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| A scene from Cold Tropics. |
By John Esther
Riddled with incompetence, the Hollywood Brazilian Film Festival 2011 slowly started its opening night.
Scheduled to commence at 8 p.m. patrons were held in the cold air outside the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood until 8:25 p.m. No explanation for the delay was offered.
Twenty minutes later after we were admitted, somebody from the film festival addressed the audience. Rather than efficiently go through the typical laborious yet understandable Opening Night procedure of thanking sponsors and volunteers before introducing the filmmakers smoothly and without incident, the audience was subjected to a series of banal flattery, self-congratulatory speeches, lame jokes and repetitive chatter before any films would begin.
Over an hour later after the show was supposed to start, the lights went down and the festival film schedule started with a wonderful short film called Recife Frio (Cold Tropics).
Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, who was in attendance, Recife Frio poses a futuristic scenario where Recife, a northern tropical city of Brazil, mysteriously encounters a drastic climate chance that leaves its citizens coping with some crazy cold weather. In response some discover a new marketplace for further consumption, while others find consolation and answers in religion, others use song, others move out and many others die.
Smart, satirical and shot with impressive precision and scope, the 24-minute mockumentary takes a long bite at global consumerism, self-preservation and idiotic self-reliance.
After the short was over, and people continued coming to and fro the theater, the opening night film, Craft, started at 9:30 p.m. without the sound. After playing and tinkering with the moving image on the screen for five minutes or so, the theater lights went up to fix the problem.
Having had enough, at that point I departed the Egyptian Theatre for the evening.
Now running through June 5, for more information on the festival, click HBFF.
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