Obselidia at The Ashland Independent Film Festival

Originally posted on The Southern Oregon Wine Blog, I feel it is worthy to share with more people! 

This weekend was the epitome of spontaneity and that means many blog posts are coming out of it.

On Friday we pulled up the schedule for the Ashland Independent Film Festival, saw a 12 o'clock showing, got in the car making it just in time to be let into the Varsity Theater to see Obselidia.

Synopsis: Believing he's the last door-to-door encyclopedia salesman in the world, George decides to write The Obselidia, a compendium of obsolete things. George believes that love, among other things, is obsolete. In his quest to document nearly extinct occupations, he befriends Sophie, a beautiful cinema projectionist who works at a silent movie theater. Sophie believe that nothing is obsolete as long as someone loves it. When they interview a reclusive scientist who predicts 80 percent of the world's population will be obliterated by irreversible climate change by the year 2100, the two must fact the question, if the world is going to disappear tomorrow, how are we going to live today?

I couldn't have written anything I agree with more than this review from Variety, "From the striking title cards to the beautifully composed visuals and unusual collected items that litter the protagonist's home, Obselidia has the look of a hand-crafted piece, something meticulously sculpted or painted in an artist's studio."

After the showing, Diane Bell, writer and first time director, got up in front of the audience for Q&A. Previously a yoga instructor in Barcelona, Diane moved to Los Angeles to pursue writing. After feeling dissatisfied writing Hollywood horror movies, Diane started working on Obselidia with inspiration from encyclopedias and climate change. Filmed in 17 days, on an extremely low budget of $500,000, and casting literally off the LA street, Obselidia was a Sundance Film Festival selection. This showing in Ashland is only the second festival the movie has been involved in, but plans to participate in film festivals in Texas, Florida, and in Diane's home of Edinburgh, Scotland are next up for the indie film. Hopefully the film gets picked up so more can enjoy its message, but if not, Diane and her husband, Chris Bryne, talked about taking the film a more viral route.

While leaving the theater, a woman asked me what movie I saw and I responded with my favorable recommendation of Obselidia and how impressed I was with my first visit to the film festival. She too saw the film and said it was movies like that which bring her back year after year to the Ashland Independent Film Festival. Next year, attending the film festival will not be a spontaneous event in my Friday, but rather a planned out trip to catch as many wonderful films as I can.

Obselidia will have one last showing at the festival tonight at 6 p.m. I cannot urge you enough to go see it. For more information go to http://www.ashlandfilm.org/.

If you miss its last showing tonight, or want to follow Obselidia success, join the facebook fan page.

Triple Axels at the Ashland Ice Rink

Prior to this weekend I have never been ice skating. When I heard Ashland had an outdoor rink in Lithia Park my eyes lit up!

When I first got to the rink I was so excited to see the handicapped children enjoying ice skating. It was so heart-warming to see them skating around the ice with their walkers and huge smiles on their faces. I was so touched I even took pictures of them. Then Chris informed me that those walkers were ice skating training tools and they were not disabled children. My idealized dream died, especially when this kid started ramming his sister with his walker causing her to fall.

Here we are- Joe, Bonnie, Chris and I! No one fell, technically, although the wall did run into Bonnie. :)

The boys were getting pretty daring with their "jumps." If that is what you can call lifting your skate 3 inches off the ground. Not quite a triple salchow or lutz, but mighty close!

After hitting the ice for an hour we were ready to warm up at a local pub with peppermint patties (hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps=the staple of my holiday diet) .

The Ashland ice rink is open daily through the winter. They even have night skating on the weekends. I had a fantastic time and I want to make it a yearly tradition!