During
the Berlinale after a Forum screening at the Delphi Kino I stopped by the
California Burito joint Dolores at Wittenbergplatz for some soup and got into a
conversation with a sweet young Black American opera diva named Monica from Ohio who
has lived here for over ten years in a suburb near Spandau and her nutty
blondine friend from Texas via Shanghai who has only been a Berlin resident for
six months. Monica saw my accreditation
badge from a distance and at first mistook me for the gay black B-movie director Tyler Perry of the
Madea franchise. Now ain’t that a hoot?
From
my German trolley Dolley pal I just got this hot bit of gossip that Deutsch
super model Heidi Klum was recently removed from a Luthansa flight because of
her ADD bratty mulatto brood. Ms. Klum
always travels first class but sticks the nanny and the kids in business class. Well the kids were out-of-control Regis Philbin style and the
nanny couldn’t get a handle on them so the
flight attendants naturally came to the mother to intervene and she calmly uttered it wasn’t her problem to solve so she
and her entire entourage were unceremoniously left on the tarmac.
Sad
to report the recent deaths of 1960s Lesbian pop songbird Leslie”You Don’t Own
Me” Gore at age 68 and Galic charmer Louis Jourdain of Gigi and Letter From an
Unknown Woman fame age 93. Stars always die in three’s so who will be next? I
wanted to see Jourdain and Jean Peters in the movie Anne of the Indies
which was screened as part of the Technicolor Restrospektiv at the Berlinale,
but because of my tired gout condition I wound up missing many films this
year and restricting most of my Berlinale activities to the Akadamie der Kunste
screenings and Think Film Congress lectures.
I saw nothing from the Competition section so I missed films by Werner
Herzog, Terrence Malick, Margarethe von Trotta and Peter Greenaway. The Herzog flick I heard was a big dud, but I
did want to see the new Greenaway and Guy Maddin films which got rave reviews
from those whose opinions I trust.
Uli
Ziemons of Forum Expanded just sent me a list of the people who were at the Forum
Party that I didn’t mention in my earlier post:
Felipe Braganca (director of Escape from my Eyes), Leila Albayaty with co-writer (forgot the name), Islam Mohammed, Michel Balague (producer of Leilas and Islam's films), Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Black President-director Mpumelelo Mcata with producer Anna Teeman, Mostafa Youssef (producer of Egyptian film Out on the Street), prolific experimental filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson.
Brazilian director Helvecio Marins Jr., Austrian director with film in Berlinale Shorts Sebastian Brameshuber, Forum selection committee member Ansgar Vogt, artist Simon Fujiwara, Stephan Geene and Marietta Kesting of b_books, and Berlin film director Henrieke Meyer, Toby Ashraf, Mark Pennock, curator extraordinaire Anja Lueckenkemper, art dealer Jose Garcia Torres, Chinese director Jian Wen, Haitian director Raoul Peck with his stars August Diehl who plays young Karl Marx and Alexander Eehling who will play Friedrich Engels.
Had
a delightful time at the Cheese Endique Trifecta studio with young Israeli
artist Liad who I will be mentoring while she is working on her graduate program
at UdK. Also spent some quality time with my former Weissensee Akademy student the French tyro artiste Christophe de Rohan Chabot who accompanied me to
one of Manuel Schubert’s infamous
Laundry Parties held at the brand new renovated wash haus on the Haupstrasse. Monsieur de Rohan Chabot is curating an exhibition that opens Feb 27th 7pm at the Auto Center Gallery Leipziger Strasse 56 10117 Berlin that features the work of Pizza Suicide Club, Joep van Liefland, Maik Schierloh, Mark Stroemich and Alexander Lieck.
*
Received this announcement from one of my very dear LA collaborators the amazing young artist Marcus Pontello who worked with me on my project at MoCa in 2011 called Dejecta. He is trying to raise funds for a new film he is working on that he needs financial assistance with. The project sounds incredible so please contribute and pass the word on to others. As you know I don't usually support crowd funding unless its something that i really believe in from people i believe in. Here is Marcus' sincere plea:
*
Received this announcement from one of my very dear LA collaborators the amazing young artist Marcus Pontello who worked with me on my project at MoCa in 2011 called Dejecta. He is trying to raise funds for a new film he is working on that he needs financial assistance with. The project sounds incredible so please contribute and pass the word on to others. As you know I don't usually support crowd funding unless its something that i really believe in from people i believe in. Here is Marcus' sincere plea:
I want to share with you a documentary film I've been directing for two years now called Friday I'm In Love.
It's about the legendary Numbers Nightclub in Houston Texas that has a
pretty amazing history. It started as a gay disco in the late 70s, and
became an alternative dance club/music venue in the 80s becoming home to
goths, punks, queers, drag queens, and misfits alike. Almost every
obscure and alternative band of the 80s and 90s performed at Numbers.
It's a really special place and Houston is really lucky to have it.
We
just launched our Kickstarter campaign- which will be our first attempt
at an actual budget. Maybe you'd be interested in putting it on your
blog or sharing it with friends. We need all the help we can get!
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dinolion/friday-im-in-love-numbers-the-documentary
xox
Marcus
