The current film festival booking tally stands at 13 over a two week period. This is nowhere near the dizzying heights of my nineties film-going, in which I thought little of seeing three a day, and often over thirty throughout the festival. (The years of my MA were particularly profligate. Procrastinate? Me?) I have now whittled things down using several simple guidelines: nothing available on DVD (Michel Gondry Retrospective, I'm looking at you!); unless it will kill me not to see it ASAP, nothing which is bound to come back for general release within a few weeks (Fahrenheit 911, helloooo); and no indie films well-reviewed at Sundance unless they were also well-reviewed somewhere less kindly disposed to coming-of-age stories about white middle class 20-30somethings. There are also a lot of films which are guaranteed winners for me: new prints of anything older (The Battle of Algiers!); live cinema with orchestra (Buster Keaton!); rereleased schlock (lesbian kung fu movies!); music and pop culture documentaries (Festival Express!); basically, documentaries full stop. I fucking LOVE documentaries.

Thank god we've made it to July. July is a nice bustling sort of winter month with lots going on. June is mostly just rainy and dire after Queen's Birthday. And it's all dark in the mornings and evenings. Meh.