Last November, I helped out with the Montezuma International Film Festival. Montezuma, Costa Rica is incredibly beautiful and relaxing, although if you're running a festival you have to keep in mind where you are and take time to enjoy yourself- my tendency was to worry and work too much! I did fall asleep on the beach once, though, and had a blast hula-hooping...
Anyway, one way I contributed was getting ahold of Sita Sings the Blues for the festival, and it was quite popular! Consequently, we ended up showing it a few extra times. The lady who owns and runs a health-food restaurant there, Organico, particularly loved the film.
At the time, Nina Paley hadn't given the film away yet- she only had festival rights, so it was even more special to see. Explaining the copyright situation after one of the screenings, an older lady immediately offered to donate to Nina's cause!
A very sweet writer named Brit interviewed Eric and me and wrote this lovely article about "Sita Sings the Blues" and the Montezuma International Film Festival:
Montezuma Alights, Curtain Calls and All.
Brit said "see you next year!" as we parted, but I'm already using all my vacation time on animation festivals (Annecy and Xiamen), so I don't know if I'll make it...
But it was fun to unearth that article, I'd forgotten about it!
Brett W. Thompson's art blog.
