bone blog roma 2

Anna, my translator arrived at the hotel at 6 pm, she was picking me up for my radio interview at radio rai tre. It was the beginning of the evening rush and I was hanging on tightly as we raced through the streets on her motorino to get to the station. It was a real radio station, which I had never seen, introductions were made to the host's of the show, Mario and Dario. It's a weekly national broadcast called hollywood party, they were really funny taking the piss out of hollywood, and then I was introduced, and I said Buona sera e buona sera Italia, and I was live on the radio, but anna and I had practiced so it went really smoothly. I understood most of the questions in Italian, there was no translator pause. We had time for a quick aperativo and admired the fascists architecture of the local fire station, then back onto the motorino, in the now deep blue evening sky of Roma for the first night of the festival which opened with eisensteins STRIKE with a live musical performance.
Massimo, the quasi head of the festival said it was time for me to go to work, being on the jury of the international docs we dutifully entered the cinema, but not until I informed massimo how i had forgotten to tell him that I hate docs, of course he said perfect. The cinema Farnese is on the northern end of campo di fiori, it is a gorgeous sixties cinema with pink seats, a great house. Two docs, quickly, an isreali doc "to see if i'm smiling" about woman drafted into the army and fighting in the west bank, awful shocking images one does not see on television, the contradicting affects on the womans' spirit from this experience, but it was alot of talking heads and it kind of drove me nuts, 2nd doc was shot in mumbai and was the oppisite of talking heads, it was a strange view of the caste system in India, as portrayed by a cleaning woman and her employer. Mumbai is insane, and the cleaning woman lakshima was great. A wonderful religous ceremony where her tongue is pierced by a stick. Of course the night always ends deep in gossip, deep in cinema.
more tomorrow

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