One of the weird things about running a cinema is that you very rarely get a chance to go to the cinema (other than your own). So it’s a treat to hop on our bikes and pedal over to WORM for a screening of Věra Chytilová’s Daisies. Tbe 1966 feature, completed a couple of years before the Prague Spring, follows the antics of two 17-year-old girls who decide that since the world has gone bad, they’ll go bad too. The film proved so provocative to Czech authorities, Chytilová didn’t work on her home turf again until 1975. Madcap feminist farce with loads of giggling, fantastic fashions, feasting, drinking, dancing, collaging and a whole bunch of scrumptious cinematic eye candy, Daisies makes me miss all my dear EPFC youth class wild girls… Carla, Tati, Penelope, Camilla, Tanji, Mia Valentina and Ashley: this one’s for you!

While I stay home and work on my stamppot, Paolo rambles off to Den Haag where he falls in love with the city, meets Frank Bruinsma for a tour of Super8 Reversal Lab and ends up at the beach. Happy Monday!

Our time in Bristol has come to an end and we all shed a few tears on the way to the airport. There are certain places where you feel instantly at home. And there are certain people who just grab your heart, make you laugh, turn the workaday world upside down and you know you’ll be friends forever. You’re a tidy guy, Joff Winterhart.

What shall we do on the first sunny English Saturday since October? How about a trip to the Tor? Pack up the pooch, the tunes and the Super 8 and off we go down narrow country lanes to Glastonbury, Britain’s New Age hippie fun town!

But first a stop at the Somerset home of Joff’s parents. The apple certainly doesn’t fall far from the tree in this family: Jenny (a fantastic seamstress and former dancer) and Pete (a jazz drummer who still plays two or three gigs a week) welcome us with open arms and keep us in stitches with lightning fast banter and running jokes throughout the delicious lunch. Evidently talent, humor and tenderness are hereditary.

On to Glastonbury! After overloading our senses on incense, auras, damsels, mystic murals and Jethro Tull-style wizardry, it’s Tor time. As the website says, “It’s no ordinary hill: people develop personal relationships with it.” Welcome to Camelot country! After stopping to fill up our canteen with magical water (tasting of “blood and metal” according to Joff) from a spring where all kinds of frumpy faeries and dreadlocked druids are dancing about, we head toward the tower with visions of King Arthur dancing in our heads…

It’s the day of the much-anticipated Bucky/Here & Now gig and we’re so excited we can hardly stand it! But first, a visit to South Bristol’s Knowle West Media Center where we meet Penny Evans, Dane Watkins, Tom Stubbs (we’re huge fans of My Two Toms!), George Gallop, a fellow who had a “one-hour silent conversation with Winston Churchill” sometime in the 1940s, and the incomparable Michael Smith, creator of Dark Fox. This is definitely our kind of place, right down to the snacks and sustainable building model… when can we come back and do a community filmmaking project?

After some intense collective panic when Peep Peep devours an entire HEMA dark chocolate bar (much to our relief, the only consequence seems to be a perkier Peep), it’s off to the fabulous Here Gallery (Finnish Flip Books? Issue #5 of The Gentlewoman? The new Cometbus anthology? Yes, please!) and then two doors over to Cafe Kino for the big show. Located in the Stokes Croft neighborhood, known for Banksy’s Mild Mild West Mural, Turbo Island and the No Tesco Protests, Cafe Kino serves up very tasty vegetarian/vegan eats and DIY events. Add the magical glow of Bucky and the place is a magnet for every sweet, smart, nattily-dressed, talented person in the entire city! Sassy Burmese women? Got ’em! Dapper gentlemen rockers with adorable punk teens in tow? Got ’em! Moms and Dads? Got ’em! Bicycle film fest programmers? Got ’em! The King of the Stage? He’s here! Son of the writer of the 1971 Coca Cola pseudo hippie anthem “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing?” He’s here too! The multi-talented Sue of Number One Bus fame? Yes, she made it… all the way from London! Michael, the world’s most adorable sound man? Oh yeah, right over there! Doctor Hannah? Of course she’s here! Really cute girls wearing really cute glasses? There’s dozens of ’em! Every single person in the room is smiling’, singin’, hootin’ and hoppin’ around to the sonic wonder that is Bucky… Ooooeee mama, Simon and Joff rock the socks off the place and put an ear to ear grin on my face…. This is what they call A Tough Act To Follow! But this crowd is in it for the long haul: they raise a drink, they share the love, they dig the Bingo, they laugh, they cry and they totally ace the Xochilmilco breakdown… Oh boy, Bristol, you are the BEST!

We’re here in Bristol (England’s sixth biggest city) to visit our pal Joff Winterhart, an amazing artist, animator, drummer, teacher and EPFC’s beloved 2010 Summer Artist in Residence. After staying up late last night eating sweet potato soup, pettin’ Peep Peep (officially rated as one of the top three dogs in the world) and catching up on everything that’s happened over the past year and a half, we ease into the new day with strong coffee, Sister Gertrude Morgan and Future Wives (From The Past) - dreamy! Then a windy walk through curving narrow streets, past the pastel houses to the park filled with skinny dogs and then through the graveyard and down into the town where we are lucky enough to run into Bristol’s most powerful characters: Granny Pat in the Cat Coat (“I’ll show you my pussy anytime!”), Cowboy Ken, Gina/Gino the Chatty Trannie, Pete The Barber #2, The Meanest Thrift Shop Lady In The World, Bernard “not my actual name” Hunter at BristolCine (where we score an amazing copy of Soccer Giants of Brazil on Super 8), angry D.R. Butts the Butcher, and oh so many more. After all this meeting and greeting, we’re famished. Time for some delicious fish and chips!

One of those winter days when the sunlight streams down so bright and beautiful you really do believe spring is creeping up around the corner.

In the morning: the first day of ceramics in a local studio after a long search. More on this at a later date but in the meantime: Thank You, Leslie!

In the afternoon: a visit to the Rotterdam Municipal Archives where we peruse some fantastic 1920’s city symphonies, including De Brug by Joris Ivens and Nul Uur Nu by Simon Koster. We also pick up a copy of Cinematic Rotterdam: “This publication zooms in on the part cinema has played in urban development between 1920 and 1980.” Could there be a more perfect text for The Sound We See: Rotterdam? Thank You, Anouk! Thank You, Floris!

In the evening: a community screening at WORM of the films neighborhood youth have been working on for the past three weeks at Digital Playground as a kind of warm-up to The Sound We See. Great job, everybody! And a special shout out to our powerhouse lady recruiters from Sonor and TOS who are working so hard to connect the kids with the project: Thank You, Ariëtte! Thank You, Tica! Thank You, Ceciel!

Who knew that southern Holland has its own Catholic Carnival tradition, dating back to 1385 and inspiring paintings by Pieter Breugal and Hieronymus Bosch? On Monday, the Carnival is in Breda (about a half-hour train ride from Rotterdam) and while festivities in this small city may not exactly be on par with those in Rio or New Orleans, we are nonetheless exposed to some very high energy celebrating by seemingly every Dutch person under the age of 80 within a 200-mile radius. Basically, there are zillions of freaky floats, tons of confetti and streamers, cacophonous music coming from all corners, everyone is in costume (plush animals, Indians, fairies and anything showing off the chest area seem to be the most popular), everyone is singing, everyone is dancing and everyone is drinking copious amounts of beer (well, I can’t vouch for the kids)…. Paolo succinctly sums it up: Kinda like Gay Pride without the Gay.