John August

News

The Nines goes to Venice

Follow Up, News, Projects, Sundance, The Nines

A reader alluded to it in the comments of an earlier post, but today we can officially announce that The Nines was chosen to play the Venice Film Festival as part of Critics’ Week.

(At least, I assume we can announce it. We were sworn to double-super secrecy, which is presumably now over, since it was in [Variety](http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=Cannes2007&jump=story&id=1061&articleid=VR1117969003&cs=1) this morning.)

Critics’ Week runs the first week of September; our exact slot should be announced today or tomorrow. Coincidentally — but fortuitously — our U.S. premiere is August 31st, so it will be a busy couple of weeks of promotion.We’ll be launching in New York and Los Angeles, and maybe one other city. How quickly we expand to other cities depends on how well we perform in our first two weeks.

We’re the only U.S. feature in Critics’ Week this year, which traditionally aims for a wide spectrum of international releases. The other films in our category hail from Mexico, France, Kazakhstan, Russia, Italy, Belgium, and Taiwan.You can see the Italian film listing for The Nines (‘I Nove’) at the [SNCCI website](http://www.sncci.it/default.asp?content=%2F34%2F46%2F672%2F2222%2Farticolo%2Easp%3F). If any ambitious readers feel like translating, have at it. I just like the adjective “lynchiano” — “Lynch-ian.”)

How psyched am I to be going to Venice? Ohsovery. I didn’t travel to Cannes when [The Nines screened there](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/nines-at-cannes), but that was really just European market screenings for distributors. This is the international debut. I can’t wait to have awkward conversations about the meaning of the film in broken English while jetlagged. And mildly drunk on Italian wines chosen for their melodic names.

Briefly, since I know these will be the first questions raised in the comments section:

* The trailer is done, and should be up within the week.
* The trailer competition is happening, but had to be back-burnered while other stuff got finished.
* No, I don’t know when we’ll be playing in Omaha. Or if we’ll be playing in Omaha.
* Ditto for Argentina.
* I’ve seen the international one-sheet, but the U.S. poster is still in discussions.
* We’re rated R. Presumably for language.
* The official website is getting rebuilt on more-robust servers.
* The movie is unchanged from what premiered at Sundance.
* The movie will be on 35mm in some theatres, digital in others. I’ve seen both projected. They’re different, but equally valid. I’ve considered doing a post about this process, but it would be Geek Factor 8.
* I have no idea when the DVD would come out, but they’re already working on the special features.

My role in Transformers

Film Industry, Los Angeles, News, QandA

questionmarkAre you in TRANSFORMERS? There’s a quick shot of a soldier escorting someone away from a helicopter. On screen for two or three seconds. Looks EXACTLY like you.

Just curious.

— Ben
Los Angeles

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but as far as I know, I am not in [Transformers](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418279/). I have a somewhat ordinary face, and coupled with my big bald head, it’s not uncommon for someone at the gym to say, “You were really good last night on Law and Order.” (Apparently, my doppelganger was a white supremacist.)

But I can’t say definitively that I’m _not_ in Transformers.

Years ago, a friend called to say, “I saw you in ‘L.A. Doctors!'” That was a CBS show at the time. She described the scene: I was walking a pug on Melrose Avenue. Which was in fact my dog. I was probably walking home from Starbucks when a second-unit camera crew caught me. (Yes, they should have had me sign a release. No, it’s never worth pursuing.)

I guess it’s possible the filmmakers digitally put my face on some random soldier. They certainly had the technology; they put all those tentacles on Bill Nighy for the second and third Pirates movies. But [Occam’s Razor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor) would suggest it’s probably just a guy who looks like me.

Home

Africa, News

[Malawi Map](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malawi)I’m back from Africa — physically, at least.

Mentally, I’m still floating somewhere over Dakar. The potent combination of jetlag and unprocessed emotion is making it very difficult to commit to that last leap over the Atlantic. I was only gone two weeks, but it felt like months. Like an alternate timeline, with extra days slipped between seconds.

Like Narnia, but with smoke, orphans, and red dirt.

It’s not that time dragged. Every minute was full, from the dark blue hour before sunrise when the overachieving rooster would start his business, to the hour after dinner, when a casual conversation with the program founder would reveal an unexpected, mind-blowing twist. For the first time in 15 years, I wore a watch, only to look at it in amazement as I went to bed at 7:30, exhausted.

At least twice each day, as Ryan and I were painting a mud brick wall Bermuda blue, we would look to each other and say, “Hey, do you remember when…”

Inevitably, we were referring to something that had happened just the day before.

Like all great trips, so much had happened so fast that it became difficult to keep events straight. More than that, the Now was so overwhelming, so emotionally dangerous, that there wasn’t an opportunity to process. I’ve never kept a journal, but for the first time I found myself making bullet points of the day’s events, just to clear them off my mental blotter. Like a to-do list in reverse.

I’m working to get photos up on Flickr, but in the meantime, I’ll offer one short video clip. No single example is going to sum up the whole experience, but this gives some sense of why I’m still somewhat stuck in Malawi.

Summer Reruns

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.