Be Carried Away at 36th CIFF

Now that the Oscars are history and my catalogue for the 36th Cleveland International Film Festival has arrived, it’s time to turn my attention toward Tower City.

This year, my friend Cheryl is driving west from Yardley, PA, to sit in the dark for ten days with me, and “be carried away.” I sent her a catalogue today and we’ll coordinate our lists later this week.

A local pal who does a significant amount of business travel, and plans her vacation to coincide with the festival dates, hoped to have the catalogue in hand to peruse during an upcoming flight to Houston.

I considered booking a flight—someplace four or five hours from Cleveland—just to have a block of time with nothing to do but to sit and study the film guide. But falling temperatures, high winds, and snow last weekend kept me indoors, where I read through the guide and marked 73 films “of interest.” I’ll wait to see what’s on John Ewing’s list before finalizing my own.

I noticed that several of the Oscar-nominated short films will be shown at CIFF 36. They are all good and worth seeing—though none took home the little gold man. You can see “Raju” on 3/23 and 3/26, “Incident in New Baghdad” on 3/24 and 3/27 (both live action); and “A Morning Stroll” (animated) on 3/26.

Also this year, the Heights Observer is a media partner for “Lucky,” a film set in South Africa that I had an opportunity to see and write about for the March issue of the newspaper. “Lucky” will be shown on 3/30, 3/31, and 4/1.

In the two plus weeks that remain before opening night, I’ll be busy preparing the guest room and cooking up a storm of freezeable/microwaveable late-night dinners.