Breakfast buffet and back to sleep. Roused ourselves up to check email in the press room. Got approached by Nonu from the Lisbon film festival. He loved Monkey Warfare and wants to bring it to his programming committee. Portugal in April sounds like it could be cool.

My search of the Vienna internet press for Monkey Warfare turned up a blog that is calling it the "secret hit of the Viennale". This is what my Babelfish translator says at least. Yayyy!!! I am loving the youth of Austria as much as the youth of Argentina. Making good inroads on the A's. Oh yeah, we've also played Australia.

Cindy and I sorted out a ticket to Zagreb before doing some minor league record shopping. Spent an hour and a half in a store and came up with an Ike and Tina record I don't have. Made our way over to the Urania where Stephen Kijak was throwin' down the Scott Walker lounge. All Scott Walker -yeah!

Stephen did step aside for DJ Hans Lucas. With a Monkey Warfare soundtrack in one hand and a Leslie, My Name is Evil CD in the other, I managed to squeeeze together a danceable 1 hour set. It got more people out there on the floor than the Scott Walker I can assure you. The most fun was posing over the mixer and pretending to punch in the audio samples on both soundtracks.

A hoped for meeting with Todd Haynes was not realized and we wound up at the Hilton lobby with various critics and filmmakers it has been our pleasure to know over the past 7 days. Mark is left holding the bag as Todd didn't need the dope. He was looking for hash. Give it to the transport department, Mark! We're off to Croatia.

I saw John Gianvito's Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind in the morning on Mark Peranson's recommendation. Once again Mark can do no wrong. I almost forgive him for liking Magnolia.

This film is a travelogue of tombstones of social progressive figures in America from the last 400 or so years. It is inspired by Howard Zinn's book and weirdly intoxicating. A couple of times I thought it was going to end and was struck with a feeling of disappointment.

The next film I saw was Coming Home by editor Hal Ashby. Ballsy use of pretty much the entirety of "Time" by the Chambers Brothers running underneath a number of dialogue scenes. It was almost a montage of scenes rather than shots. Remarkable perfs by Jane Fonda and Jon Voight and lensing by Haskell Wexler. This movie fucked me up and makes me want to go make a country music version based on "Pay No Attention to Alice" by Tom T. Hall. Start writing that, Cindy.

Met up with Cindy to go see Jean-Pierre Gorin talk before presenting his late seventies documentary Poto and Cabengo about 8 year old twin girls who talk in their own language. This doc tripped Cindy out completely because she was an 8 year old twin in the late seventies. Cindy scored a poster of the film to give to her sister (pretend you don't know when you get it at Christmas if you read this, Allison).

Cindy and I weaseled our way to a festival dinner at the Lusthaus. Not as cool as it sounds, but an acceptable buffet. I can't complain. At one point, I realized I was getting drunk at a table with the cream of political filmmakers today. Gianvito, Jem Cohen, Tom Kalin, Monsieur Gorin and Todd Haynes.

I chatted for about 10 minutes with Todd about the Portland real estate market. I was wearing a Portland stripper club t-shirt that Cindy's little sister Molly had got me and this provided the opening. Todd was really nice and we seemed to be making a connection before he turned his attention back to his cinematographer Ed Lachmann. At that point, I realized my tactical error in not introducing myself to Ed. Todd had obviously forgotten my name and I was too oblivious to help him out on that count. Cindy later got into a drunken argument with Ed Lachmann.

Gorin was so great to talk to. I've always liked French films and the French way of looking at life, but too often have found the people to be arrogant pricks (not too different from most people's perceptions I suspect). Gorin is none of that. He's been living in San Diego for about 30 years and I think it has helped. He is a iconic figure with the most direct connection I've ever had to Godard and the French New Wave, but he's just a down to earth guy who spent the whole conversation wanting to find out what my film was about and how my career had gotten to this point. About half a dozen times he'd break into the conversation insisting I send him my film. Jean Pierre Gorin. Of the Dziga Vertov group!

Had the breakfast buffet again with Inbal and Daniel our new friends from Los Angeles.  Portions getting smaller each time.  Possibly because of my anxiety about our room situation.  This resolves itself quickly.  We've been given two extra nights.  Hope it doesn't break your budget, Viennale.  We are very grateful nonetheless.

After breakfast, I went hat shopping with Mark and Andrea, a programmer of the Wavelengths series at the Toronto festival.  Hung out in the cathedral downtown which was my first tourist thing.  After Mark bought a very fine hat, I split from him and Andrea to go check out L'Advocat de Terreur by Barbet Schroeder.  This seemed like a very good documentary, but I kept nodding out every second subtitle.  I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and didn't get back to sleep until 9:30 so I guess I was feeling it.

Tried to catch a bit of a nap, but we had to make it to see the documentary about Simon Wiesenthal that  Inbal had edited.  This was a very well-crafted devastating doc that has Academy Award  winner written all over it.  Inbal did a very fine job.  Little bit too much music underscore, but that could be my own personal bias.  Especially significant to see this in Vienna where Wiesenthal did his life's work.

Checked out Paranoid Park next, the new Gus Van Sant movie.  I haven't seen any of the Gus Van Sant "art films" of the past few years, so it was good to get a chance to check this one out.  Very impressed especially with the young lead actor, Gabe Nevins.  What was also fun was the half a dozen Austrian kids at this screening who came up and told me how much they loved Monkey Warfare.  They smoked me up with a little hash after Paranoid Park.

Cindy was ravenously hungry and we went to one of the most expensive restaurants I have ever been to.  It is a restaurant with meals based on the film "Scent of Green Papaya".  Food was awesome of course.  Fresh sea bass with tamarind sauce and glass noodles.  Too pooped to go out and party. 

Breakfast buffet again, but this time half as many helpings.

After breakfast, went into Vienna with Mark and Cindy to do some shopping.  Cindy bought 22 organic chocolate bars as stocking stuffers for Christmas.  I found a scratched Nick Cave album and a Motorhead album that I didn't have.  We swung by one of the theatres involved in the fest and they were selling Monkey Warfare DVDs.  Mark bought a Straub DVD and I bought a Kenneth Anger DVD.  The Kenneth Anger DVD came with a booklet that advertised text commentaries by Martin Scorsese, Gus Van Sant, Guy Maddin and others.  Glad to see Guy no longer falls into the others category.  Turns out that one of the others was Bobby Beausoleil who is the basis for the character of Bobby in my next film.

We returned to the festival headquarters and watched Tom Kalin's new movie Savage Grace.  Mark is moderating a panel with Tom Kalin and Todd Haynes.  Movie had an interesting tone and agressive performance by Julianne Moore, but not entirely successful overall.  Does have a scene where Julianne Moore gives her adult son a hand job.

After this, we went to our last screening.  Again it was sold out to an appreciative younger audience.  Mark, Cindy and I had coffee during the screening at the Imperial Hotel where Wagner, Rilke and Hitler used to hang out.

There was a cocktail party at the hotel that night.  Many of the people who we've been hanging out with had been to the screening and were there including Francisco who loved the movie and writes for Cahiers Du Cinema.  We were also introduced to Ralph from Arte which is a powerhouse television network in France and Germany.

We missed out on going to an underground dope club, because I had to wrangle with the festival guest coordinator about getting a couple of extra nights in exchange for the added screening.  Fuck I hate to deal with this shit.  I can't wait until Leslie, My Name is Evil wins the Palme D'Or and then the executive floor will be open to me.

Started out with the fabulous breakfast buffet that I had four helpings of.  This was followed by trip to the computer room to do blog.  Met Hans Hurch the programmer for the Viennale.  I thanked him for programming the film.  He blamed it all on Mark.  I am beginning to get a handle on how the whole film festival game works.  I asked Hans about getting some more nights at the hotel.  Me made some vague promises about looking into this.

Went back to room for a nap and ended up sleeping until about 6 o'clock.  Jet lag and staying out so late is putting me down.  Got up in time to be shuttled to another fabulous dinner courtesy of the Viennale.  Beet soup with porcini mushroom ravioli followed by lentils with potato cheese gnocchi.

Sat with film critic / academic Ronald Bergan and Hal Hartley again.  Damn that Hal Hartley for being such a nice guy.  He actually has me interested in seeing Fay Grim now.  Ronald was very entertaining, possibly because he kept praising me everytime I revealed admiration for another figure of the French New Wave.  La Maman et La Putain is your favourite film?  You've gone up even further in my estimation!  Ronald might not come see Monkey Warfare, however, because he is not into popular music or culture!

Speaking of figures of the French New Wave, I was briefly introduced to Jean-Pierre Gorin who is here to curate a series about the essay film.  I told Gorin that I was one of the few people he is likely to meet who has seen every Dziga Vertov Group film.  He replied that there are many Christians who have yet to leave their caves!

Our screening was at 11:30 that night.  Once again, it was completely sold out and I was the oldest person in the theatre.  The appeal to the audience this time for marijuana was met with success.  We went to a very nice guy named Tony's apartment and he gave us 5 grams.  I gave him a record and a CD of the soundtrack for my next film.  Tony had an amazing apartment with immensely high ceilings.  He also had a room with a big screen and a video projector.  We hung out for an hour so before it was back for a nightcap of Khardu at Mark's hotel room.

Tomorrow we shall try to sort out whether we can squeeze these extra days out of Hans or else it will be on Mark's floor.

Woke up at 5:30 and couldn't get back to sleep.  Read my Halberstam book until 10:45 when Cindy phoned me.  She had just arrived and told me to get my ass down to the free breakfast buffet.  I had gone down earlier and thought it cost 26 euros, but Cindy told me it was free with the room.  Fantastic buffet.

After breakfast, I ran into one of my favourite people, Mark Peranson, the publisher of Cinemascope.  He is here to do the intros for our film and moderate a panel with Todd Haynes.  Mark was just in from the Canary Islands where he acted in the latest Albert Serra film as St. Joseph.  He had been travelling for 27 hours.

I left Cindy and Mark to catch up on their sleep and went to check out a documentary from 1974 called Introduction to the Enemy.  It was about Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden's trip to Vietnam.  It was directed and shot by Haskell Wexler.  Wexler was there and hadn't seen it in 30 years.  He seemed to be quite moved by it and a little bit too dazed to answer questions.

I walked back to the hotel a little bit dazed myself as the jet lag kicked in.  Took a nap at the hotel.  When I woke up, I went down to the lounge for happy hour and ran into Mark and his Cahiers du Cinema friend Francisco.  We went back to Mark's room and drank Khardu.  Mark put a slideshow on his computer of shots from the Albert Serra shoot.  He told us about an hour and a half take he did improvising in Hebrew with a lamb.

The festival took us to another great dinner.  Potato soup flavoured with truffle oil and then ravioli with a rose sauce.  In the middle of the dinner, we went to the theatre to do an intro of Monkey Warfare.  300 seat theatre completely sold out.  Back to the restaurant for another drink and then back to the theatre for the Q&A.  Austrian crowd is very quiet and Mark has to ask most of the questions.  At the end, we made an appeal to the crowd for pot offering a Monkey Warfare vinyl soundtrack in trade.  No takers.

Mark texted a friend named Edgar Honetschlager regarding the pot situation.  I am desperate to get some pot for Todd Haynes.  The festival driver drops us off at Edgar's.  Edgar has made two feature films, but he has also done installations, paintings, sculptures and a Japanese children's  book.  We hang out at his studio and smoke hash from a hookah.  This is everything I have dreamed about since getting into English lit in high school.  I give Edgar the vinyl soundtrack of Monkey Warfare.

We hang out at Edgar's for a few hours before heading to a festival party at Urania.  It is Saturday night, however, and Urania has been taken over by youth of Vienna.  The lame youth of Vienna as there is nothing playing except bad emo music.  Did youth culture really come to a halt in 1991?

Back to the Hilton for a Khardu nightcap and dreams about the breakfast buffet.

Still no fucking luggage! I need underwear and in fact I have to Tube into central London with nothing but my jeans on. Ryan helps me sort this out at Marks & Spencer.

Tagged along with Ryan to his office. He looked around for a charger for the cell phone he lent me, but couldn't find one. Then he got into a panic fit about the amount of work he had to do so I told him to let it slide. Ryan just got a major distribution offer plus he's dealing with a snag on his house deal so I didn't want him to meltdown.

I am in a slight panic, because I am on battery power with my laptop and don't have an English adaptor for the powercord. When Ryan dashes off to a meeting, I jump onto his iMac and start emailing and phoning sales agents / distibutors in London to try to get them out to our screening tomorrow. Talked to a guy named Nick Crossley from Diffusion Pictures who seems like a perfect fit for Monkey Warfare. He has Andrew Bujalski's films on DVD and a Norwegian neo-Godardian film called Reprise that I saw in Buenos Aires and really liked. I hope he comes to the screening.

Ryan comes back and takes me to his club, the Hospital, where he is meeting with his producer Simon Hinkly. It turns out Simon was the assistant director for the London shoot on John Cassavetes' Husbands. Woah!!!!!! That is one of my top ten films of all time. I inundate him with questions and he tells me stories about the shoot.

After the Hospital, Ryan goes home and I wander around Soho killing time before I have to meet up with my friend Paul Unwin who directed a TV movie called Elijah that I cut in the fall. This was the depressing homesick time. Alone in London with no luggage, needing to take a piss and not knowing what the customs are regarding such. The English are big on their etiquette. Finally, I wander into a cafe and use the facilities after ordering a Lemon-Lime smoothie.

Depression cured as soon as I run into Paul. Never have I bonded so well with someone from such a disparate background as I. Who would have known I would get along with a British guy at least 10 years my senior? Paul buys me drinks and launches into a big inquisition about Leslie, the Manson girl movie I've just gotten money to write. Paul's a big fan and has been thinking about this project since I first told him about it last fall. He wants to see a script and hook me up with some people in London when it's ready.

Paul takes me to a Szechuan restaurant called Bar Shu nearby. Amazing, spicy Chinese food. I eat bean curd, green beans, prawns and noodles and drink Tsing Tsao beer. All on Paul's dime (pence?). My enthusiasm for the food results in a little sloppage on my only shirt which I got from the Independent Film Festival of Boston. I've certainly been a billboard for those guys in London.

Don and Tracy joined us at the Bar Shu with their lovely friends Greg and Sandy. Greg was one of the people who wrote the music for The Drowsy Chaperone and, like Don who was a co-writer of the book, won a Tony award. Paul gets along famously with them too, which only confirms my suspicions that he is one of the greatest guys I've met. Paul comes from a theatre background and fills in all the questions Don and Greg have on the eve of The Drowsy Chaperone's London debut.

Paul takes his leave and then after dinner the rest of us wander around Soho / Carnaby Street looking for a pub. It is 11 and all of them are closing. They've just allowed 24 hour drinking in London, but it's not a city where one can easily break from tradition. Have some chocolate cake at the wonderfully authentic Bar Italia, an Italian coffee shop that Don informs me has been around since early last century.

I take a Tube back to Archway and quickly grab the bus which is good because it is cold again this week. I get off the bus and cross over to the 24 hour Sainsbury to get a toothbrush. The doors are locked so I have to mime to the attendant a brushing motion across my teeth. A Colgate medium. I hope I like it as much as the Oral-B I lost.

Still no fucking luggage! And no human contact. Zoom airlines, those clever fucks, have farmed out their baggage tracking to an outside company that doesn't pick up the phone. I keep leaving messages.

I fall back asleep and don't wake up until Ryan calls in the early afternoon. He tells me to come meet him at his office and he will get me sorted out with a cell phone and a place to do some work at his club The Hospital. I get the Tube down to his office, but Ryan is running behind for a meeting he invites me along to.

We Tube to Camden Town, but we are way ahead of schedule so we go get a SIM card placed in the phone Ryan is lending me. 10 pounds later and I am in business. I meet Ryan's producer Simon and they let me sit in on meeting Ryan has with Videosonics, an audio post house in London. They are sussing out quotes to budget Ryan's film which he wants to shoot in the fall. It was kind of a funny meeting me for me to sit in on. I have been talking to Ryan about cutting this film for years, but in the meeting Ryan, Simon and the Videosonics guy kept referring to another editor like he was cutting it. He probably will since I've got 3 projects in development to direct.

After the meeting, I rang up Don McKellar and decided to meet him and Tracy at their hotel. Don and Tracy are two of my favourite people in the world and they always raise my spirits even though I am always bitching and moaning around them. We take a little walk from the hotel through Hyde Park goosestepping around the goose shit.

We wind up at the Serpentine gallery where Miranda July is doing her book reading. On the way, Tracy warns me to not say anything bad about Miranda's movie. Not to worry, my sole interest in meeting Miranda is to pitch "Teenage Time Bomb". That sure didn't happen. The gallery was mobbed by people wanting to see Miranda and I barely got an introduction. I tried to situate myself in a position to watch the reading and interview, but got crushed by a steady stream of people. Finally, I said fuck it, stepped out of the room and sat at a table to read an Easyriders magazine while I waited for Don and Tracy. After about a half an hour, Don and Tracy made a gracious exit when Miranda was looking down at her book in the middle of her reading.

We Tubed over to the theatre, but there is no one around except a girl selling t-shirts at a merch table. I go to phone the festival assistant producer, but my phone is dead. We get the routine sorted with the girl at the table and then Don, Tracy and I go to an Italian restaurant nearby. I run back to the theatre after the antipasto plate to meet my man Dan Lyon from Telefilm who is at this festival on a working vacation. Dan does the intro with me, because the festival people are tied up at the other theatre. There are 35 people in attendance.

Dan and I retreat to the restaurant (called Carlucci's) and have dinner with Don and Tracy. What a wonderful dinner. I order a penne made with large pieces of fresh pasta, deep fried spinach balls and a light slightly creamy sauce with courgettes (which I find out is zucchini). I pick up the tab for my actors thanks to the contribution to my bank account by Dan and his company.

We all split the restaurant and head back to the theater for the Q&A. The doors to the theatre are locked and we can only get in when someone leaves in the middle of my tail credits. Festival director Peter Storey is waiting inside and we arrive just as Flick is extinguishing the molotov cocktail. Intros to Peter are made literally while the Q&A begins.

Once again, the majority of the audience stays for the Q&A and the tone of their questions and reactions to the answers indicate how much they dug the film. It is frustrating not being able to create more of an awareness out there for Monkey Warfare, because most people who eventually do see it, love it.

Peter takes us for a drink later and outlines his frustrations. He's taking a bath financially on this festival, because the attendance has been so low. This is the problem with a start up festival. The first thing you have to do is get the media on your side. No one knows anything about this festival. There are listings for Monkey Warfare at the Renoir in the Guardian, Time Out, etc, etc, but without an accompanying blurb about the film or the festival all you have to draw someone in is the title. I mean it's a great title, but 35 people showed up in a city of 9 million.

I step out of the Tube and just miss the bus back to Ryan's, so I have to wait 20 minutes for the next one. It sure is cold after midnight in London when all you have to wear is a t-shirt.

Monkey Warfare is playing as part of the Declaration of Indepence film festival in London, England!

The flight to London was awesome. I got on the plane and was given the seat by the boarding door with no one beside me and no one in front. This meant I could totally stretch out for the 7 hour flight which included silent viewings of Wild Hogs, The Queen and Music and Lyrics because they were charging 5 bucks for headphones. Even the vegetarian meal was half decent for airplane food. I had been told that Zoom airlines was a choice I would regret, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Got into Gatwick South and I was the first person through customs. I stood at the baggage claim with a rugby team who had toured Canada. Their bags came and I continued to stand and wait. The people around the baggage claim began to thin out and I continued to wait. Pretty soon there was only me and a couple other people and no bags coming out anymore. Fucking Zoom had lost my bag!

Went to the baggage enquiries desk, filled out a form and was told that I would have to go to my destination and wait for them to call. Fuck! It was so hot when I left Toronto that I didn't even wear a jacket. I had packed it in my bag.

Took the Gatwick express and had a very pleasant conversation with Sam, an Australian expatriate who had just flown in from New York. She worked a mention of her husband very early into the conversation. I guess my luck with my bag had given me the air of desperate guy. Nonetheless Sam was very helpful in sorting me out with the Tube and how to get to Finsbury Park.

At the Finsbury Park tube station, I rang up my man Ryan Bonder and had him meet me. Ryan is one of my most solid mates (England talking) who has lived in London for 7 or so years. I only see him during the Toronto Film Festival, but we usually talk a couple of times a month throughout the year. I had never even met his wife and daughter, but that was taken care of quickly. Nicola (wife) and Lola (daughter) are most charming. Nicola is a tiny bit of a ballbuster, but Ryan is a wild child and I think it is good for him.

Went out to coffee with Ryan and caught up on what's been doing. Ryan is a filmmaker, but he also has a nose for finance like no one's business. He is moving into a house 10 minutes north that he is able to afford, because of some very astute real estate investments he has made in the past few years. The film he has been trying to make for 6 years is once again on hold, because he has had to replace a French partner. Apparently he set up some deal in Cannes with an alternate French partner and is looking to go into production in the fall.

We went back to his place and phoned up the baggage desk. No answer. By this time the jet lag takes over and I crash while Ryan, Nicola and Lola go do a family outing at Hampstead Heath. I sleep for 3 hours or so and wake up when they return. Ryan and I sort out some groceries and Czech beer. Then I am treated to a mushroom risotto. One of the bonuses about staying with Ryan is that he is a master chef.

Supper done and it is off to the pub for some more drinking. Ryan and I down beer after beer and argue about film. Ryan habitually attends Cannes and Berlin and knows all the industry players on the art film scene. He is a fount of knowledge for me. I, on the other hand, have better taste (ha, ha) and love to school him about trends in world cinema.

In best London pub fashion, we are eventually joined by two "blokes", a Welshman named Simon and another Australian expat named Lenny. Simon does some internet thing and Lenny works for a hedge fund. This begets a long and fascinating discussion between Ryan and Simon about film financing in London. This city is awash in capital and many high risk investments are made in films as hedges against taxation. I could go into detail, but I'd probably get it all wrong and it wouldn't be nearly as fascinating as it was in a London pub drunk on pints of Czech beer.

I got 93 percent in calculus in university and I do have a head for numbers, so I was able to follow along. If I really did the research and concentrated on making money in London I probably could. Ryan joked I wasn't sleazy enough, however. I also have too many conflicting interests which is why we ended up at Simon's flat doing hits from the bong with his girlfriend Natasha. On the walk home through the lovely vegetative Crouch's End, I asked Ryan why these kids would spend the money to rent in such a nice area. So they can walk home without getting mugged was Ryan's reply.