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Yesterday Echo Park Film Center’s Filmmobile entered MacArthur Park and gave a free workshop for kids and older kids! Direct animation on 16 mm film! Make your own animation film with cut out paper stuff! And then: music on the stage! Yummy tacos at taco stands!

Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts MacArthur Park presents 50 summer concerts annually.  Admission is always FREE, making live music and the arts accessible to all!

A pinhole camera shot:

Morning here, night there … hello sleep well!!

I could not find better words, so I paste and copy the Echo Park Film Center & Villa Aurora’s words right into my blog:

Echo Park Film Center and its roving band of cinematic troubadours come to the beautiful hills of Malibu to present a night of short animated and experimental films to remind you of the beauty of life and living. Bring a blanket, a loved one and an open mind to sit under the stars and watch a collection of short films made by the Echo Park Film Center collective (& friends) between the years of 2001 – 2013.

This magical evening will include prizes and surprises, popcorn, Dagie Brundert (a visiting filmmaker from Berlin), laughter, love and the occasional tear.

All ages welcome. Sell your TV and come to the cinema. We look forward to seeing you.

*********

Now that was a wonderful event!

50 people and 1 dog enjoyed a summer evening sitting on the grass watching short films that have been made during workshops of the Film Center – so many lovely different films about flying rats, weddings in the Ukraine, Dirndl girls in rape seed fields … and so much more!

[The Villa Aurora was built in 1928 in the hills of the Pacific Palisades.
Villa Aurora is an international meeting place for artists and intellectuals fostering a lively exchange in the fields of literature, art, science and politics. It is located in the former home of exiled German-Jewish writer Lion Feuchtwanger, who founded „Der Spiegel“ in 1908, and his wife Marta.]

That was a perfect combination!!

I learned today: Michelada is a drink. Beer served in a glass with a salted rim (like Margarita). Plus chicken soup. Or chicken broth (Hühnerbrühe).
There’s a cool restaurant in Silverlake that Paolo and I went to this evening, called Diablo. We had a fantastic dinner. It was a Mexican restaurant before. California was something else before. I was a Scandinavian alien before. Whatever.
They made a popsicle of it. Not of the world but of the chicken soup. Bite in it, drink a sip and lick salt.
Wow.

I’m in love with my pinhole camera! I’m just setting it up somewhere and beauty slips in.

Gimme a smile!

Waves! Waves! Analog and digital!

The workshop is done! 9 people having fun! And me and helpers-co-teachers Paolo and Rick!

We split into 3 groups and went out filming … then came back and started the alchemistic kitchen performance: mixing coffee / red wine / jacaranda blossom tea with vitamin c and washing soda for the most interesting smelling and developing soups!

They worked fine! We got films! Black & white negative! Beautiful! Full success, yeeeeha!! It’s such a crazy miracle that it is possible to use almost healthy natural stuff instead of more or less poisonous regular developer! And in the end the developed films look almost the same! Coffee is the crispiest solution, red wine is dense and has many grey shades, jacaranda tea the same!

And to conclude that intense day I had a film show in the evening … showing some of my old and new films, also in the Echo Park Film Center, yay, we had a good time, thank you audience!!

They do it once a month: the Echo Park Film Center (that’s where I’m at this month, lucky me, tiny artist in residence, huge eco developer!) … opening the screen for filmmakers that just drop in and bring their works. 16 or 8 mm or digital, anything is possible.

What an interesting evening! I was quite amazed to realize that almost all films had something in common: brutality and horror elements. A war like scenery woman tortured man trying to rescue. Killing her in the end, thank you. Slowly of course.
A post modern female artist being defined, annoyed and molested by a man that she finally kills and transforms in an art piece, hopefully.
The only female artist that showed a film (besides me) presented an annoyed Jesus suffering on his cross in the desert. Looking for a reason? For lost religion?
Oooff …. heavy stuff, also conservative in terms of gender. Is it prettier to see a woman being raped and tortured? For me it just sucks. War is brutal, right, I agree. Is it prettier to see a woman being raped and tortured? For me it just sucks. Is it prettier to see a woman being raped and tortured? For me it just sucks.

OK, enough shitting: the best film of the evening was made by … name forgotten … coming later … a 17 year old cool greasy hair guy … a film in black and white, contrasty like hell, about another guy, coffee addict maybe, restless, weirdo cuts and breaks, awesome sound and music. Congrats! Keep on keeping on!!

This is me just before the screening:

This is Paolo doing the best announcement ever:

16 mm and a long way to go …

It takes so little to make a naked hallway beautiful!

My local supermarket is Vons and I was wondering where the name comes from – here we go: the founder was called Charles Von der Ahe, aha, now I’m a little wiser than before!

This is my home for the next four weeks and I’m the happiest gal in the world!

…. and it’s raining for days ……

How can I explain „Duttmädchen“ … Berlin Kreuzberg-Neukölln Hipsters wear skinny jeans, a full beard and their hair in a bun. The latter mostly girls. Oh yes, and glasses. Hornrims. Black. All!

Bingo: I found 3 in a row!!

I caught a ball in its flight while my pinhole coffee camera took a picture!!

Negative and positive, ugly and not so ugly, pin hole camera original and photoshopped inverted corrected positive!

I was on an experimental summer embracing country weekend – strolling through fields and meadows, collecting flowers and herbs, buying potatoes from farmers, mixing them to tea and juices, using them for developing TriX super 8 film material (black & white negative processing) and you know what came out? The most beautiful films you can imagine … a soft grey-brownish tone, quite grainy (it’s TriX!), very dense. I am amazed! Thrilled! To be continued!

Watch some films: Kartoffel – Vergäpfelweikilöps

I love coffee, I love pictures, I love old analogue stuff … this is my Illy pinhole camera, it has a tiny hole (about 0,32 mm diameter) and you can put film negative or photo paper inside, it snuggles nicely into the can.

Last Sunday the world celebrated the international pinhole day! So I thought I’d take an easy photo, lazy, on my balcony.

Developed it (a piece of old Ilford paper) of course in Caffenol. Photoshop inverted it.

Exposure time 4 minutes.

Spring comes to town! People wear flowers and feathers in their hair!

At the sea. The Baltic Sea. End of winter, strong East wind.

photo © Jochen; for me!