SIFF REVOLUTION
 photo by joshc [flickr] |
Did no one on the SIFF party planning committee consider the message that segregating the gala into a VIP area with comped drinks and sushi and a basement plebes area with overpriced cash bar and sparse appetizers might send after showing a film about the WTO protests? I’ve been to dozens of SIFF galas and this is the first time I remember the alcohol as anything but freely flowing. The mood in exhibition hall was suitably somber, a combination of flashbacks to 1999 and having to open wallets to drink them away?
I didn’t stick around very long to see if the “regular” people (who paid $50 for tickets) revolted and crashed through the VIP gates (we needed food and drinks before catching the late showing of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull at Cinerama). If they did, I sure hope they were inspired by the entirely unsubtle movie and changing something along the lines of “Viva la revolucion! The people united can never be divided!!”
I would like to think that the mood in the exhibition hall was somber because people suddenly realized that they’d been audibly cheering a mediocre film made up of cardboard cutout characters dutifully reciting sound bite pop politics and were chastened after the fact, but that’s probably not the case.
[...] SIFF REVOLUTIONDid no one on the SIFF party planning committe consider the message that segregating the gala into VIPs with comped drinks and plebes with overpriced cash bar and sparse appetizers might send after showing a film about the WTO protests? … [...]