Who says Cleveland isn’t cool?
We witnessed The Farnsworth Invention on the main stage of Beck Center for the Arts on Friday evening, and it was an excellent play written by Aaron Sorkin who wrote West Wing. Farnsworth invented the television but died tragically without notice. He lost his soul to a dream that he reached only to have it snatched from him. The play so well written and acted that there was little need for the scant scenery. The texture of the words was rich.
Last night Paul and I went to the Cleveland International Film Festival and saw two films. The first, a documentary called The Last Days of Shishmaref, was disappointing. It was produced in the Netherlands and directed by Jan Louter, who took an hour to point out how the island on the northwest tip of Alaska (north of Nome) is disappearing because of global warming, and did so by playing television coverage. We had no sense of why the culture and homelands of these native villagers should be saved--the people no longer hunt with spears or use their dog sleds, do not partipate in religious ceremonies, and give us no explanation of their white-man styled cemetery with its white crosses jutting up from the ground. Shishmaref will soon be washed away to sea and washed anew.
The Black Sea (Mar Nero in Italian), directed by Federico Bondi, was introduced by the editor of the US Italian-American newspaper who made it her cause to get more Italian films on the CIFF's list. The film was extremely well acted and the photography had an Old World feel that lent beauty to the scenery of Italy and a Romanian world where people travel by waterways and haul goods in wagons drawn by horses. A young Romanian woman who wants a better life for her children goes to Italy to make money by caring for an older Italian woman to make money she cannot make at home. The women get off to a shaky start, but the older woman mellows and comes to love and respect the patient and caring younger woman who, in turn, learns that life isn't as simple as she thinks it is.
Yes, Cleveland is cool.
We witnessed The Farnsworth Invention on the main stage of Beck Center for the Arts on Friday evening, and it was an excellent play written by Aaron Sorkin who wrote West Wing. Farnsworth invented the television but died tragically without notice. He lost his soul to a dream that he reached only to have it snatched from him. The play so well written and acted that there was little need for the scant scenery. The texture of the words was rich.
Last night Paul and I went to the Cleveland International Film Festival and saw two films. The first, a documentary called The Last Days of Shishmaref, was disappointing. It was produced in the Netherlands and directed by Jan Louter, who took an hour to point out how the island on the northwest tip of Alaska (north of Nome) is disappearing because of global warming, and did so by playing television coverage. We had no sense of why the culture and homelands of these native villagers should be saved--the people no longer hunt with spears or use their dog sleds, do not partipate in religious ceremonies, and give us no explanation of their white-man styled cemetery with its white crosses jutting up from the ground. Shishmaref will soon be washed away to sea and washed anew.
The Black Sea (Mar Nero in Italian), directed by Federico Bondi, was introduced by the editor of the US Italian-American newspaper who made it her cause to get more Italian films on the CIFF's list. The film was extremely well acted and the photography had an Old World feel that lent beauty to the scenery of Italy and a Romanian world where people travel by waterways and haul goods in wagons drawn by horses. A young Romanian woman who wants a better life for her children goes to Italy to make money by caring for an older Italian woman to make money she cannot make at home. The women get off to a shaky start, but the older woman mellows and comes to love and respect the patient and caring younger woman who, in turn, learns that life isn't as simple as she thinks it is.
Yes, Cleveland is cool.
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