milov.nl

Interaction design • webdevelopment • web art • photography

me

I'm Milo Vermeulen, a 33-year-old webdeveloper and photographer living in The Hague, The Netherlands. This site is my personal weblog/photolog/code playground.

You can email me at milovermeulen@gmail.com, and find me on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr and last.fm.

February 2010 (continued)

IFFR film 14: Nymph / นางไม้ (Thailand): 3/5

Dreamy atmospheric Pen-Ek Ratanaruang treatise on the dangers of extra-marital treehugging.

IFFR film 13: Ante / Karera (Adolfo B. Alix Jr., Philippines): 2/5

IFFR 2010: Adolfo B. Alix Jr.

IFFR film 12: Toad's Oil / ガマの油 (Japan): 4.5/5

My favourite film of IFFR 2010. Wonderful directorial debut (and starring role) by one of my favourite actors, Kôji Yakusho. A funny colourful moving story, in some parts reminiscent of the surrealness/sensibility of Taste of Tea. Also a nice role for Satomi Kobayashi of Megane / Kamome Diner.

IFFR film 11: All That I Love / Wszystko co kocham (Jacek Borcuch, Poland): 4/5

After this very enjoyable film that I chose mostly as a schedule filler, an extra surprise was to see that the director and part of the cast had arrived in Rotterdam just in time to do a fun Q&A afterwards. Always quite special to suddenly see the real actors walk out in front after having just watched them on the big screen.

IFFR 2010: All That I Love
IFFR 2010: All That I Love

IFFR film 10: Where Is Africa: Concert 1 - Opening Night

One animated short from 1966, followed by two silent films (one from 2010, one from 1927) accompanied by excellent live music!

IFFR 2010: Where Is Africa
IFFR 2010

IFFR film 9: Trash Humpers (US): 3/5

Crazy ugly funny repetitive VHS weirdness from Harmony Korine. The funny stories and voicemail messages shared beforehand were a nice treat. Lots of walk-outs during the film itself though. I laughed a lot, but can imagine it was a real rough film to get through for those audience members that went in without any idea of what to expect :)

IFFR 2010: Harmony Korine

IFFR film 8: Mother (Bong Joon-Ho, South Korea): 4/5

IFFR film 7: Adrift / Chơi vơi (Vietnam): 3/5

In my experience Vietnamese films are some of the most photogenic films in the world, this one certainly was too. Had to run to another film afterwards so I missed the Q&A with director Bui Thac Chuyen (who also directed Living in Fear, which I saw at IFFR 2007).

IFFR film 6: Susa / სუსა (Rusudan Pirveli, Georgia): 3.5/5

Strikingly gritty landscapes. Also, I learned the Georgian alphabet is really pretty.

IFFR 2010: Rusudan Pirveli

January 2010

IFFR film 5: Autumn Adagio (JP): 4/5

This one caught my eye because of having seen director Inoue Tsuki's fun quirky short film Woman Who Is Beating The Earth at last year's festival. Great soundtrack and piano performances by musician/actress Shibakusa Rei.

IFFR 2010: Inoue Tsuki

IFFR film 4: A Grammar For Listening (Parts 1-3): 3.5/5

Not so much a film, just a series of dreamy wonderful sound/sightscapes, the kind that make me want to go out and shoot some macro/bokeh photos. Followed by insightful Q&A with director Luke Fowler.

IFFR 2010: Luke Fowler

IFFR film 3: Running Turtle / 거북이 달린다 (Lee Yeon-woo, South Korea): 3.5/5.

Lots of fun this one, like a non-gloomy version of last year's excellent The Chaser (starring the same actor even).

IFFR film 2: Air Doll / 空気人形 (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan): 4/5

Though the half hour pre-Air Doll interview turned out to be a bit boring, it was still pretty cool to see master director Kore-eda (Still Walking, Nobody Knows, After Life) in person. And the film itself was beautiful, as expected. Including a small role for prolific actor Susumu Terajima who I have gotten used to seeing appear in at least one japanese film each festival.

IFFR 2010: Hirokazu Kore-Eda

IFFR film 1: Paju / 파주 (Park Chan-Ok, South Korea, 2009): 3.5/5

IFFR 2010: Park Chan-Ok
IFFR 2010: Paju poster

May 2009

IFFR 2009 swag

IFFR 2009 swag
One of my favourite things about film festivals is collecting various posters, flyers and booklets for movies and festivals from all over the world. Here's my loot from the International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this year! The big items are A4-size.

February 2008

my IFFR 2008 log

Seen at the International Filmfestival Rotterdam this year (in descending chronological order, rated x out of 5):

Sad Vacation: 4/5
Any film with Asano Tadanobu is always worth seeing.
Persepolis: 4/5
Beautiful animation, funny and moving. Though I feel I would have liked the version with the original french dialog better than this english dub.
Japanese 8mm Kicks Ass Beautiful
Real Dreams
The Darjeeling Limited: 5/5
Just wonderful. First Wes Anderson film I actually saw on the big screen. And biiig it was, being Pathé 1.
Black Snow: 3/5
Chinese film from 1989 starring a very young Jiang Wen. The overdubbed dialog and cheesily translated subtitles kinda distracted from the okay story. Nice to see the Q&A with director Xie Fei afterwards.
Of Monster Mode: 4/5
Entertaining Japanese silliness.
Magnus: 4/5
Probably the first Estonian film I've ever seen. From the description I was expecting something bleak and depressing, but it turned out to be very funny at times. Beautiful visuals and landscapes throughout.
Only Child, Upward, Downward, Forward, Backward, Rightward and Leftward: 2/5
I noticed quite a few walk-outs during this one, a weird and uneventful story full of strange dialogs, in other words: a perfect filmfestival film to start off with :)

January 2008

IFFR 2008

De Doelen

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2008 - Programme [via]

January 2007

luxor

Luxor
audience exiting the theater after seeing Wattstax (which was awesome!)