The Merry Widow (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, US 1925)is the opening night film at the 2009 Giornate de Cinema Muto 200,

The Music
When I first accompanied The Merry Widow years ago, I was totally struck by this highly creative and inventive film adaptation of the operetta, directed by the genius Erich von Stroheim. Immediately I realized that my "one" piano + singer accompaniment wasn't at all enough to serve this brilliant film. I started a serious quest to develop a score for the film, and at the same time to promote this relatively unknown von Stroheim film wherever I possibly could.

The Hottest Latin Film School: International School of Film and Television San Antonio de los Baños- CUBA

As a filmmaker, deciding what film school to go to is quite a difficult task. You want to pick the best place possible to prepare you for your career, and then several other things go into play, like your budget and your family situation. When I was in the process of choosing an undergrad film school, it all came down to four schools for me: USC, NYU, U of Miami and EICTV. USC was crossed out because California seemed too far from my family in NY and South America. NYU I excluded because I wanted to try living in a new place from where I had grown up, so my last two choices were

University of Miami and EICTV in Cuba.

Alright, so you're a decently trained and young inexperienced actor and you finally got headshots you can live with. Then you got some more done. Now you got an entire book filled with a face only a mother could love and you even went so far as to land a reputable SAG licensed agent who also has the same taste as your mother. You are ready to be sold on the open market, but your agent hasn't had the time to give you the entire run-down. Well here it is. Most people in the biz will tell you never to listen to other actors... this is true, but there are some things that are a part of the starter set you should know. Before you start going out on the castings you've been so fortunate enough to be called on (thanks to those wonderful pictures), there are some necessary things you must have in your bag and in your car (or whatever transport you got) at ALL times. In your bag, you should have:

8:40

The show is off to a great start. Hugh Jackman sure is a versatile guy - not only can he grow knives out of his knuckles, but he can sing and dance with the best of ‘em.

8:47

Penelope Cruz wins Best Supporting Actress - hooray! She created the most hilarious portrait of an artist in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which proved once and for all that Scarlett Johansson couldn't act her way out of a paper bag.

After Dark Horrorfest sounded like a good idea - take eight independent horror films that deserve to be seen and given them theatrical distribution. Launched in 2006 by the Canadian filmmaker Courtney Solomon (An American Haunting), the annual event has unfortunately devolved into a weeklong shitfest. Every year I go, hoping the festival will build on the promise of its initial run, which showcased some solid fright flicks like The Abandoned and Wicked Little Things. And every year I go home sorely disappointed.

In the beginning there was the word, and the word was made flesh. In the middle there was this person named an agent and/or a manager... and they told you what the word was and how it was being used or who was using them, and how you should use these words... and then in the end, the Hollywood Films Casting machine was made whole. So I arrived in Los Angeles with an awesome, almost too-good-to-be-true sounding but entirely legitimate program called The Pinnacle Actor's Group, headed by a wise old man by the name of Lawrence Folgo, who brought 45 years of experience and connections to the program. The program is great in that it offers the determined actor to arrive in Tinsel town with all the opportunities to hit the ground running. It lasted an entire month, and in that month we rehearsed previously found scenes, found new ones, and trained and perfected our craft for the potential agents, managers, and casting directors who came to see our three showcases.

I started working in projection booths in 1999, the year Fight Club came out. As FC fans know, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) has a night job as a projectionist, which he uses as an opportunity to splice frames of pornography into Disney flicks.

Two of the more interesting documentaries on Openfilm, Toward 2012 and Consciousness is the Key, can be viewed on Joao's channel. They're the first in a planned series of animated shorts that, according to the website postmoderntimes.com, present "new ideas about global consciousness and techniques for social and ecological transformation." Consider this blog a kind of CliffsNotes for the videos, which explore serious ideas that deserve to be expounded upon.

In honor of all hardworking, ballbusting P.A.'s whom without the film and video industry would crumble. They are the unsung warriors of film sets, the psychics of the walkie talkies, the krazy glue of "Jenga-like" productions, samurais of lockdowns, peacekeepers with lunch orders... for these and the many more thankless efforts that P.A.'s tackle on a daily basis, I salute you my friends. P.A. proudly!

Knowing what you want to do in life after college, or any other institution’s release of one’s mind, is only a third of the way in the trajectory to becoming something, anything in this privileged slice of life we call America. To the contrary if you don’t know what you want to do and start out in life, after being ‘educated’, with a natural curiosity for things that absolutely feed your sense of wonder and interest, then I feel there is more room for soul searching and experiential gatherings of knowledge.