russian guy almost falling over in the street, while i waited for the bus. he tried to say something to me. i can barely understand russian, let alone drunk russian.

___________

NEW DAY

___________

today i met with Alexander Dimitriev, a fruit person (low fat raw vegan). probably the only in this city, (well im here now too)- i found him on www.30bananasaday.com-  there are not a lot of varieties of fruit here but there is enough. he is alone here in his health quest, but he knows it is the right thing to do, even though it goes against the culture and tradition. he is planning on spending the winters in thailand. he is excited about trying durian and fresh mangoes.

 right now there are watermelons and this other abnormally large melons. i buy large watermelons for 85 roubles, which is about $2.70, cheaper than back home, and eat a half in the morning, after running around all the parks nearby.

he took me to this market and hooked me up with a date connection. i bought 8 kilos of deglet noors (2 boxes) and 4 single kilo boxes of iranian dates which are surprisingly really GOOD! gooey and intensely flavored.

"August - October we have a season of watermelons and melons which really nice.

At late summer there are great peaches, nectarines and apricots plus a lot of local apples.

Also you can find tasty persimmons at late autumn/winter. 

Of course you can always find pears, grapes, plumes, tomatoes and other fruits but sometimes it's not good quality (sometimes it's ok). For example, I don't like to buy Pinapples or oranges here because almost always they are unripe."

im missing a lot of stuff in my own garden right now. about 25 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, blackberries, and different kinds of grapes should be sweet about now.

will try to post often. i have many challenges here. the language barrier is one, but starting tomorrow, i have three hours of language lessons 5 days a week. the musical challenges are far greater. i was discussing some of my music with a conductor, and i basically have to re-bar many of the sections to get the groove and accents i want, and to make it conduct-able and ultimately playable. i will cover that when i get it figured out. i should still cover my living situation. it is very funny. the old ladies (babooshkas) that run the student dorm are a trip. i got in trouble for opening the windows cuz they all smoke and it fills the halls. also one night i came home early like 7 and feel asleep, very tired. but they seem to think that i never came home that night, that i was running the streets. they say it is very dangerous and that i should be back by 10p.

goodnightness

i will lump everything from the last week into this one post in an effort to communicate the things i have seen heard and felt in regards to my travel to russia.

September 15th 10:00 There's really no way to understand a place without being there. 10:17 Ok, let's try this again. 10:17 wonder if I'll make it this time 10:17 feelin good 10:17 maybe because I bought mj legally today for the first time today in a little peanut butter chocolate snack! 10:18 still though, so hard to leave the (almost) everything and one I love: my family my beautiful garden my brother my holi my mom and dad, my Jordan and Tracy my ropeswing my cousins!!etc 10:23 getting on the plane, have to pee, all that good harbin spring water...one minute till my birthday time 10:24 happy 10:24 me Two deportations in two weeks, must be a record! Just kidding I made it through this time. 12:37pm next day (16th) Taking off from Moscow to st Petersburg, on a plane that looks like it was purchased used from the last airline I was on. SFO>lax>iAd>dme>led 4 planes just to get that slightly disturbing but thrilling feeling you can only get by thrusting yourself into a land where you know nothing, nobody, nowhere, and understand very little, with grand dreams of achieving great things, or experiences atleast. Kind of like when I went to Bali, except no coconuts and durian here, just an expected dark mood and some scary looking people. But beautiful people also... Special thank yous to my homies that saw me off the last two weeks especially my cousin Jake for taking me n holi up to lake tahoe for that awesome hike at northwest and refreshing swim in the lake and to gram n gramps house, so good to see them. To Jane Suzanne holi and Jake for taking me to the hotspring for the last time. Being deported was a blessing in disguise because I got see lots of my fam that I haven't seen in a while and would of not been able to see the first time I left, got to record my uncles band, 'the Fellas' live in downtown Vacaville, my hometown, and got to go to the worlds heirloom exposition in Santa rosa before my flight out of sf. This expo was truly extraordinary.

Here are some pictures from the Worlds Heirloom Food Exposition, which is the last thing i did in America, at 6pm in Santa Rosa, California before my flight left at 10:30p in San Funcisco.

truly a world class event displaying some of the most amazing specimens of food in the universe

banana squash

watermelon vase with carrot and celery flowers

cindarella-mobile?

how do like (allllll) them apples?

so many heirloom varieties. it is important to recognize the possibilities beyond your average supermarket selection, and dig in.

these next five photos i took on my first flight to moscow, not knowing i was going to be deported because of insufficient paperwork, fined, and returned to california, to wait 2 weeks for the Russian Consulate in SF to straighten it out:

my flight attendant

celery first class-style. the seats lay down FLAT!!

"almost there, weeeeee, ready to go back?" ;)

this is my favorite page in rosetta stone so far where you learn how to say the people you love.

я люблю мама = i love my mom (mama)

я люблю отец = i love my dad (ah-tyets)

я люблю сестру = i love my sister (syestroo)

я люблю брат = i love my brother (braht)

я люблю деда = i love my grandfather (deyada)

я люблю бабушку = i love my grandmother (babooshkoo)

the first two words are pronounced:

я = ya

люблю = loobloo

and then you add the person

no go tell someone that you love them, in russian of course

я люблю тебя= i love you! (ya loobloo tebya)

DO IT!

here are some touristical photos i took on my second day here:

a concert hall in the conservatory

rimsky-korakov, the russian composer this school is named after

Mariinsky Theater, world famous opera and ballet theater across the street from the conservatory

my school, Санкт-Петербургская консерватория - Римского-Корсакова
(Conservatory of St Petersburg, Rimsky-Korsakov)

a nearby cathedral

construction of another hall of the mariinsky, across the canal

the usual happenings in a catholic cathedral:

if russia is supposed to be this meaty place, tell me why these people are scouring the fruit and veggie section, and the dead animal meat section in empty?? 

lots of little fruit markets, like this (frukti)

my dorm building is in the background, the left, behind the tree

The following day my roomate, Virgil, took me to the city center, where i realized the beauty of this city:

that is virgil, on the banks of the neva river, smoking a cigarette.

during the winter this whole river freezes, and crazy guys cut holes in it and go swimming!

golden stuff on top

peter the great- oddly porportioned

click on the pictures to see them big

we went to eat at a small russian style restaurant. i got this brezinsky salad. basically tomatoes and parsley with oil, oversized chunks of garlic that i put aside, and hot peppers that almost killed virgil

picklish this

apple tree behind the dorm building

restaurant for 811'ers?? i wish

next post i will take you into the conservatory to see some music and opera rehearsals, and other treasures.