Livin' large
Thanks to my employer, Cuyahoga Community College, I got to use two Sponsor passes for a day at the Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF).
Talk about luxury! Instead of standing in long lines to get into a film you just stroll in and sit in the best seats, entire rows reserved for people like you.
Before and after, walk into the Hospitality Suite for free food and drinks. And at the end of the day the valet brings you the car for your ride home.
14 hours of films
To make the most of this opportunity we saw our first film at 9:30 and left when the fifth ended at 10:40. Our original plan was to stay until the bitter end, a shorts program at 11:40, but both Joanne and I were pretty much burned out by then. The idea of waiting an hour for the next showing was more than we could handle.
What we saw
Amnesty—Albania, bleak, hopeless
Dirty Energy—Gulf Coast, disaster, duplicity
The Island President—The Maldives, global warming, hope
Back to Your Arms—Lithuania, Germany, kidnapping
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty—Love (maybe), imagination, repetition
Where we ate
Free food at the Hospitality Room of course, but we also enjoyed a beer at Tower 230 and had dinner at Noodlecat.
I really wanted to like Noodlecat, but the atmosphere is a bit too hipper-than-thou for my taste. My Vegetarian Special was good but no way worth $14.
On the other hand, the discounted steamed buns and ginger beer + gin during Happy Hour are definitely worth a return visit.
