• DECONSTRUCTING DAD •

Across the river from the main festival venue...

Just back from a truly memorable 4 days at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic.  Though it’s a world class festival that attracts stars and players from the top of the heap, it also caters to thousands of young people who each summer make a pilgrimage to this world famous mountain spa town at the beginning of July — and contrary to what you might expect, the festival welcomes these young backpackers, even providing camping facilities.  Partially as a result of this philosophy, the KVIFF is known for having really enthusiastic audiences, and that was certainly the case for Deconstructing Dad.  There were two full house screenings while I was there, with excellent Q+As after — and a third after I left.

Yes...me in a tux!

But at the other end of the spectrum from backpacker campsites was the opening night party and screening.  This was a black tie event and though I’m generally more comfortable with the backpacker group, I dug out my old tuxedo that I hadn’t worn for maybe 10 years and wrestled my way into it.  Getting dressed that night was kind of agonizing….all those buttons!  I couldn’t bring myself to wear the “official” white pleated shirt though, so managed to find a purple dress shirt so I could be a little bit different.  Anyhow I can state with pretty much absolute confidence that this is the only shot of me in a tuxedo that will ever appear on this website!

But I had a great time, (was also interviewed for the festival daily newspaper, as well as by Hana Gomolakova for the English language prague.tv website — here’s a link), saw several fascinating films, and recommend this fest highly to anyone who can make it over there to attend in the future.  Thanks to all the people who make this festival a truly extraordinary event, especially Pavel Klusak, the festival programmer for music films, and to Anna Purkrábková also from the programming department, as well as Jana Ptáčková from guest services who does a great job supervising travel and lodging for all the invited participants.

Also, in my rush to get ready for the trip, I didn’t get to post about an interview I did in May for a radio show on the University of London radio station.  They put together a terrific piece about the film and Raymond Scott for their Technically Classical  radio show.  To have a listen to this half hour show click here.  Thanks to Laurel Murray and everyone else at the show for making it all happen.

Stay tuned for some imminent announcements about other upcoming events…