The worst April 1st joke ever

Yesterday I heard a very shocking news from Slovenia: "They closed Kinodvor!"
I was surprised and ran to the computer to find out more about the news.

During the night the lock is changed and the server with the site is disconnected. Nobody of people working there is notified about the event. So next day, they stand in front of a locked door with no message explaining the situation.
The visitors are also left without any explanation, while the program for April was published on flyers, newspapers and even hanging in the little lit window at the front of Kinodvor building.

The newspapers brighten up the thing: It's not a joke, it's just that Kinodvor temporarly closed. And that all the equipment is gone.

I am totally shocked. Not that Kinodvor closed, with the current management it couldn't go very long, but the way it all happened is just disgusting! Not to tell people who are working there, letting them to make a program, having a meeting about working in the next month. And even then, not having the guts to call people and tell them they don't have to come to work.
I don't know what more to say.

And who did all this? Staš Ravter, the director of Kinoteka. After the first director died, he got to that position because of the intervention of his important friends and not because of his film experiences. The crew of Kinoteka disagreed with that choice and half of them left when he became a director. The other half he pushed so far that they also resigned, because they couldn't stand the situation anymore. He replaced everybody, also the team of Kinodvor, where the building is owned by the city, but managed by Kinoteka. The new team tried to do their best, but under such conditions nobody can succeed, so less and less people came to Kinodvor, the expenses rose and when Staš didn't get more money for it from the city and from the ministry of culture, he just goes and shuts the place down in the most disgusting way.

I can't believe this is all true, I can't believe that he actually sent people ant that they took away the projector, the sound system, the screen ... I was there when those speakers were put on the walls, before the screen was there, how everything was made precisely and with care, it was taking weeks before everything was ready.
And then one person has the power to just take it all down in one night?!

This is awful! I can't wait till elections. I will travel from Holland to give my vote. They just screwed everything up! And if I see Staš Ravter, he will be sorry he ever got involved with film!





April 1st is my birthday ...

Ticket's waste

I volunteer as a projectionist at Lux for a few months now. I missed Kinodvor a lot since I moved to Holland and Lux is somehow filling in for it, although it's completely different. Anyway, I had a shift today and because it was quite calm in the projection department, I went to help collecting the tickets in Cinemarienburg.
The audience was not completely filled although it is a normal busy saturday, but still, at the end I had 54 torn parts of the tickets in my hands. I didn't know what to do with it, so I put it in my pocket.
I'm looking at it now, sitting at home. It looks so small, but if you consider that there is also a 4 times bigger second part of the ticket, which was given back to the visitor, we have quite a pile of paper here.
Paper? Well, if I look closely, it looks pretty plastic, especially the printing side which is meant for thermo printers. I don't think you can recycle this stuff. At least not very easy and with good results. It's full of chemicals.
So, we have quite a pile here. But this was one of 10 audiences (Lux and Cinemarienburg), and each of these has several screenings or shows per day. I assume that most people don't collect their cinema tickets and keep them saved, although some people do. I remember someone who was walking around with all the tickets of films he saw in the last 2 or 3 years. And he was quite a regular visitor the the cinema, so his wallet was very thick, not because of his money, but because of all those tickets he was carrying in it.
If I return to my topic, I want to say this: cinemas produce a lot of waste with the tickets. All those big tickets are printed on non recycled and non-recyclable paper and they are used only for a few minutes, from the moment the ticket is payed till the moment the visitors sit down on a sit which is on their tickets, or they sit somewhere else.
Maybe it's not the cinemas but the companies who provide tickets-printing-systems. They design the system and the cinemas are using it. But there should be some thought given to the ecological aspect of doing this. For example, if somehow recycled material was used for the tickets, or if tickets were half smaller (that is immediately making half of the trash). Further on, there could be a special ticket container at cinema exit - to keep the tickets separately from other trash and then send used tickets back to the producer to destroy or recycle them. There could be a lot done here.

For Maja

Torej, gospodična Maja se je pritožila, da že celo večnost nisem poslala nobenega novega posta. Zanjo, in mogoče še koga, ki kdaj pokuka na tale blog, pripenjam tole fotko:



Tagliatelle z brokolijem, brijem in indijskimi oreščki so zmagovalni J!jev recept, ki pa ga žal ne morem razkriti. Neko soboto v januarju bi to bilo za večerjo, če Maja in Marko ne bi imela odpovedanega leta iz Benetk. Iz taistega brokolija je takrat nastala brokolijeva pita, ravno tako slastna in tudi eden izmed J!jevih zmagovalnih receptov, ki jih ne smem takole javno objaviti.

Da pa bo volk cel in koza sita, recept za tale špinačni narastek:



ŠPINAČNI NARASTEK Z ZDROBOM IN GORGONZOLNO OMAKO
Sestavine:
Za nadev:

• 1/2 zavitka zmrznjene špinače
• 2 stroka česna
• ščepec soli
• muškatni orešček

Za "testo":

• 2 jajci
• 20 g masla
• 1 dl mleka (kolikor zdroba, toliko mleka, meriš volumen)
• 1/2 pecilnega praška
• 120 gramov instant pšeničnega zdroba (1/2 zavitka Droginega zdroba)
• 100 g mladega sira (feta)

Za omako:

• 1/2 dl belega vina
• 1/2 dl sladke smetane ali smetane za kuhanje
• 50 g gorgonzole

Špinačo odtalimo (v mikrovalovki).
Medtem stepemo jajci skupaj s stopljenim maslom. Primešamo toplo mleko, v katerega smo zamešali pecilni prašek. Počasi med stepanjem dodajamo pšenični zdrob. Mešamo okoli deset minut, da se pšenični zdrob ne posede, ampak enakomerno vpije okolico. Masa bo še vedno precej tekoča. Na koncu dodamo sir, ki smo ga zdrobili na majhne koščke in vse skupaj premešamo.
Odtajani špinači primešamo strt česen (ali zelo na drobno narezan), sol in muškatni orešček.

V pomaščen pekač vlijemo najprej plast testa, nato plast špinače in nato spet preostalo testo. Pečemo v pečici na srednji temperaturi 40 minut.

5 minut pred koncem pečenja zavremo v kozici vino in pustimo, da alkohol malo izhlapi. Dodamo smetano, premešamo in počakamo, da spet zavre. Takrat zmanjšamo ogenj in dodamo koščke gorgonzole. Mešamo, dokler se ne stopi, potem malo pokuhamo, da dobimo lepo gosto omako.

Narastek narežemo, serviramo in prelijemo z gorgonzolno omako.

Namesto enega pekača lahko uporabimo več manjših. Na slikah sem uporabila dva manjša modela dimenzij 10 x 10. Zgleda malo, a je zelo nasitno. Če smo pekli v manjših modelih, serviramo skupaj z modelom in gorgonzolo prelijemo po vrhu.
Zadostuje za dva zelo lačna, tri srednje lačne volkove, ali pa štiri na dieti.

Objavljam pa še slike z mednarodnega filmskega festivala z Rotterdamu, jih je malo preveč, da bi vsako posebej pripenjala, zato si jih oglejte tukaj:
http://picasaweb.google.com/polonakuzman/IFFR2008

Busy december

It's been quite a week. I was in Slovenia. I had to bind and deliver my thesis (picture above) and I also helped at Animateka festival in Kinodvor, together with a nice crew of projectionists: Maja, Marko, Jakob, Aulne and Anja. It was also nice to see people I haven't seen a long time.
The festival is one of the best film festivals in Slovenia. It has a nice atmosphere and also takes good care of the crew (that is very important if you are a crew member or if you are served by one of the happy crew members).
Here is a link to the official site, maybe you can find me on some pictures (hardly possible): www.animatekafestival.org. Maja took a lot of pictures of the background, like this one, where Aulne (new French projectionist colleague) and me are doing the competition program action. You can find the whole collection of Maja's pictures here (you really should take a look, they are very nice!).

IDFA

These days I am working in the film/video controle of the festival IDFA in Amsterdam. There is about 400 film titles, mostly video (Beta SP, Digibeta, HDCAM), but also 35 and 16mm prints, and all these have to be checked and verified before they are played. I'm sitting here in front of a video monitor for the 5th day now, and my eyes are SQUARE.



The good and interesting thing is, that we are situated in the Tuschinski cinema in Amsterdam (the upper two pictures). It's a very impressive old building where you can easily get lost. Kinodvor cinema in Ljubljana looks a little bit like that, but then in a very simple basic version (the down picture).