Oxford award ceremony

Award ceremony of the University of Oxford, Department for Continuing Education, 30th March 2010, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford.

Was very nice to meet You folks again, congratulations to all of You and special thanks to all our tutors and Claire & Bob for all their help, support and humour!

Some cool music videos and shorts

There are a lot of different kind of music videos out there. Most of them are usually not that creative. It is also quite current, that good music video directors grow out into film directors with their own special and personal styles. I really do appreciate creativity and personality, when directors put their own individuality in their work. I do often enjoy moving pictures not only because of the story, but because what it offers visuallyThats why I love "Science of Sleep", "Requiem for a Dream", "The Fountain", "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain" or Tim Burton's movies. The director of the first one, Michel Gondry (also directed the "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" used to do music videos and commercials). Here is one he made for Björk's song "Human behaviour":

Some other videos (I do not know all their dircetors :-S) I really like for their creativity, cool ideas :-)

"Her morning elegance":

Laid Back: "Baker Man", video directed by Lars von Trier. Really stupid, relaxed and I love it :-D

Gary Jules: "Mad World" (music for the movie "Donnie Darko")

A cool short film I saw at the 13. Kurzfilmtage Winterthur: "Photograph Of Jesus" by Laurie Hill in association with the Getty Images Short & Sweet Film Challenge

Another very cool short from the Fantoche2010 Festival, "Notebook"

A hilarious short film from Michel Gonry: "One day..."

Once

I just rediscovered this brilliant movie, "Once", definitely one of my favourites (next to "The Fountain" and "Science of Sleep"). A wonderful, melancholic story, which just exactly what everybody needs to see sometimes.

Why do we like melancholic films? Because they are no Hollywood, no blinders, no lies, no hard-core action and violance, but just pure reality from everyday life. How could we enjoy and appreciate what we've got, if we never experience sadnass and pain? At least such movies can bring some of these feelings in the heart of the empathic audience. Not so long ago a friend of ours suggested a very nice low-budget movie starring Joaquin Phoenix, the "Two Lovers", which is even more sad than "Once". "Once" has a kind of two sides, where one of these is really beautiful, but still. I felt first of all really disappoited at the end, sad and broken-hearted, but hopefully for the good. And this is what makes the sorrow taste somehow sweet.

Here are some great tracks from the movie, written and performed by the lead actors (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova), who are actually no actors, but pure musicians, trying to make their living. This is also a thing, I liked in this movie: real, flesh-and-blood people and no perfomers. It makes the whole film even more real. And guess what: we never get to know the name of the Characters. Isn't that brilliant? The story becomes valid generally, we absorb it more efficiently, feel like it is ours and not James and Anna's story, which we can push away from ourselves if we want so.

Now, enjoy, the Oscar-winning music: