Thursday, May 06, 2010

Russian Film Symposium & Silk Screen Film Festival

Pittsburgh gets some amazing film festivals, and they're not always that well publicized. Since I moved to Pittsburgh, I've seen fantastic films at festivals dedicated to Czech Republic directors, Jewish-Israeli directors, GLBT topics, Chinese directors, Global themes, and local filmmakers. This doesn't even count the many film series and festivals I've missed, such as the Amigos del Cine Latinoamericano, Romanian Cinema on the Edge, the Cine-stan Festival for Turkmen and Kazakh films, the Polish Film Series, the Indian Film Festival, the Italian Film Festival, the Syrian Film Series, the German Avant-Garde Film Series, and many more.

Last night was the kickoff of the public segment of the 12th annual Russian Film Symposium, with the screening (at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Melwood) of a powerful mother-daughter film, "Wolfy." The next three nights continues the Russian Film screenings (all films from 2009), also at Pittsburgh Filmmakers on Melwood (North Oakland). Tonight's film, "Oxygen" (a "rap parable") comes highly recommended.

As Merge Divide has mentioned, starting Friday is the Silk Screen Festival of Asian films (screening at all three theaters connected with Pittsburgh Filmmakers--Harris, Melwood, Regent's Square). This festival is aiming to put Pittsburgh on the map by being the best of its kind.

In one of my Pittsburgh fantasies, I put the Melwood screening facility more obviously on the map by getting a Sprout grant to paint a red carpet on the sidewalks all the way down Melwood Avenue, from two or three blocks away, leading right to the door of the theater. I love this theater and photgraphy/film facility, but I wish it was a little easier for newcomers or visitors to find, and that it wasn't so dangerous to cross Baum Boulevard as a pedestrian.

3 comments:

nemo said...

cool idea!

John Morris said...

That was Merge who posted that, I was too busy trying to cover all the news in the wider region.

And cover my head from the falling Dow.

nemo said...

go gold go!