Duingt dive site
Earlier today.
[flickr-gallery mode=”photoset” photoset=”72157632626270608″]I was in Pully this weekend for the fifty year celebrations of the City Club Cinema celebrating half a century of existence. There were a number of special events, from a silent film being screened with a live orchestra to a number of documentaries being screened as well.
I particularly enjoyed the documentary screenings because the documentary producers and some of those interviewed in those documentaries came to the screenings and presented their films before the film and answered some questions at the end.
The documentary the I enjoyed, or at least found most interesting was “La Citadelle Humanitaire”, a documentary by Frédéric Gonseth and Catherine Azad. It explored the work done by André Rochat when he worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen in the 1960s. The documentary explored the interesting work carried out by these humanitarian workers and the challenges they faced. It was told as much by André rochat as those that worked with him.
It showed some of the challenges they faced, from where to situate the hospital to having more mobility, facilitating prisoner exchanges up to the point of hostage releases being negotiated successfully. It’s a great piece of documentary making and within the next few days a few of the Q&A questions should appear on this blog as well as my own.
A second documentary that I watched, but that did not appeal to me quite as much was La Reina del Condòn by Silvana Czeschi and Reto Stamm. It confused me. I couldn’t see why an East German would come to Cuba to speak about Sexual liberation in a machist country. I couldn’t see any of her motivations in carrying out such a project. If I had produced the documentary that’s what i would have concentrated on. I would have interviewed her more extensively, spent more time exploring the personality and the motivations behind what she did.
What we had instead was an exploration of three or four people’s views which did not make the documentary uninteresting so much as that famous “So what?” question that an English teacher used to always ask me to elaborate on. It’s the same with this film. I simply think the exposition could have been more researched.
Umare Te Wa Mita Keredo (Les Gosses de Tokyo) by Jasujiro Ozu is a 1930s film from Japan looking at two children at this specific moment in time. It’s a silent movie where the two main characters are Children and a few days out of their lives. What made this screening special was the live four piece orchestra playing live at the front of the Room.
Finally Lars and the Real Girl was also screened. It was a strange topic to be explored but it made me think of the Film Parle Avec Elle to some extent, the role of online and offline relationships as well as dealing with people with certain characteristics. It’s a comedy and as a result you’ll spen some time laughing but at the same time it’s a reflective film into how we behave. I found the film to be quite interesting but another individual said that it was a little too slow so it’s hard to say whether you’d enjoy it.
Overall I enjoyed being at the City Club for their fiftieth anniversary, having interesting people to meet and good documentaries to watch.
Because every day is not the same this one has been quite normal. At eleven in the morning I found out that the motherboard for the macbook pro needed replacing and this should be accomplished by Tuesday. In second the day of work was a good one so I was energetic enough to drop by the caribana for a second night, meeting a few friends.
It was also an opportunity to do some live streaming of concerts by Alanis Morisette, Stereophonics and last but not least (so far at the festival) Manic Street preachers.
Here is a collection of the streams.
If you tolerate this your children will be next
Something to do with Autumn
You all know this one: Your love is not enough.
Stereophonics, Dakota
Stereophonics, crowd having fun.
Alanis Morisette, broke but happy
Once again I was out in the rain walking around a city. Once again I was looking downwards and then up. I was also looking around and navigating through a city I have been to before but only for a meal and on my way to another place. I went there for a blogobar event many months ago. More recently I went through the city on my way to a Via Ferrata near La Chaux De Fond. This time was different. I was meeting people who stare at their mobile phones when walking around city. To many of you this describes what you think is wrong with society. Too many people withdrawing from society, not interacting. This isn’t the case.
These people who met from 10am on a saturday until 1145 before a group picture was taken are ingress players. Ingress as you know from previous posts is a muntiplayer augmented reality game that people play by walking around in the real world. They walk towards buildings, monuments, statues and other sights of interest. As a group, as I wrote about yesterday we had three missions as a group. I only did two of these with the group. One of them required a physical walk up to the castle of Neuchatel and back down the slope. As we walked we saw parts of the city which I had yet to see. The second walk was from the train station down towards the lake side.
This is relevant for two reasons. The first of these is that I am a hiker and in summer I spend my weekends in the mountains. The second is that I have walked around more cities than I can remember. The best way to get to know a city is by walking. You gain a sense of scale. You understand it’s geography and you also see what points of interest are where and how they are connected. Rome is a city which I visited many times alone. I love the city because I love the life style contrast between Geneva and Rome. I also love the city because of it’s history. Where else do you park a car in a basement next to some Roman walls. Where else do you have two Millenia of history so visible?
Ingress today offered me an opportunity to meet with strangers and do activities with them, to see parts of a new city and to have company. So often mobile phones are associated with solitude and isolation. Through this account you may understand that mobile phones and especially smartphones can be inclusive. The conversations that we had through social media have faded as the noise has gone up and this is where social augmented reality games can pick up. They can provide a new opportunity for people to connect.
Next month I plan on going to Firenze for another event. So far over 600 people have signed up. They will come from around Europe and around the world to meet in a beautiful city with a rich cultural history. This will be the backdrop for the game. I look forward to visiting the city once again and meeting new people precisely because of smartphones rather than despite of them.