After a pile of screenings - both La Moustache and The Matador were disappointing, but more on that later - I met up with Joe and Kris from the Kissing on the Mouth crew and went down to the Seneca Hotel for a party in honor of Fortissimo Films, a key player in foreign film sales. The bar at the Seneca, called the Chestnut Room, is a dead ringer for the old lounge at the Gramercy Hotel, but cramped with faux-Edwardian couches and, last night at least, a small jazz band. We were led through a back dining room, to another back room, for a brief wine-and-canape reception.

 
I talked to a festival staffer named Tom about Clint Eastwood; apparently, the Dirty Harry movies are huge in Eastern Europe, and young Czech men are known for their frequent employment of catchphrases such as, "Are you feeling lucky, punk?" Bob, the official festival photographer, upon learning that I live in New York, lamented his city's shortcomings in comparison with mine; most greviously, Chicago is apparently in desperate need of a Zabars. I tried to point out that at least there are three Whole Foods in the city, so one needn't fret should the occasion arrise to pick up a good piece of cheese. This was of little comfort to Bob, who rolled his eyes at the very mention of the old WF, and went on to bemoan the Windy City's branch of Bloomingdale's, which apparently also leaves something to be desired.



They shut down the free drinks and kicked us out of the back room around midnight. As everyone gathered on the curb and tried to determine where everyone else was ending up, I got this shot of Fortissimo's Wouter Barendrecht, holding the trophies he had been given earlier in the evening wrapped up like a baby in a styrofoam blanket. Free Zone's Haim Abbass is standing on his right. In the end, most of us ended up going home, whilst Barendrecht and Abbas headed back into the Chestnut Room for a nightcap. And so, abandoned in Middle America, the Europeans find one another and head for the bar ... I love film festivals.