La Pistola

The Movies That Missed Us

(Benjamin Smoke)

One of the great things about programming for a film festival is traveling to other festivals and being able to see the newest films by directors I love as well as discovering first time works. One of the worst things about programming a film festival is seeing something I love at another festival and inviting it to screen in Denver and not getting it. There are myriad reasons why this happens; premiere policies at other festivals, distributor and sales agents roll-out strategies that don’t match festival dates, a single print that is already booked elsewhere, etc., etc.

Another great thing about being part of an organization that also operates its own year-round theatre (in our case, the Starz FilmCenter) is that occasionally I can go back and put together a program of films that didn’t work out the first time around for the festival, re-imagine and re-package it all for the film center and still be able to introduce new works to Denver.

I’ve done just that for a series that will screen in June: The Movies That Missed Us, part of a monthly program at the Starz FilmCenter called, appropriately, The Series. Taking place every Wednesday at 7pm, The Movies That Missed Us looks back at 4 films I saw (and loved) at other festivals but have never screened in Denver.

June 4 – Svjedoci (Witnesses)
(directed by Vinko Bresan, Croatia, 2003)

June 11 – Benjamin Smoke
(directed by Jem Cohen & Peter Sillen, USA, 2000)

June 18 – Seom (The Isle)
(directed by Kim Ki-duk, South Korea, 2000)

June 25 – Taxidermia
(directed by György Pálfi, Hungary, 2006)

More on each of these films as we get a bit closer.

Dearest, (part V.4, the breakup)

Florence! Holy Crap!! What kind of hell hole is this place?!? It’s impossible to find a computer, nobody speaks English and it’s kind of loud. What do you mean betray you?? I flew half-way around the frickin’ world for you and you’re now telling me you’re not even here!!! What the hell is dakar senegal...are you making that up? Is that a street name or a village? I took a picture in a tree because I thought that it was cute and that there was a chance that we would be living in a tree once I got there and I was trying to prove I could adapt. I’m no “trick person.”

Help me. Come get me. I’ll meet you at the The Lion of Judah Monument tonight at 7pm.

I’m hungry.
Brit

Hello My Dear,

Thanks for your mail, Well it surprised me the way and manner you acted in this matter, I wonder what you take me like, Did you went through the first mail i sent to you where you realy knows all about me, Iam told you before that i am from Etopia stay now in dakar senegal and you are there asking me if dakar is a village or what,???? Dakar was a capital city of senegal located in west africa,; How can you make arrangement of coming to meet me with out even phone call and inform me that you are coming,? was that not sound stupid to hear from you? Now you claim to be in Etopia that my country does not speak english, Hey common this your joke was very expensive, Now listen, If you went through the first mail i sent to you, And you are willing to help me send to me all the information i ask you so that we can began on how to contact the finance house, You can as well give me your number where i can reach you or call me with the number i gave you, I am here in dakar senegal located in west africa, Bye

Florence,

You no matter need know in this,we have obtained connection on dearest Brit and computudora from etopia judah. Order in to for you to conntact again Florence need provide willing persons with US dollars, please must contact me on this informations soonest.

dawit

My Dear,

Thanks,I think when you are seriouse let me know,Have a nice day,

Florence

(and we never spoke again...)

Dearest, (part V.3)

My dear, dearest, Flo,

Trouble is afoot. My wife (who, contrary to you referring to her as a him is indeed a HER...please know that I only roll on one side of that equation if you know what I mean)...anyway, my wife, SHE, found my emails to you, and saw the photos of you. I shouldn’t have printed them out, framed them and placed them on my bed-side table, but I did and what’s done is done. She asked me who you were and I said “my sister, Florence” but she didn’t buy it. I’m thinking this:

I come there and open an account in a small town somewhere close to your camp...a camel ride away or whatever it is you ride. Jeeps? Horses? I don’t have a clue. That way we move the money right quick fast into that account and then I come pick you up in the, on the...whatever, and we ride/drive back to town and buy a villa or yurt. Please give me your thoughts. I tried to call you on the number you left me but there are no “+” signs on American phones. That must be an African thing. Is there another number I can try that doesn’t begin with +??

I’m so, so sorry but am sure this will work out. I am already packed (she kicked me out of the house) and ready to fly over there as soon as I hear back from you.

Email me right away, and by the way...you’re a total babe. Where did you take that photo? It almost looked like a kitchen or something but I’m pretty sure you don’t have kitchen’s there. I’ve seen National Geographic and those little mounded dirt ovens...do you have a boyfriend you are hiding until I get there? I’m cool with that as long as he doesn’t have an AK.

Love,
me

Hello My Dearest,

Thanks for your respond,Well iam happy reading from you,Having gone to read your mail i can really understand that you care much about me,Why should you print the pic out when you know that your wife will set eyes on it?I never wanted to hurt your wife as you know,Well the pic was took in kichen of the Dr of the refugee camp ,My Dearest,I never abide on close account here in africa,Idont want that and i will never allow you to do that;I told you to help me first to contact the finance house where this fund was deposited to know thier proceures that is why i ask for your informations,Does it take you anything to send me your informations contact,Well here is the direct number+221-77-44-99-389

Call and ask about Miss Florence Naissm in woman department,I will also be happy to see you soon,Bye

Florence

Dear love,

We no longer have time to argue about this. I am in Paris, at the Charles de Gaulle airport right now. I caught a flight last night and have a connection to Addis Ababa in three hours. PLEASE give me your address so that once I arrive in Ethiopia I can get back on a computer at the airport and take a...taxi?!?...or whatever to your camp. We will then meet with the finance house and set up our accounts there. I love you and will see you soon. I hope this doctor you speak of is an OB-GYN and not your boyfriend. I will try and call you as soon as I land, assuming that the phones there have the “+” sign on them. Don’t worry about my wife. She’ll be taken care of.

I’m so excited!! All my love,
Brit

My Dearest,

Thanks for writing me,Well i am happy for all this of your effort but it is a pity that in a transaction like this it is not a matter of surprised because i never want to deal with some one who can betrayed me or do anything harmful.Why is that i sent you mail yesterday and ask for your information the next thing to hear is that you are now in Parish with out even giving me your ticket number for me to confirm whom you said you are?Did i told you that i am in Etopia?I told you that i am from Etopia but stay now in dakar senegal camp is that not what i told you?I gave you a number and you refused to call me?Well if i dont finalised whom you are even when you told me you are in senegal i will not believe you or even told you about my inheritance since you hide even your own pic and hide inside tree and send me as your pic,dont be a trick person because i am a relestic girl and i contact you to help me retreve my fund,if we love each other we can then move into love afair if so desire but this time you make your own arrangement with out giving me some confident to know you well and where you are staying,anyway,;I want more about where you are now,try and call the number i gave you since you are now in paris ,hoping to hear your call,Bye

Florence

(to be continued...)

Dearest (part V.2)

Hello My Dearest,

Thanks for your mail and for your concern about me.I am really once excited hearing from you.My Dearest,This is not matter of been rich but a matter of been releastic and honest.I am honest girl and i have been serching for a good respected man who will show me love and kindness, But if i may ask dearest? Why do you think you can divorce your wife because of me? Well i understand what you mean in the area of used the same account with your wife, Now my advise now is that i want you to please send to me your personal information like your complete name;,Your address and phone number, I will submit it to the bank where this my fund was deposited, Soonest the fund procedures process have taking place, Then they will advise us how to transfer the money if it is good to open a new account then we shall by then understand, My Dearest, I thought you will send to me your pic as you said,Please send to me all this information which i ask and also your pic,I promise to send you my pic tomorrow because i have drop it where i will scan it, As soon as i got it to my email box i will send it to you, Please i will stop here now, Love and care from

Florence

Hello to you, my nubile Nubian (is it okay if I call you that?)

I am excited to hear from you as well and I know you are honest and I would only be leaving my wife for an honest girl like yourself. But now I am confused. Do you not want me to leave my wife?? How can we be together if I don’t leave her? I will admit that I am not a worldly man but I have head that it is often custom to have more than one wife in many African countries and Utah. Is that what you would prefer?? I will do that if that is what you are asking of me, but only because I love you, be sure that I don’t love my wife. She isn’t a catholic sister either but she sure acts like one, if you know what I mean. Please clarify this one small point because this makes a HUGE difference as to whether I need go through all of the trouble of opening a new bank account (it really is a pain) or if we can just use our other wife’s. Once you tell me WHICH account to use I will give you the numbers and then you will come here to me and/or me and my (other) wife. Do you want children?

I miss you. I’ve enclosed a picture of me playing hide and seek in a tree. Do you find me handsome?

All of my love.

My Dearest,

Good day, Hopefully that everything is fine,I really take good look at your pic, Though you refused to show all your body to me to enable me take good look at you well? You are hidding inside tree why?Meanwhile,The attarchments is my pic for you to see as i promise,Though it took me time and energy to do this just to let you know that i really care.My Dearest, On the issue of dirvorce your wife because of me,I am not much surpose but anyway since you said you dont love him any more well is ok but i never want anything harmful to me when i come to your country please, From the little i saw in your pic,You really look fine though i did not see you well, Again ,If you listen well to my mail i ask for your personal information first to submit to the finance bank where this my inheritance was depisited so that we should first know thier procedures please do not fail to send me your contact as below.

1.Your complete name
2.Your resident address or office address
3.Your telephone and fax

So that i will first submit your informations to the finance house and know thier procedures on how to claim this fund from the care,Please this number belong to the camp office,When you call ask about Ms Florence Naissm in woman department+221-44-99-389

I am waiting to hear your sweet voice, Bye and have a nice week end,

Yours Florence

(to be continued…)

Dearest, (part V)

Well, this one went on for quite a while so I’m going to have to break it up over a couple days. Introducing Florence, from Ethiopia.

My dearest
I am miss Flornce Naissm from Ethiopan i am single and 25 year old girl. Immediately after going through your profile i made up my mind to contact you for friendship, marriage or long term relationship because you are my choice of trust and i see nothing wrong with the choice that i have made in you. Now that i am in a state of absolute confussion I must reveal to you that my daddy was the Financial controler to the Common Wealth West African Region who was killed with my mother in a gun short by un-identified family enemies on the 10 of February along Addis Ababa international Airport road in Ethiopan and i am the only child.

Before my daddy died he made me the beneficiary of his final WILL and i am the beneficiary of the sum of 7.5 Million USD$ in his Domicilary USDollar account; I have the bank statement of account with me here. My friend ( sister francisca) who promised to take me to london invited me to The Catholic Sisters Mission Chies, here in Senegal to avoid my family enemies who killed my daddy from attacking me so that i will travel to london through the Catholic Sisters Mission, But it did not work out as i am not a catholic mission sister and recently my friend was posted to a catholic church in a village in the gambia (the next country) Because i have no means to travel to london I need your assistance to help me claim and transfer the money into your company or private bank account in your State and as soon as the Bank transfers the money into your bank account, you will buy your ticket and come to dakar and take me to your country. After your reply i will email you the contact information of the Bank where my late father deposited the money; and also send my photo to you. i will be back soon to receive your lovely reply. Do reply me on email address: naissm_florence@yahoo.com and in your reply do give me your personal telephone number and address. Take good care of yourself honey.
I remain yours ever,
Miss Florence naissm

Dear Florence...honey,

Let me say that I was so happy and excited to receive your email!! I am single also (or, at least, will be by the time you get here...) and I would be most honored and proud and pleased to help you with this and arrange for you to come here to me. Let me be clear—this is not about the money, although obviously it will help us live well! Second...I am SO HAPPY to hear that you are not a Catholic Sister!! I have nothing against religion and will be happy to become religious if you’d like, and Catholic seems as good as any of them (plus they seem to have lots of babies if you know what I mean!)

Do you have a photo by chance. I can send you one of me. Please, please send me your photo. In regards to whatever it is I need to do to help you with your will, just let me know and I will assist you in that right away. Have you ever heard of the band Pharcyde? They are an American rap group. They have a song that goes:

Now there she goes again, the dopest Ethiopian
And now the world around me be gets movin in slow motion
when-ever she happens to walk by - why does the apple of my eye
overlook and disregard my feelings no matter how much I try?

I hope you don’t overlook and disregard MY feelings, but I’m sure you won’t. By the way, “dopest” means good, or hot..like sexy.

Please let me know what’s next and I hope to hear back from you right away (and don’t forget the photo.)

Love,
Brit

Hello My Dearest,

Good day my dearest,Hopefully that everything are amright,I am also so excited reading from you,I dont really know how to thanks you for your understand and your kindness,I believe from your mail you really sound very good and you seems to be the kind of man i should trust for love,As i do know that with honest love and trust that solid relation will still be made no matter the distance,My Dearest,It goes like this,I am a girl that believe in love,I love listing music like R Kelly music Tupac and Rmb.It happend that ever since i lost my parents i have been lonely and asking for God not some one who wil help me for my inheritance but also some one whom i can trust and love,Well i cant just say anything now but my wish and my prayer is that God will lead us to the best way of life so that it will be a things of joy and happiness.I have been going through hell here though you will not understand it all but glory to God in every condition,Actully,I dont believe in religion i only believe in God and mercy and love,And iam working hard to make sure that i am among of them God will show love and Kindness,Well dearest,I wanted to send you my pic but it happend that i have not surceeded today to look for where i can scan it because here in camp we dont go out all time,But i make this promise that i will try as soon as posible by tomorrow or next to see where i can send it,My Dearest,Please also in your next mail do send me your photo also,To let you know about this fund,It was deposited by my father as i have told you,The reasons why i contact you is to please assist me for the claim and transfer this money into your account for security purpose.According to the govering law of this country,People under refugee was not allow to make any claim of inheritance that was why i want to submit your information to the finance house and inform them about you as my partner so that they will tell us their procedures on how to released and transfer this money into your position,Please this are the information i needed to submit to the finance house as below,

1.Your complete name
2.Your resident or office address
3.Your phone and fax
4.your present occupation,

Please my dearest,This are the information require from the finance house so that i will submit all this information to them and introduce your name to their custudy as my foreign partner,As soon as i got it i will send it to them so that we shall hear from them,Please you are welcome to express your feelings about me all the time,Do not forget to send me your pic also,As my promise,I will send mine as soon as posible also,I have to stop here now my dearest and i wait urgent for your mail,Bye

Yours Florence,

My dear Florence,

I thought you would never reply and I got worried. I’m so happy to hear from you and I’m so happy to hear that you like Tupac! Thug Life! Thug Life! Anywho, I’m sorry to hear that you were unable to send a picture because I was really, really looking forward to that. Could you draw one for me? Pencil would be fine and I’m sure that would give me a good idea. I have a wonderful imagination. I promise I will send you one as well in my next email.

Here is my only problem at the moment. Until you arrive here in the US I can not tell my wife about you, but I promise I will leave her the moment you get here if not before (I’ve been looking for a reason for years!!!) Here is the tricky part that I would like your advice on. Since I am married, and PLEASE PLEASE trust me that this will not be a problem, but since I am at the moment, we share a joint bank account. Well, okay...it’s her bank account. She has the money and is very much a bitch about letting me have any of it, which is another reason I can’t wait to be with you...you’re beautiful (I’m imagining), you’re rich, and you told me that you would share lots of money with me (and let’s not forgot that part about NOT being a catholic sister!)

So, what do I do? Do I open my own account and send you that information or do I get my bitch wife’s account information and give that to you? Please tell me and we will get this done because I am dying here with her.

By the way, sorry abut your dad.

I love you and hope to hear back from you sooner than soon.
Brit

(to be continued...)

Democratic National Convention / Cinemocracy

As most everyone knows, the Democratic National Convention is taking place in Denver this summer—August 25-28—and it’s shaping up to be a dandy. We, at the Denver Film Society are working in conjunction with the city of Denver to produce an online film festival that is taking place now and leads up to the convention that asks the question, “How do you define democracy?”

Submit a film up to five minutes in length answering that question, and the top 25 videos (as determined by public online voting) will be screened publicly during the week of the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The top five films will be screened as part of the official program of the 31st Starz Denver Film Festival (November 13-23).

The top ten vote getters will be flown in and provided hotel rooms so that they can take part in the events and parties taking place here in Denver during the convention.

For more information and to submit your film (it’s free), go to cinemocracy.org.

Crispin Glover / Spike Lee in Denver

A pretty fantastic pair of upcoming events at the Starz FilmCenter I wanted to mention; first Crispin Glover will be here for three nights (April 18-20) to present his Big Slideshow, his film What is it? followed by Q&A’s and a book signing. I’m really looking forward to it. Relive some of your (or my) favorite Crispin Glover moments here, here and here. For a preview of the Big Slide Show, go here. For times and tickets, go here.

On May 1, Spike Lee will be in town for an interview/conversation in conjunction with the University of Colorado at Denver's CU-Live! program. Leading up to that the Starz FilmCenter will be screening four of Lee's films on April 27-30; Malcolm X, 25th Hour, Crooklyn and Do the Right Thing. For more information or to ourchase tickets, go here.