I love...

The Seattle International Film Festival which started this week. I love volunteering for it. I love going through the schedule, both online and through the book, and picking out films I absolutely have to see. I love the crazies that show up year after year (true of just about everything I do). I love the opportunity to see a story that I would never have the chance in the "mainstream" cinemas.

Last year, Kelly Rae and I saw a film that might be one of the best films I have ever seen - Gravehopping- it came from Slovenia and it was hilarious, charming, tragic, horrible and brilliant. I managed to see 27 films last year (not all like Gravehopping) of the hundreds offered at the festival.

There are a million stories all over the world and some of them get to be told thru film. One of my favorite directors is from Mauritania (is that a country? um, yes. The Moors, you know, from Northern Africa... oh yea) and he has a new film this year that I'm sure is going to be as great as the one I saw at FESPACO (Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou) in 1998. I've been participating in and volunteering for festivals for a long time and I love every single part of it from loosing track of time because you've seen three films in a row, to loosing a sense of physical being because you've been volunteering and on your feet all day, to loosing your sense of self because you have been inspired, shocked, awed or moved by a story go you got to see.

I LOVE the film festival. And between roller derby, volunteering, roller derby, work (oh yeah), moving and a wedding in Mexico - that is where you'll find me.