Blog posting written by Shea Lynch, Documentary Studies and Production '13, FLEFF Blogger, Glens Falls, New York

Joy to bitterness. Hope to grief. FLEFF's exclusive Carmina Burana show premiers Tuesday, April 2nd and the performers, Ithaca College's Brad Hougham and Deborah Martin, are hard at work planning the event, continuing to tweak the 25 song setlist and choreograph the many trombonists that will accompany this performance. Tonight, they gave interns a discussion on the poems and a preview of the music.

Written between the 11th and 12th Century, Carmina Burana is a collection of over 250 manuscripts from students and clergy; sexual, satirical, and full of youthful mischief. These poems explore the human reality of lust, pleasure, and pain of Western European youth. Infused with Monteverdi, Canto Gregoriano and Stravinsky, this musical contata is a unique experience.

FLEFF will be inviting Jairo Geronymo back for a two-piano performance, this time accompanied by violins, percussions and flutes; a diversified look at music and emotion. FLEFF interns will also be creating new media art for projection during the performances. This will be a show like no other, stay tuned for more updates!

What are you looking forward to most?

Blog post written by Colleen Ryan, Television-Radio '12, Anthropology Minor, Lansing, NY

This year, the interns will be constructing, to be said in my own words, something "super awesome" outside of the Gannett Center on the Ithaca College campus for the entirety of FLEFF week.

The installation will read "Microtopias" and will be constructed entirely of recyclable materials.

I love art, and I'm pleased to say that that I've never been a part of such a large art installation.  I'm thrilled to be a part of something that's larger than life, literally!

Some of the letters will stand almost 6 feet tall.

Each of the five teams was given two letters to design, and last night the intern teams presented their letter ideas to each other.  I can't express enough how amazing it is to be working with such talented, creative people!

The construction begins the weekend before FLEFF.

Stay tuned for pictures and updates.  This is something you don't want to miss!

Colleen Ryan
Television-Radio, '12
Anthropology Minor
Lansing, NY

Fellow blogger Meagan McGinnes asked guest Robby Aceto last night at the FLEFF intern meeting how his improvisational music trio, Cloud Chamber Orchestra, forms a cohesive sound, despite having a different take on the film they score.

“The baseline is respect,” he said. “Even though you can have completely different views, they can still work together as long as you have respect.”

And there it is. Collaboration. Adaptation. Appreciation. Microtopias. 

“[When performing live music you must] Embrace accidents, figure out ways to utilize them, and not allow them to cause disaster, which waits at every moment,” Aceto said.

“You have to be in control of the environment. Not making sound is just as crucial as making sound. Embrace the silence.”

Even though just speaking about improvisational music, I believe Robby really captured the essence of FLEFF, and I felt very touched and inspired by his words.

This year marks the 90^th anniversary of Robert Flaherty’s “Nanook of the North” and I can’t even begin to express how excited I am to watch it with a live score.

Flaherty’s portrayal of Nanook and his family, although slightly fabricated, is a beautiful romanticized film about the life of the Inuit people, and I’ve never watched it with any sort of accompaniment – just dimmed buzzing classroom fluorescents. 

Aceto stated that most of his trio’s scores are pretty modern, yet “vocative of place and time.”

He told the FLEFF interns that his trio inhibits the mindset of the filmmaker. They take into consideration what his wishes might be, and what the filmmaker achieved with his film at the time of its creation.

Although a child of the technological age, I sometimes feel as if I was born in the wrong era. I wish I could have witnessed life in a simpler time, without the instant gratification of technology.

From the vantage point of a 21^st century citizen, technology we have today was just pure fantasy to those at the time of “Nanook of the North.”

Aceto also told the interns, “In a way now, we can feel superior to [the filmmakers then], but they were making it up as they went along, and they had to think much more creatively than a filmmaker now. “

“We’ve narrowed our expectations of what a film experience should be,” he said, and I agree.

The trio’s performance on the closing night of FLEFF will be the first silent film I've ever experienced with a live score, and I personally think that it’s a tradition that although seemingly archaic, is a lost and under appreciated art form!

Colleen Ryan
Television-Radio, Scriptwriting '12
Anthropology Minor
FLEFF Intern
Lansing, NY

It's an interesting experiment when you take a bunch of students unfamiliar with the music school, and have them try to find a room hidden in the corner.  Although many of us FLEFF interns are out our element tonight here in Whalen, we're all here for a common purpose: A behind the scenes look into "The Concert for Microtopias"

I can't express how excited I am for FLEFF week. 

Not only will the concert in Hockett Hall at Ithaca College the Tuesday (March 27th) of FLEFF be an amazing spectacle, but it will be an awe-inspiring event where great minds and performers have come together to combine many works of art from music to acting to on the fly image processing.

It's "The Concert for Microtopias", a concert thinking in ways of bringing people together over something joyful.

Dr. Zimmerman told the interns that many of the people involved with the performance are those "who push the envelope and go intellectually and emotionally farther than they have ever gone before."

I can't wait to see how all these elements come together.

Blog posting written by Yukino Kondo, Exploratory, ’14, FLEFF Intern, Tokyo, Japan.

We have three weeks to until the opening events of FLEFF!

Before spring break, I had the opportunity to interview a fellow FLEFF intern and friend, Justina Koffie.

Justina is a sophomore and a MLK scholar. She is a health sciences major. During our free time, I always see her attacking organic chemistry problems. Whenever I look at her, she inspires in me  the desire to work harder and be the best that I can be.

What have you done for FLEFF so far and what have you learned from it?

“One of the first assignments I was given at FLEFF was to help sell out the house for Albert Maysles' film Gimme Shelter.

I figured it would be difficult because the screening was the same day as SuperBowl Sunday. To complete this task I used a lot of the information in class to find the target audience. I invited friends who would be interested in the screening.

Turns out it was a huge success and we sold out the house!

What I didn't know about FLEFF was that the festival is HUGE in Asia and India. I also didn't know that while the festival is about the environment, the environment could be anything from  a social to any type of cultural environment.

Through FLEFF, I learned it takes a lot of marketing, creative thinking, and man-power. Behind the scenes we need a good amount of these three forces to have the festival running smoothly.”

Spring break is unfortunately not over and this means, FLEFF is coming up soon.

I hope all of you are excited. And I hope the excitement will overshadow the disappointing snowy weather of Ithaca.

What have you learned so far about FLEFF?

Blog posting written by Brian McCormick, Film and Photography, '12, FLEFF Intern, Wilbraham, Massachussetts

Hello, all! My name is Brian McCormick and welcome to my FLEFF Blog! I’m a junior at Ithaca College, and I’m majoring in Film & Photography. I’m originally from Wilbraham, Massachusetts (the home of Friendly’s Ice Cream). Aside from my interest in filmmaking, I’m also a member of the college’s cross country and track teams.

This is my first year with FLEFF and I’m very excited for what’s going to be an incredible film festival. As a film major, I was immediately drawn to FLEFF, which is a very high-profile event that I knew I’d be able to draw wonderful, worthwhile experiences from.

Right off the bat, FLEFF has proven to be an energetic and valuable internship. Our kick-off event (a screening of Albert Maysles’ legendary documentary film Gimme Shelter) sold out at Cinemapolis. I think this is a sure sign of what’s to come this April!

I remember before I came to FLEFF I was asking myself: “So, what does an ‘environmental’ film festival show? Am I going to be interested in any of the films? I’m not really all about ‘being green.’”

What I’ve learned is that the word “environment” in FLEFF goes beyond all things green: It’s about all of the different environments around us: economic, cultural, and social environments. With the wide range of guests coming to the festival, there will in turn be a wide range of ideas about these environments that I’m sure we’ve never thought about before.

That is what I think makes FLEFF such an important festival: variety ­– the different names and people involved with this festival. I am not familiar with the people, but what is thrilling is that they are coming from all over the world.

I think participating in an event like FLEFF requires you to open up your mind more than you’re used to, and that’s what attracts me to it. It’s important to escape the bubble we grew up in and learn about environmental issues from a global standpoint. What’s affecting us in our own surroundings is also affecting people in nations on the other side of the world ­– issues of culture, economy, and society.

The world is getting smaller in the sense that we now have all this shared technology, shared media, shared education, and even a shared aesthetic of how to live. I think it’s wonderful how FLEFF gives the opportunity to simply communicate on a person-to-person level with people we may never have been able to speak to before.

I hope you're all thinking about FLEFF and getting excited! In the meantime, tell me: What do you hope to see at the festival?