Zurich Film Festival part 2

Just did this trailer tonight. I know, I know, its not perfect...

So, day two is past and I saw three movies. The last one was a unexpected surprise. In a positive way.
I am dead tired from sitting in a cinema (who would have believed that but the sound system killed me. Tune it down guys!!) plus I got in a random police Swiss check. And as a foreigner in this country they have to check if I'm not a wanted criminal, they checked my bag, body check for weapons and so on. And that takes 20 minutes or so... but we feel safer in CH now... as this country is top on the list of violence, murder and rape. Yaha.
I regret I didn't take a picture of this, or film it...

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But back on the movie score.

First one I saw was actually a sum of Japanese short animation movies called OneDotZero: J-Star. There were really some really good ones as expected from Japan. But I'm not gonna comment that.

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Now, the second one was A primer of urban painting by Ben Lewis:

Now, as Ben Lewis was saying in the Q&A session after the movie that the movie took 5 years to film and produce due the low budget and the extensive travelling he had to do (US, France, Japan, Brazil, Holland, Germany etc). And you could see that. I bet for the passionate public for the street-art, graffiti, urban writers and so on, its must be a must see. For general public as me I would say that its to long and at the end its just becomes a bore! No question, the insights of the subculture are valuable and makes you a bit more aware about the city surroundings but the montage and the music its just repetitive. I regard this movie as a Frankenstein, putted together from different pieces filmed by to many different camera guys and the cut by video editors who tried to salvage the material. Inspirational but becoming tiresome. As slow as Frankenstein.

I give 3/5 for the effort.


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The unexpected surprise was The Big Bad Swim directed by a "new comer" director Ishai Setton and having a modest but talented cast as: Paget Brewster, Jeff Branson, Jess Weixler, Ricky Ullman etc. Names I personally never heard before, but I am very bad in recalling names!!!

The main focus of the movie is a swim class were "aquafobics" learn to... swim. The troubled instructor of the class is Noah, played brilliantly by Jeff Branson. That is the start point from were the characters start to develop. We slowly find out about the divorcee to bee maths teacher, young striptease dancer and her nosy brother, the elder happy married couple, the guy who is horrified by the idea of being in the water and their ambition to change their life. The way the characters develop is a very organical one and the plot tries to stay away from clisee's.
The most surprising part came actually after the movie, in the Q&A session with the director. The movie was shot, for financial reasons, in 19 days! And had over 36 investors (father, mother, dog etc). Budget was "way under one million" as he was saying. I still wonder how much under ca it be?
From this low budget production Hollywood can only learn.


Working tomorrow. Got to get myself some sleep!


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The trailers of Urban Painting and The Big Bad Swim hold the rights of their creators/producers.
they are only linked.