Here I am, just back from FEFF. I managed to watch 23 movies in 5 days. And I survived!

In the next few days I’m going to write about the movies I watched, but first I’d like to talk about a dinner we had in Udine.  A friend of us, Flavia, suggested we try Osteria Lo sbarco dei pirati in the city center and I’m very glad she did.  Thanks Flavia!

Lo sbarco dei pirati is a  picturesque place with plenty of traditional stuff hanging from the roof, that warm feeling you get inside mountain huts and a funny owner.  At first he tried to talk friulan (the local dialect) but we could barely understand what he was talking about.

After a very good goulash we ordered gubana, a traditional nut-roll cake.  The owner asked if we wanted it “with slivovitz”.  We said no, mostly because we didn’t know it, but that was a terrible mistake.  The owner reacted as if we murdered somebody, as if gubana with no slivovitz were a criminal sin!  You know, in Italy we care a lot for our traditions and if somebody tried to eat salamina without pure I would react the same.  We had to quickly retreat to re-establish the cosmic equilibrium.

After eating the cake we discovered slivovitz is a strong and bitter distilled liquor and makes a great pair with gubana!  Well, you have to be careful because you can get drunk eating cakes, but it’s definitely worthwhile.  Eventually I researched on the pedia to find out this is the generic name for a sort of plum brandy typical of the slavic area.  Good to know!

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.

Japan, 1941. Three high officials of the Japanese army get an order: find and attack a strategic target. They pick a place at random, and the target is…. Udine!

This video was shown in the theater before each movie.

In four days I’ve watched 19 movies: Read the rest of this entry »

I’m currently in Udine, where yesterday began the 9th edition of the Far East Film Festival. This is the 3rd year in a row I come here to attend the festival. In case you don’t know, FEFF is the largest showcase of popular Asian cinema held in the western world. Here you can see international previews of movies that will come to our theaters months ahead, and several movies that will never reach european theaters. Of course directors, producers and main actors come to Udine to present their work and feel the warm welcome this city can give them. They shoot movies from Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Philippines, and so on.

Today I attended five movies in a row and now I’m exhausted. The most interesting was Eye in the sky. I’ll keep you posted!