MWFF 2015 Day 1

This year the festival is already hard for me because I have to cover it while working full-time (it's difficult lately to get days off at the library) and also while helping my eighty-five year-old mother to move in her new apartment. On top of it, there are twenty-something Japanese movies to watch this year. A though order.

Like the last couple of years, the festival has this feeling of the end of a party. Everybody seems to thinks that it might be the last year, despite Losique's denial (The Gazette, Variety). The festival has always had its critics or doomsayers, and this year again many are asking for change at the top or already planning a replacement. All those talks are casting a shadow on the festival. For my part, as I've said before, I don't really care as long as they continue to show great movies that I cannot see anywhere else. Unfortunately, the lack of funds is showing in the organization of the festival (glitch, scheduling problems, technical problems, communication problems, etc). It seems particularly disorganized this year (but is it really more than usual?).

Unfortunately, my first day at the festival was quite disastrous. The first movie was good. The second movie had so many technical problems (started ten minutes late, microphone problem for the presentation, there was picture without sound, sound without picture, repeatedly) that the screening was interrupted and cancelled a little before the middle of the movie. I had to go to the screening room of the Film Market to see the (disappointing) end. There the copy ran just fine so it's unlikely that the problem was caused by the dvd encoding (the excuse was that since it's a foreign movie the encoding could have been messed up, but usually if this is the case it just either work or doesn't) so the problem must have been with the Quartier Latin's equipment (they were using VLC on a MacBook and a digital projector). It's not the first year that this kind of problem occurs.

And the third movie… was cancelled due to some rescheduling! That's quite annoying. I had made myself a (gruelling) schedule where I could see all Japanese movies, but with those changes it will be impossible. And at least one of the movie that I can't watch is not even available in the Film Market screening room…

Anyway, I'll try to post soon my comments on the two movies I've managed to see today, and you can still check my entry “Montreal World Film Festival 2015” for all the details on this year's Japanese movies.

I also noticed in the Quartier Latin lobby a poster announcing the movie “Paul à Québec” for September 18th. Great!

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