love, dreams, marriage proposal, karaoke, toenails, thirst...

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Originally uploaded by Zozo.

these themes help describe the weekend i just spent back in good old Rotterdam...

For the last two years I was always wanting to go and see some of the hundreds of films on offer at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, but it was always a very busy time for conference preparation for AI & budgetary challenges from Xmas holidays...

So this year Mum and Dad have bought me a pass and tickets as an early birthday present...so I saw four programs in the last two days...


the movies i really enjoyed were:

* FRAGILE - short Swedish film which the director describes as a film about 'having too much love to give.'

one scene i remember is a woman giving advice to another woman and telling her that in order to be ready for love one should look into the mirror and keep on looking, looking, until you really love what you see

* CHASED BY DREAMS - non-Bollywood Indian film which for me was about how often we have dreams that we think we are chasing with a lot of energy and effort, but then we realise that if we take some risk our dreams are already part of our reality and within reach

* THIRST - made by a Palestinian who is living in Israel, it describes human thirst for physical things like water and food, but also more deeply, love, education, freedom...and how someone often has to have the courage to change to quench these thirsts.

the low light was a short thai film of a guy cutting his toenails (twice) and his finger nails whilst listening to jazz music.....???

looking forward to the next installments next weekend

weekend highlights also included singing up a storm with some trainees and AI members at a Chinese karaoke lounge, feasting on Cliff's Chinese cooking and a manager at a mobile phone store asking me to marry him next Friday in exchange for a free contract!!!