Between a movie and the next one you can sunbath on the grass in front of the theater or sit at the internal cafè. Here at the FEFF in the middle of the crowd it happens strangers will sit at your table and you suddenly find yourself doing conversation in a casual group of half a dozen people, one from Beijing, one from Klagenfürt, one from Udine, one from Villach. You can feel like you are in a global melting (G-s)pot, and that’s not just for cinephiles.

So once again I’m attending the Far East Film Festival in Udine. This year they run 8 movies a day and there’s practically no pause to eat. If you want to miss nothing you need a catheter Yesterday I got two autographs from NAKATA Hideo (director of Death Note movies) and YAMAZAKI Takashi (director of Always Sunset On Third Street). Stay tuned.

1495, Japan is collapsing under US attacks. Their navy has been defeated at the Mariana Islands and now the last line of defense before invasion of the main land line is Iwo Jima, a black volcanic isle in the middle of nowhere. 20000 men are there preparing for the battle. They know they are in huge disadvantage and they’re going to die under US sheer power, but no matter what, they will fight to delay invasion as much as they can. To improve their resistance, they hide in tunnels they caved under Mount Suribachi, desperately trying to find a meaning in all of that, most of them taking off their lives hugging bomb, under cultural pressure. Read the rest of this entry »