I'd been sick the whole time I was in Chicago, and, for the first few days, after shuttling around in the cold from film to film to film, all I wanted to do was go back to my hotel and eat soup in bed. But Monday night, my last night in town, I slapped myself in the face and forced myself to go out and party. It's a tough job, having to hang out with smart, interesting and funny people for hours on end, but someone's got to do it.

Generally, CIFF sponsors two parties a night: a dinner, and a "late night event". Monday night's dinner was somewhat sad, a soggy-calamari-strewn affair in an empty sports bar on Madison Street. On the left, that's Nick Redman and Vassilis Katsikis. Nick is a filmmaker and a member of the CIFF documentary jury, and Vassilis is the director of World Cinema entry, the experimental pseudo-documentary CCTV. They arrived at the airport at the same time and came, brutally jet-lagged, to the evening's first party together. I sat with them whilst they debated whether or not to go on to the second, which was to be held at a legendary former-speakeasy called The Green Mill. The promise of the ghost of Al Capone got Nick there; I didn't see Vassilis, so I assume he went out to the hotel.

Nick, a documentary filmmaker and frequent festival guest, said something interesting about the psychological downside of sitting on a jury. "The worst part," he said, "Is when you realise you've given the award to the wrong person." Joe Swanberg asked, "How soon does it take you realize?" Without missing a beat, Nick responded, "About 10 minutes."




That's Joe, on the right, sitting next to Shannon, who appears in CCTV. Nick kept calling Shannon "my muse". I think I missed something that happened before I sat at the table.

A few of us got in Joe's car and headed way up north to The Green Mill, the site of the night's "late night event". On the way there, Miroslav Mandic, director of the documentary Borderline Lovers, broke down the struggle he went through to get the Bosnian government to give him money for his film. He had requested a $10,000 grant, but as he put it, "You have to buy a lot of dinners – and dinners are only the beginning." When Borderline Lovers was invited to the Locarno Film Festival, Miroslav says he assumed the grant would go through. "Bosnia only gets put on the map a few times a year - a soccer player here or there, one or two films," Miroslav said. "For whatever reason, this is one of the few films that travels."



Above: Borderline Lovers director Miroslav Mandic, and festival staff member Bob.

But, as Miroslav put it, "Somebody else must have bought more dinners." Even though the film has been invited to fesitvals the world over, the grant didn't come through. "You'd think your government would, not reward you, but at least compensate you for your costs, for the money to give the crew who couldn't eat." I was sitting in the backseat of the car with Kris Williams and Kate Winterich, two members of the Kissing on the Mouth crew. They made their film on weekends in between day jobs; it cost a small fraction of Miroslav's hoped-for grant, and all out of pocket. To them, a $10,000 governmental grant would be a huge windfall; to Miroslav (and for not insensible reasons), his government is shirking their duty to support artists.

There was a band on stage at the Green Mill. They were very good, but the bar seems to have a no-talking policy during performances; a staff member actually stood behind the bar, shushing people. So it was a bit hard to schmooze and mingle. The highlight of the night came when a Polish soldier recognized Joe, Kris and Kate and complemented them on acheiving the stated goal of Kissing on the Mouth: "You have removed the body from erotism". That's not a typo – he kept saying "erotism", not "eroticism"; I wasn't sure if it was a language problem, of if the guy was just really into Bataille.