La Pistola

Noah Cowan...

Noah Cowan has stepped down as co-director of Toronto to head up the new Bell Lightbox. Read about it in much more detail, with much better analysis, over at All These Wonderful Things, soon (he hasn't posted anything yet...but he probably will.)

Dearest, (part III)

From Engr Jerry Aliu
Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)
Block 708b Falomo Close.
Victoria Island.
Lagos Nigeria.

I am Engr. Jerry Aliu, the Director of the Foreign Operations in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. (NNPC)

Recently I awarded and over invoiced a contract project in my Department to a foreign firm in Nigeria, the contract project has been completed awaiting to be commissioned, the account department of my
corporation is about to send their invoice to the Central Bank of Nigeria for immediate payment to the
Contractor

So my main reason of contacting you is for you to team up with me in order to claim the over invoiced
amount together. I intend to forward your company’s name to our account department as a sister
company to the Original Contractors to enable them approve the over invoiced amount to you (us)

The over invoiced amount is: $25,500 000 00 (Twenty Five Million Five hundred Thousand United States
Dollars) only.

If you agree to work with me in order to receive this over invoiced amount in your bank account for our
mutual benefit, please get back to me immediately with your full contact details including your phone
and fax numbers so that I can explain further to you.

Thanks
Engr.  Jerry Aliu.

Dear Engr.,
Thank you for contacting and selecting me for the serious and important relationship. I am, of course, open to such a relationship as you detail in your email below, but I would like to outline a few details before we agree in principle to proceed upon our mutually beneficial path. Being that I am from the United States and you from Nigeria (although you address does confuse me a bit?? I though Victoria Island was in Canada and Lagos was next to Vietnam or China or something...) I have certain "insider" information on what may be the most "prudent" way to invest and secure the monies once they are successfully transferred from your person to mine. I have thought on this all night after receiving 
your email just before bed last evening and let me just say one word: Crocs!

You don't know what Crocs are, you say? Well they are all the rage  here and I don't see that train stopping any time soon! Crocs are little rubber shoes that are full of holes (I'm not sure why??) that people all over this country wear and they come in many, many colors and many, many sizes. Even babies here wear Crocs! They probably don't make much sense in countries such as Nigeria or Lagos or Vietnam because snakes and scorpions could crawl through the little holes and kill you, but we don't have snakes and scorpions in the United States and so the little holes are just...cute!

If you would agree to invest, along with me, the total sum of $25 million in Crocs I believe we could double our money within the next 6 months or so...you and I could practically buy Vietnam!

Please consider this offer carefully and please do not pass this information around to any other African countries but keep it between us. I anxiously await your reply.

Sincerely,
Brit

(I never heard back)

Procrastinating on Premieres – Let’s eat.

I’ve been writing and rewriting a piece on the issue of premieres and film festivals for a week or so now. To be honest, I’m not sure what to do with it. The more I find information on who stole what from who, which festival claimed a premiere that actually wasn’t, the sheer volume of first-time filmmakers that have been led this way and that by festivals and film societies that are, on the surface, created to showcase film not hinder where else it can be screened, the more depressed I become. I’ve tried to bring this issue up before with people—festival directors and programmers—and it usually doesn’t get very far.

I was happy to read in a recent Variety article the comments made by Rose Kuo, new Artistic Director at AFI Fest, surrounding the issue, as well as comments by Noah Cowan earlier in the year. Will it change anything? I hope so but I’m not holding my breath.

During this year’s Denver festival a film that was submitted, invited and confirmed for the 2007 program ended up getting pulled (or dropped, I suppose, depending on your point of view.) The filmmaker contacted me and said, “I was wondering if the film screening could be listed as a "Sneak Preview". We've been in talks with a couple of festivals that will only show the film if it hasn't "premiered" elsewhere...” We talked about it for a while and I explained that I couldn’t support that because I felt that was ignoring a problem I saw as becoming all too prevalent in the festival world and we decided to not screen the film as part of the Denver festival. Another festival that had already scheduled the same film did go ahead and agree to list it as a sneak, and so I’m sure I’ll see this title pop up sometime this spring at another festival, as a premiere, which, of course, it actually won’t be.

For the moment though, I’m taking a break on this issue, if for nothing else but my own peace of mind.

So, on another matter, I convinced a great girl with a great job as a freelance food writer in Boston to move in with me a few months ago and leave her work at places such as The Boston Phoenix, The Improper Bostonian, The Dig and as the editor of Boston’s Zagat guide. She just started her own blog on…well, food, and making her way through Denver's culinary scene. You can take a look here.

Catching up...slowly

A lot’s been happening since the festival ended: I spent Thanksgiving in Norman, Oklahoma and watched what may have been my first college football game ever; I got deathly ill and still carry around a rather horrible cough, and I went to Henderson, Nevada for the International Film Festival Summit.

Mike Jones and Scott Kirsner over at Variety and Eugene Hernandez at Indiewire sum some of it up here, here and here, respectively.

While keeping the IFFS contingent locked away in Henderson may have accounted for better participation for the first day’s early morning sessions, by day two cars and taxis were being booked for rides to the Vegas strip not to return until dawn. Or maybe that was just me…it’s foggy.

Below: the lovely Loews in Henderson, Nevada

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