Dear Reader
I was catching up with one of my film buddies yesterday, and he joked that there are only three days now: yesterday, today and tomorrow. Another friend, who I email with weekly for mutual accountability of our goals, commented how time is racing by, except when it isn’t. And one of the singers taking part in the online Jason Robert Brown SubCulture Residency Concert last night, said he’d learnt during this quarantine, that, “even if you have all the time in the world, it’s still not enough.”
Time — I had battles with it before this pandemic, and now those seem to have intensified, heightening all sorts of questions I had about the things I fill my days with. For some, this is a busier time than ever, trying to stay afloat among all the uncertainties. Others are so bored with this time, Tyga made a song about it that SNL parodied.
Luckily, there’s just enough time to worry but not enough to wallow in it all, before another deadline comes and with it, the need to get back to work, and the act of paying bills and living the time we’ve been given.
So, I thought I’d turn today’s newsletter into a special edition about those parcels of time we love so much — film. It’s been really interesting to see how the studios are responding to the shutdown of cinemas, particularly Universal, which is taking some of its films straight to demand (like Judd Apatow’s The King of Staten Island).
Here are some of the other film events that are happening online that I think you should know about, if you don’t already:
1. YouTube has announced a special 10-day digital film festival this spring, one that includes 20 different festival partners, from the Cannes Film Festival to Locarno, Tokyo to the Toronto International Film Festival. Dubbed We Are One: A Global Film Festival, it’s set to run from May 29 - June 7, 2020, and will be available at youtube.com/weareone. The program and lineup of films hasn’t been released yet, but the individual film festivals will curate their own programming tracks. Now, all that’s left is for YouTube to deliver me the pains au chocolat I usually have every May and it’ll really feel like the Cannes I know and love.
2. The SXSW Film Festival is now on — as of yesterday, until May 6, an online edition of the SXSW Film Festival will be available for free on Amazon's Prime video service, even for people who don't have Prime memberships. Watch now (or, you know, after work). I’ll be watching some too, so if you need recommendations, drop me a line.
3. Director Ava DuVernay is hosting an all-day movie-talking Twitter conversation with some of her favourite filmmakers on Thursday.
4. And finally, I watched two short films online that I think would make for a good double feature. One is a short doc that questions how space outdoors is occupied and by who; the other is a narrative short, set indoors, and calls to mind the inner conversations that sometimes need to be spoken out loud. You can watch This Land, which was produced by Faith Briggs, who ran 150 miles through three U.S. National Monuments in the film, here. The Things in Between, written and directed by Miriam Agwai, can be found here. Both short films come with websites full of resources and ways for you to engage with questions each respective film brings up.
Thank you for reading. I hope you found it time well spent. If so, please do share and subscribe. I’ll leave you with the rainbow print British artist Damien Hirst created to help raise funds for the NHS. Click on it to print out your own, in case you don’t have one in your window already.
Stay safe, stay sane
Your neighbour
Nadia