by Preposition Joe
It’s ten a.m. on a cold, wet Sunday, and indie film director Miranda July has stepped onto the stage of Sydney’s State Theatre to talk to us about her film The Future. But first, she gushes … I can’t believe, she says, so many people have come out in the cold and the rain on a Sunday morning! Thank you so much!
And I think, Miranda, have you met these people?
- Number of films seen: 23 (of a possible 34)
- Total hours of cinema: 40.383
There are really two festivals. In the evenings, Jack Black may be mugging his way down a red carpet premiering Kung Fu Panda 2, or Cate Blanchett in an Armani suit launching Hanna to a constellation of flashbulbs. At this festival, which starts as the sun sets, Bright Young Things talk knowingly about Murakami and Malick, relentlessly perky publicists herd gloomy Russian directors in and out of limousines, and serious academics chat about how the New Egyptian Cinema goes hand in hand with the Facebook Revolution.
But by day, a hardier, less glamorous breed of filmgoer is keeping the festival alive with their subscription tickets. Every April the call goes out, and every April we sign up, not just for a few films here and there, but for the duration. We see the films afforded to us, nine days of movie-going, from ten a.m. to five p.m. every day, thirty or forty films in all. We get the same seat we had last year, and we know our neighbours.
Of course we’re here at ten a.m. on a bank holiday in the pouring rain, Miranda. It’s our job.
Continue reading Sydney Film Festival 2011 – Memoirs of a Subscriber
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