So day one of the festival has passed and its been pretty crazy so far.
It starts off where you register yourself and they make an electronic phot0 ID for you with your photo on so that when you go to watch films and stuff they scan it and it takes points off you (more on that in a second). After you get your pass you are given a party bag with a list of all the films and a directory about every single business in the industry with a photograph of each person from the business that attended the festival. It was insane when I found my picture in this book (i will scan and upload when i get home).
So when you finish all of that you can go to the different Pavilions (american, south african, britsh ect.) featuring different cinemas and sales agents. However I was unable to go to the amercian pavilion as it annoyingly costs $100 just for a ticket their! I was told this is because in the past it had been a very “trendy” hang out, so they thought that they would make money out of it… and now no one hangs their.. (dumbasses).
So when you enter the Palais (which is one of the Pavilions) big security gaurds check your id then scan you for any weapons with a metal detector. After this you are free to wonder around the pavilion running into whatever flick you want (other then the high profile ones, more on that in a second) and checking out all the booths where indie filmmakers attempt to sell their film to distributors.
I only managed to see one film today – HYENAS, the most terrible movie about wearwolf hyenas… i dont even want to talk about it, i was the last to walk out haha.
any way when you start you get 100 points on your id, different (high profile) films cost different amounts and for different times, for example the Robin Hood premier cost 70 points and was extremely popular. I even saw people wondering the streets for hours with signs for it trying to buy tickets off people. With the system you spend your points online at the website then collect them at a ticket booth for long lines. You earn 2 points an hour so if you dont spend any you would have 300 by the end of it all. I havent spent any yet as I am not particularly interested in Wall Street 2 or Robin Hood but as soon as tickets for Kaboom and Black Heaven are available im getting tickets for those midnight screenings.
Their are several films I want to see for walking into including the premier of the Human Centipede which i was suprised to be in a small 36 seat cinema for its premier.. I thought it was kind of big. Also im going to see some crappy films like Alien vs Ninja (ofcourse) so I look forward to that.
Tomorow night I have the Australian Film Commision “Welcome Drinks” party so that should be fun.
Laters..





