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International

Back from Venice

September 6, 2007 International, Projects, The Nines

I’m back from the Venice Film Festival, where The Nines had its international premiere.

The movie screened three times, but the main public debut was 2:30 p.m. on Monday. At lunch that day, both the sales agent and the publicist separately pulled me aside to say, “So, John, you should know that if the audience doesn’t like the film, they might boo. Or they could throw things.”

And somehow I’m supposed to be psyched about giving a Q & A? Yikes.

So I drank more champagne and looked for escape exits.

Fortunately, during the end credits we got nice, sustained applause (better than Sundance, in fact) and pretty good questions after that. I really love doing a Q & A, though it was challenging dealing with the real-time translation, trying to pay attention to both the person asking the question and the woman whispering in my ear.

One woman asked a question about the ending which was actually a revelation to me, a misassumption made clear only because of the awkwardness of translation. This is really not a spoiler, but I’ll put it in the footnotes so it’s more easily skipped if you want to go in blind.About the ending: Some viewers exit the movie believing it to be a hallucination on the part of one of the female characters, in the vein of Mulholland Drive or Swimming Pool. As the author, I can say that was never the intent, nor is it backed up by the evidence of the movie. But as someone who’s had to write college term papers, I would never claim that any interpretation is wrong. Just less defensible, perhaps. The Nines invites speculation and alternative interpretations, so I’m not about to say one version is “wrong.” But it’s helpful for me to finally understand why some viewers insist on re-contextualizing the entire film in a way I never intended.

veniceThe movie was shown in English, with Italian subtitles. It played differently, with a lot of comedy not making it through translation. Part Two, which is about American television, might as well have been about Martian sodomy. But the audience really responded to the bigger, religious-adjacent stuff in Part Three.

venice2We had a major storm on Tuesday, which knocked out power and made our press interviews challenging. Our main office was actually a temporary, tent-like structure, which held out the rain but kept flapping constantly.

Other observations:

* Ryan Reynolds is a apparently an action star in Italy. They have no idea he’s ever been in a comedy. Most of the journalists cited “Smokin’ Aces.”

* We stayed in Lido, the island where the screening themselves are held, which is a 60 euro water taxi ride from Venice proper.

* Our hotel was where [Death in Venice](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067445/) was shot. It hasn’t really been updated since then.

* If you’re going to not speak a language, Italian is a good language to not speak. Compared with many places I’ve traveled, it was a lot easier to wing it.

* We sold a bunch of territories: Argentina (Telexcel), Eastern Europe (Blue Sky), Greece (Village Roadshow), Israel (Forum Film), Middle East (Italia Film), Scandinavia (Non-Stop) and South Africa (Ster Kinekor). Optimum Releasing had already bought U.K. rights. As always, I’ll keep you posted about release dates. More will be announced at Toronto this week.

* The plan you pick for your iPhone makes a huge difference. Ryan was able to get (almost) full internet on his, while my partner’s iPhone was phone-only, and mine was basically just a pretty iPod. If you think you’re going to be using your iPhone overseas, consider getting the fancy plan.

Summer Reruns

June 28, 2007 Africa, International, News, Recycled

Over the next two weeks, you’ll notice a bit of deja vu at this site: old articles suddenly popping up on the front page, with new dates and old comments. It’s not a technical glitch. I’m putting the site into reruns while I’m out of the country and off the grid.

[Malawi Map](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malawi)I’m going to Africa — specifically, [Malawi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malawi). I’ll be working with an organization called [FOMO](http://www.fomo.co.uk/), which runs programs to help the orphans of Mulanje, a district in the southern portion of the country. [U.S. Doctors for Africa](http://www.usdfa.org/) is one of their partners, and the trip is somewhat under their auspices. While there, I’ll be teaching English and helping repaint a school.

“Why?” is a fair question. A few months ago, I was talking with a student who was just graduating from college. When I asked her about her summer plans, she enthusiastically described an upcoming trip to Uganda. I said something like, “Wow, I wish I could do that.”

Not more than 10 minutes later, I realized there was absolutely nothing stopping me from doing that — other than a bit of fear and inertia.

This isn’t research for any particular project, but it’s homework just the same. Part of a writer’s job is to imagine. I can imagine giant chocolate factories, conjoined chanteuses, and epic sky battles. But I honestly can’t imagine what it’s like to be an orphan in a landlocked country that’s lost a generation to HIV/AIDS. So I’m going to see what that’s like. I’ll end up writing about it here and in other publications, but the main reason I’m getting on the plane is to get some grasp on a situation that is, to me, unfathomable.

While I’m gone, Matt will be minding the store. Please be nice.

La escritura profesional y el auge de los amateurs

April 7, 2006 International, Resources, Writing Process

Daniel Castro has the first part of my essay, [“Professional Writing and the Age of the Amateur,”](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/professional-writing-and-the-rise-of-the-amateur) translated into Spanish at [his site](http://guionistaenchamberi.blogspot.com/). He volunteered, and I wasn’t going to say no.

Decidí que mi conferencia de esta noche no fuera estrictamente sobre la escritura de guiones sino sobre escritura en general. Todos los que estáis en esta sala sois escritores. Podéis escribir guiones o trabajos de documentación. Desde luego, todos escribís correos electrónicos. Todos sois escritores profesionales en algún campo.

It’s strange reading one’s words in another language. My Spanish is good enough that I have no trouble understanding it, but if I were to attempt to do the translation myself, it would be embarrassing for all concerned. So, many thanks to Daniel.

Creative Commons LicenseBy the way, this essay and most of the material on this site (other than the scripts) are covered by a [Creative Commons](http://creativecommons.org/) license, which allows you to use this information for non-commercial purposes as long as (a) you give me credit, and (b) you agree to share your derivative works in the same manner. So if you feel like translating anything you see here in Polish or Mongolian ([ahem](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/mongolian-characters-speaking-chinese)), by all means feel free. I’d just appreciate a link back to the original version.

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