Solar World Cinema

Solar World Cinema Goes Greener Drives Cleaner

2011-05-03T12:46:00.001-07:00

The dutch solar cinema: CosyMo's Solar Cinema has been driving cleaner since last summer and is now also promoting driving on CNG (compressed natural gas)....CosyMo made a short video about this alternative petrol starring the dutch solar cinema.

@ Cinemalab/toulouse

2011-03-23T03:43:00.000-07:00

Started the Cinemalab course in Toulouse...an interesting workshop enhancing the netwerk between European en Latin American partners. At the moment we are discussing the use of social media. With Solar World Cinema as a testcase....just finding out, that we need to use the social media better.....there is not enough talk about Solar World Cinema, the solar cinema or even me Maureen CosyMo Prins on the web.....so i will put more work into getting 'out there'! Hope you will see us more and soon! in the virtual air but also in the real air ofcourse! making the first show of the season!

2011-01-11T16:07:00.000-08:00

Consorzio BIM Piave - Belluno - supported our European Solar Cinema tour 2010, the first edition of the travelling European Film Festival powered by solar power! Our programme Go Greener Shorts was supported and presented in the beautifull surroundings of Belluno/Agordo - Italy. In 2011 Solar World Cinema hopes to return for the second edition of this travelling sustainable film festival.

SOLAR SEASONAL GREETINGS

2010-12-22T13:23:00.000-08:00

A really thick layer of snow is covering our solar panels on both Solar Cinema Vans. Does this mean: a nessecarry winterbreak? I guess this year yes, but looking at the snowy solar cinema's it recalled our trip to Romania for the Green Planet Blues Film Festival in Sinaia in januari last year!
Even in the snow we succeeded to make some shows and the solar power stored in the batteries was just, only just enough to do 5 shows. Great memories but at the same time feeling quite happy to put a focuss on 'warmer' places. At the moment our project in Latin America is taking shape: internationally we are working on our application for more funding for 'El Nino Solar' (working title)....its great to see the notifications on my dropbox windows when more files are added and other have been updated. Amazing international working flow. Simultanious to this project we are also starting to plan a new European tour....hopefully visiting: Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Italy, Kroatia....and maybe more places....Romania, Malta.....the season wont we long enough!
This year we hope to develop more video workshops so apart from promoting an distributing fresh, good and green films we actually hope to engage with young kids to make video's together and get an insight in to their world.
SOLAR SEASONAL GREETINGS TO ALL OF YOU and may 2011 be a sunny one!

Encuentro Puebla a success

2010-10-19T02:47:00.000-07:00

The Solar Cinema team looks back on a successful meeting with 14 Latin American mobile cinema projects in Puebla, Mexico. From September 27-30 the organizations presented themselves to each other and worked intensely together for four days to work out a joint adventure: a mobile cinema network based on a collaboration between the different organizations in Latin America. The network will produce one or two solar powered mobile cinema's that will travel through the Latin American countries participating with an international film programme of Latin American films and educational projects.
During the meeting several work groups have been formed and they are at this moment working out the different plans and questions. We will keep you posted on developments!

The encuentro in Puebla has not been gone unnoticed in Latin America:
La Jornada Mexico, el día de la inauguración.

CNN en Español

Diario Cero . Argentina

Raíz Argentina - España

Radio Cine - Bolivia

El Clarin de Chile

Portal Noti Cine

Primer encuentro de cines moviles

2010-09-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

El primer Encuentro Latinoamericano de Cines Móviles

The European tour of Solar World Cinema has only just ended, and already two Solar World Cinema crew members already traveled to Puebla, Mexico, to be part of an international meeting of Latin American mobile cinema project: El primer Encuentro Latinoamericano de Cines Móviles. Mobile cinema projects from many countries in Latin America (Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, Chile, Brasil, Uruguay, Colombia) are present during the first edition of the Festival Internacional de Cine de Puebla, to present their projects, discuss problems that they encounter and talk about ways to work together. The goal of the meeting is to see if the Latin American mobile cinema organizations can join up together in one international Latin American mobile cinema project.
The meeting was initiated by La Cine a la intemperie.
Solar World Cinema was invited to the meeting as 'proyectos invitados' and hopes to be part of the collaboration by bringing in the possibilities of Solar power and sustainable driving possibilities in Latin American mobile cinema.

Solar World Cinema presented the plans for Latin America to the other projects. Part of their presentation a few video's were screened.

Other mobile Cinema organizations present at the meeting:
Mil Metros Bajo Tierra (Argentina)
Productora Medio y Medio (Uruguay)
El Cine Vino (Chile)
Cine Viagem Latino (Brasil)
Cine Bus, (Colombia )
Cine Portátil, Colectivo Lluvia y Agua (Venezuela)
Cineteca Itinerante (México)
Cine en el Campo (México)
Cine Móvil La Carreta (México)
Cine Ambulante, Gira de Documentales (México)

tour impression untill san servolo

2010-09-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

The final show!

2010-09-16T08:37:00.001-07:00

After loosing our brains on San Servolo we rush to our final destination.....i don't know how we did it but after a killing drive from venice to chateauroux les alpes we arrive 'smilling' just one hour before the start of our last show of the tour....as proper trained solar cinema chicks we set up our screen one last time in the village in the alpes....again a beautifull backdrop of impressing mountains. But this night we are a bit chilly....the temperature is dropping...which marks the end of the summer and therefor the end of our tour. A bit melancholic we laugh ones more at Happiness is good for you...and a weak smile appears on our faces.

Its funny to see ones again giving clear instructions about our 'sceening spot' remains difficult. We always tell our hosts to be aware of any hinderance by streetlights etc. Our host was very happy to inform us all lights would be dimmed....On arrival we noticed that actually all 'small' streetlights were dimmed...but the big ones were shining brightly just when we were about to start the show.

Luckely i know my way around illegally dimming streetlights and Julie's cousin Gerard helped us to screw open the streetlight and pull the plug....

Our final show in a small village where about 5% of the population showed up on this chilly night to see our shorts...not a bad ending at all....

We pack up still confused after the manic ride....thats it, that's all folks...that was the end of the tour....well at least as a team: i still have some lonely driving (and crying) to do in order to get back to my home in Holland.

We have an amazing sleep and eat wonderfully cooked trout in the middle of the country side....it's great to have a big bed on your own, no alarmclock and the sound of the river waking us up.....

We clean our poubelle van...clean our garbage bodies and look and set of for our final 2 hour drive to Grenoble.
Here Julie leaves the solar van and I set off on my own.....its crazy this lonely driving....i cry and sing my heart out...in order to put all emotions and memories in perspective....My only thought and strength to keep on driving is ....my own bed ;)

I drive for a few hours have a disgusting roadside snack and am falling over...so for one last time i fix a little bed in the back of the van and retriet to a few hours of wonderfull tour-dreams....at 1.30u i wake up sweating and i set off again.....at 5 again i have to make another nap pitstop and eventually i arrive home...at 13.00hrs....home home home.....how does this feel? i dont know yet, i dont want the answer yet...luckely I have a solar cinema show at night....so business as usual: keep on driving and presenting film....But at this show i keep on falling asleep.
I guess somehow the tour needs to end and sleep is neccesarry....

and after the goodnight sleep...the solar world cinema continues...making shows in the dreary holland and with a delegation travelling to Mexico in two weeks to join the Conference of Latin American Mobile Cinema's.: our next plan: setting up a solar cinema in Latin America.

So not an end after all, just a beginning of more wonderfull cine-roadtrips!

Where it all began: San Servolo

2010-09-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

Finally we say goodbye to our solar girl Laure and Julie and I return to the place where we met last year....and where the whole plan of this tour sprung from: San Servolo, the magical island in Venice.....Or more like: Alcatraz for the crazy film buffs...and hard working young exhibitors.
During the CICAE course ART CINEMA = ACTION + MANAGEMENT 2009 i met such vibrant and inspiring people that when leaving this 'lost-island' i couldn't detach myself from the crazy bunch. Soon after have landed in the Netherlands i made a request on facebook asking all my fellow trainees to help me set up an European Solar Cinema tour....and as you can see.....the tour became a reality! Dispite of being the failure of the famous PIZZAworkshop I made the tour happen. Together with the unconditional help of the CICAE 2009 trainees.
Some of us met again in Paris, Milan and Berlin...A wonderfull inspiring time on this island resulted in a very strong European network of people working in film theatres and festivals.

Now it's time to return to the island, this year being part of the famous DreamTeam. (a team of coordinators choosen from the 2009 trainees). Both me and Julie are part of this team. My job will be: THE RUNNER! So as I am very proud to be YOUR runner, for 10 days i ran with waterbottles, glasses, USB stick, powerpoints and of course the microphones.

Apart from being the runner on the 10 day course i had the pleasure to have an additional 2 other jobs: being a trainer on the course and sharing my 'success-story' with the 2010 trainees. I told the still very fresh story of my EU tour...which actually was still ongoing....because and additional 3 shows were organised in Venice at the Lido (in association with Greenpeace Italy and the Venice Municipality). So to make a good ending of the tour: I was business as usual....working from 8-22.00 and after....working a bit more on the terrazza.

It was quite special to be in the dreamteam and work together as a tight team with the 2009 trainees: as if we had been working together for ever we formed a special team and we Just Enjoyed!

San Servolo remains a special place.

The Solar Cinema shows in Venice were set at the Lido where the 67th Mostra Internazionale D'arte cinematogrfica was also taking place....pretty damm good to be a small competitor with this big established festival! We made our shows at the streetside bar: Pecador and enjoyed some great nights with spritz, dj tunes and again go greener shorts.
I'm very proud to qoute one of our visitors: 'I like this far better than the Mostra, this is film for the people!'....

It was a pretty fun task to get the solar cinema on the Lido, as my van is no boat i had parked it miles away in Mestre....so for the first show me and ma girls took 2 vapparettos, a bus and a ferryboat to get the solar van onto the Lido.

It was amazing to be back in the place where it all began....and talking to the new trainees: some new ideas for Solar Cinema tours are already brewing: a short tour of Poland....setting up solar brother and sisters in Madagascar and Italy....touring through Italy, Croatia, Malta....city tour in Kaiserslautern and so on...for sure my network is a very vibrant one and i am more than ready to hit the road again.

After 10 days we say goodbye to all the trainees with tears in our eyes and we enjoy a last meal with the dream team....It's time to leave....after the morning coffee me and Julie suddenly realize that we left our brains somewhere on the island and we find out that we have to rush like crazy because on the same day we will have to do our LAST show of the tour in France....at 11 o clock with 8 hours to travel and a show at 20.45u we gather our stuff like crazy girls and run run run for: the vapparetto, the bus, another bus, the van and the ferry, step on it and drink lots and lots of coffee....at 19.45 we arrive in France on our location....petrol ran low, oil was gone, red lights are flashing, voices are gone, small crash is made....but we are still smiling ;)

And there we go: OUR FINAL SHOW!!

Quiet working time on Krk

2010-08-29T15:14:00.000-07:00

After our Guca adventure we drove for another 12 hours to reach our 'quiet-destination': Krk island. Thanks to my newmade friend Helga and Pille we actually have found a little apartment where we are staying for 5 days. I have alot of work to do, editing and answering emails so it's great to be in a small village full of 'nothingness'. Julie and Laure are on Krk to meet up with there friends who arrive in the harbour of Punat with their great sailing project: Windicap. This project has been sailing for 4 months making stops in france, spain, italy and croatia, inviting disabled people to come on board and make sailing trips. The project is made to raise awareness for the disabled and to introduse the possibilities of sailing trips for the disabled. A fantastic project.

The project is a french project so i find myself surrounded by the french....i try to improve my french a bit but it remains 'tres difficille'.

Most of my time on Krk i spend behind the computer editing the educational DVD and making my tourfilm for the succes-story presentation i have to give on San Servolo during the CICAE story. I'm pretty sad when i found out i have lost all the video material of the first month of the tour.....guess my brain is turning into mush a bit and i accidently have thrown away this material.....still cant believe it, but i guess it just HAPPENED ;(.....after 2 days of editing i am happy with the 8min little film i made about the tour! I finish and have a drink with the french......Krk is defenitally a place to return too.....maybe than i can actually go for a swim!!

the little working holiday is over and Julie and I make our way to San Servolo to be part of the 'Dream Team' of the CICAE training....after a terrible journey of about 10 hours we finally arrive on the island....the island where Julie and I met last year.....strange deja vu's keep happening when we meet up with our fellow-former-trainees.....We check in and report to the office: our working week is about to start and we are READY for it!

GUCA- Trumpets in our ears

2010-08-25T02:31:00.000-07:00

After a tour of 7 weeks its time for a break. Together with my french connections i arrive at the Guca Trumpet Festival: Madness Made in Serbia! Here we spent a crazy 48 hours of trumpets played by more than 250 balkan fanfares, on the streets, in the bars at your table and in your ears....Next to the trumpets are the pigs roasting away getting ready to be our Srpski Kebabs. We dance all night and all day celebration the 50th anniversary of this festival....The Solar Van again is our lovely little campervan and it proofs to even have space for 3 solar girls.

Guca festival is the most famous Folk Festival in Serbia
"I didn't know you could play trumpet thet way"
Miles Davis, a Guca Festival visitor.

The village of gucha in the Dragacevo district, peaceful and colorful part of western Serbia , has gained world fame owing to its Assembly of Trumpet Players, the largest trumpet event on the planet. The love of the people of Dragacevo for music, especially for the trumpet, began in the rule of Prince Milos Obrenovic, who ordered the formation of the first military band in 1831. From then until now the trumpet has reigned here uninterrupted while woodwind instruments, in keeping with the customs, warm the soul of its population. The sound of the trumpet traditionally accompanies every major event in Serbia's rural and small-town life: births, baptisms, weddings, Slav {family patron saint day}, farewell parties for those joining military service, state and church festivals, harvesting, reaping, and also departing this world. Appropriate music is played on these occasions, thus preserving the spirit of the existing tradition. The music is very diverse: from indigenous melodies, via kolo {a fast-rhythm chain dance}, marches and characteristic southern Serbia cocek dances, all the way to tunes that have emerged more recently, but always taking care to honor old harmonies. This music has won over the hearts of not only the local population, but has also warmed the hearts of outsiders and foreigners. In the several days of the Gucha festival, hardly anyone can resist giving themselves to the adrenalin-rushing rhythms and melodies that simply force one to jump to ones feet and dance.

After 48 hours of brass-madness we hit the road again, trumpets ringing in our ears. Again we have a big roadtrip ahead, reaching the island of Krk after 12 hours of driving. Here we briefly meet up with old-newly made friends and we settle ourselves in a lovely small apartment in Lacmartin.

Now it's time to unwind for a brief moment, just to focuss on the times ahead. A lot of editing, emailing and other work needs to be done before I lock myself away on Alcatraz San Servolo....the place where the idea of the tour began.

Vama Veche/Stufstock

2010-08-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

We hit the road again, now on our way to the popular beach resort Vama Veche. This is where all the (young) people from Bucharest go every weekend to party....We will be part of the festival Stufstock:
Stufstock (Stuf - Romanian for reed - and stock from Woodstock) is a music festival that has taken place each year since 2003 in Vama Veche, Dobrogea, Romania, to protest against what some people may consider bad quality music (i.e. manele and Romanian pop music), and to call for the preservation of Vama Veche from the large scale development that has overtaken much of Romania's Black Sea coast.

Allegedly, the festival had the reverse effect: the village stopped being a small, clean and quiet place, as the festival and concerts attracted more than 40,000 people in 2005. According to another point of view, though, the festival slowed down what it couldn't stop and therefore managed to do some good. The concerts feature bands from Romania and nearby countries.

Vama Veche (historical names: Ilanlâk, Ilanlâc, Turkish: Ilanlık) is a village in Romania on the Black Sea coast, near the border with Bulgaria, at 28.57 E longitude, 43.75 N latitude. It is part of the commune of Limanu and in 2002, it had a population of 178.

It was founded in 1811 by a few Gagauz families, originally being named "Ilanlîk". Its current name literally means "Old customs point", named so after Southern Dobruja (the Cadrilater) had been included in Romania in 1913. In 1940, however, that region was ceded to Bulgaria, and the village lay once again near the border.

Even in Communist Romania, Vama Veche had the reputation of a non-mainstream tourist destination, which has only grown since the Romanian Revolution of 1989. During the communist era, concern for border patrol sight lines spared Vama Veche the development that occurred in other Romanian Black Sea resorts. It became a hangout for intellectuals; for reasons that are not exactly clear, the generally repressive regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu chose to tolerate this countercultural oasis, as long as people had their identity papers with them. Accommodations consisted of tents or rooms rented from peasants or fishermen.[2] While camping is theoretically not permitted, to this day, many visitors or semi-permanent residents still stay in tents on the beach.

When we arrive nearly cant drive throught the crowd, the beach is filled with young people tents and bars....it looks like a 24-7 party place with a beautifull beach....we feel like we have entered a beachy woodstock which also gives us a good vibe.

As we talk to the Stufstock people we learn that they are actually trying to educate the holiday makers and bring new culture to this beach. This is a really nice initiative and tonight our show will also be an interesting new collaboration. We will be showing the films of the project: S.P.E.R. (Stop the ethnic prejudice against the roma ethny - it translates to HOPE in Romanian
We show 15 short films which were shot between the 2nd and 14th of August, 2009. Three camps were organised for rroma (gypsy) kids, aged 10 to 16 in Timisu de Sus and about 400 children took part. The aim was to encourage and devolop the self-esteem, by teaching them about thei own Roma history, language, music, costumes, traditional jobs and tradition in general. 15 specialised trainers helped. The kids were part of 25 traditional communities and spent 5 days together.
The workshops they attended had a motivating end: a short film. Specialists in directing, screenwriting, acting, set design and editing helped the kids to create the story, act and produce the film.

A beautifull project with some good and funny and inspiring short little films....eventhough we couldn't understand a word that was said some of the images were really powerfull. We would love to get one or two of the little films translated into english and add them to our library.

It was great to have a show on the beach again, just before we started having a lovely swimm, setting up in the sand, trying to save the equipment from turning into a sandcastle and after the show, pack up and dance the night away on the beach.

A pretty good holiday feel....

Next morning after a hard time waking up we start our everlasting tour to the Guca Festival in Serbia....we will cross the whole of RO from east to west in about 14 hours, to arrive to a beautifull place at the Danube....at 12 o clock at night its quite hard to find a place to sleep, and as we ask at some pensions we meet a lovely pension owner that offers us to camp in his garden for free....we make our beds and fall asleep to the sound of the wild dogs sniffing our tent.

The next morning we get up to continue our trip to Guca! The romanian roads are as bad as they can get and with a big sigh of relief we finally cross the serbian border and drive on some normall asphalt again.

Guca Guca here we come!

Back to Romania again

2010-08-24T10:17:00.000-07:00

After a lovely 'silent' time in Bulgaria we say goodbye to Solar Girl Eva again and me and the french connection try to find our way back to Bucharest....somehow Romania keeps pulling me in....4th time in 7 months.....In Buch we will pick up another french solar connection: Laure, a reporter and photographer will join us on our trip for a while.

As our GPS is totally useless in eastern Europe we rely on maps and eachother, but it seems like the current solar girls make a hobby of getting lost: again we do it! After getting lost in Croatia and Sibiu we now get lost along side the Danube....a beautifull country side but with petrol running terribly low and a stomach bug bothering Julie we feel ourselves in a pretty tight spot.

With only enough petrol for 10km left in the van and a 3 hour de-tour we luckely reach a petrol station in Cerna Voda...this is where we enter the highway to Buch. Here we meet up again with our lovely friends Oana and Catalin.

The newly weds take us to their lovely flat and we are served a lovely homecooked meal! My dislike of Romanian food disappears in an instant when the famous 'Cake for the Man' melts in my mouth.

The New french connection is picked up from the airport and we spent the night drinking the homebrewed Tuica and making plans for future projects.

Oana and Catalin have a house in a beautifull but nearly deserted village in the mountains...Here they want to create a place where likeminded people will live and work. Apart from making their living sustainable and selfsufficient they hope to inspire like minded people to visit the fantastic nature resort (an ancient forest) which surrounds their house. On a monthly basis they want to organise events and 'artist in residence' oppurtunaties.

They are also speaking with the mayor of the little village to apply for funding to get the road to the village improved a bit, so visitors can also reach the village WITHOUT a 4x4 drive.....BUT ofcourse the road shouldnt be TOO good, because we dont want it to be the new holiday resort.

In only one week the newly weds Oana and Catalin will celebrate their church wedding. We are invited but unfortunatelly we will have to miss the event because we have to be in Venice/Italy by that time. So just for a taste we dance together on the Hajduks, the band that will play all night on their wedding.

The next day we slowly awake in the humid and hot city of Bucharest. We pay a visit to the local arthouse cinema which is situated in the Muzeul taranului roman (village history museum). This cinema is actually the old cinema of the communist party. Here the party would be watching their propaganda. As we talk to Daniela the manager she tells us alot of debate has been going on wether to 'pimp' the cinema and get new chairs to replace the communistic wooden ones...but we all agree, the chairs HAVe to stay, they are a memory of the communist period, and actually they are fairly comfortable! After some quick meetings with future partners and purchasing some romanian films we set off for Slobozia.

Slobozia is a small city an hour away from Bucharest. We are welcomed at Catalin's parents where we have an amazing meal. Thunder and rain has followed us from Buch and we are in doubt whether we should let the show go on.

With one hour delay we decide to make the show and it is again a really nice experience...alot of streetkids sit down to watch our films....they laugh, talk but also watch. Our hosts appologise for the youngsters but for me this audience is great: young people from the street that are not used to the films we play, or cinema....taking the time and sit for most of the programme, laughing and enjoying themselves. For me this is perfect! One girls stole my heart: asking me all questions about the cinema, the programme but also about holland as she was about to go and visit Amsterdam.

In the end another good show! the extra nice thing about this show was the fact that Catalin and Oana organised it in about 3 days....we sent eachother some text messages, they made some contact with the local cultural centre and there we were!
I love this feeling of our project!

Being woken up by horse and carriages walking past remains the best eastern european experience ever! after again a gorgeous breakfast Oana needs to go to get a bridal make up trial and we stay behind for a guided tour through Catalin's dad's atelier and sculpture garden. Gabriel is a sculpturer and he shows us all his work: he restores older statues, makes gravestones and make his 'free work'. I remember my time in artschool and really want to get to work with some granite!! Gabriel give me a stone to take with me together with some carving tools...we make a deal that i will come back one day to be his assistent.
Totally inspired we set of for our next stop: Vama Veche where we will do a show on the Stufstock festival.

Dobrich and Bulgarian country side

2010-08-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

Our days in the Bulgarian country side, read: middle of nowhere only to be found whilst taking the bumpiest roads ever are full of qiuetness....well you cant call all the crickets, dogs, mules and flies qiuet but apart from their chorusses we are endulging ourselves in the 'nothingness'......here there is time for a lot of midday naps and cups of coffee. But also finally getting some nescessary work done. It's strange to realize the tour is already past 'halfway' and slowly my eyes are pointing 'home' again....some jobs i NEED to do before i get home, just to be prepared for all that is waiting for me are slowly starting to play on my mind. Also because i know only on these quiet days in Bulgaria i can actually DO some work because we have a long road of shows, but mostly travelling and crazy festivals ahead of us. And than ofcourse there is the busy CICAE training on San Servolo!

After our fist meeting with the Black Sea and eating the lovely sprots (fried small fishes) we set of to Dobrich, a crazy concrete town, where we have a show at the Ukap Cinema.

Ukap Cinema is a small private company with a single screen run by the ever so lively Renata. She and her husband are the only cinema in Dobrich and they have a diverse programme of both blockbuster and arthouse films. They can just manage to keep the place going. It's situated underneath the museum of Literature on a nice vibrant square.

After a quick tour of the cinema we set of for a lovely Bulgarian tapas style dinner and whilst enjoying the meal we get a phonecall that the location is now full of people waiting for the show to start.

Before the films the lovely band: Javelin (the band of Eva's father) bring some great live tunes. We set up in no time, sweating like little piglets. We play the show and all is well! A big audience with alot of kids enjoy the show.

This is actually Eva's real LAST show and for me it's the 'turning' point of the tour, after this the journey home has started.

We pack up and enjoy some great bulgarian style nightdriving, no lights, cats and dogs on the road and a lot of holes in the road.

On arrival home Alan and Jessica poor us a little Rakia, the perfect nightcap.

Slowly but surely some work is getting done, some editing some skyping about our next plans: setting up a Solar Cinema in Latin America and making preperation voor the 2011 EU tour.....normally thinking ahead comes naturally but in this 'tour-state of mind' it's quite hard to focuss....as the now is most present and important.

We fix and clean the Solar Cinema van and are slowly getting ready to drive back to Bucharest again where a friend of Julie will join us, to have some meetings and make a show in the countryside of Slobozia and end up at the Stufstock festival. For days Julie and I have been planning the roadtrip back to Rijeka....crosscountry through Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia....all roads are: LONG.....i guess we have a lot of possibilities and whilst driving just have to decide our direction.

We do hope to end up at the Guca Festival in Serbia to enjoy the all night trumpet party:
The Guča trumpet festival, also known as the Dragačevo Assembly (Serbian: Драгачевски сабор or Dragačevski sabor), is an annual brass band festival held in the town of Guča, near the city of Čačak, in the Dragačevo region of western Serbia. Guča is a three-hour bus journey from Belgrade.
600,000 visitors make their way to the town of 2,000 people every year, both from Serbia and abroad. Elimination heats earlier in the year mean only a few dozen bands get to compete. Guča's official festival is split into three parts. Friday's opening concert, Saturday night celebrations and Sunday's competition. Friday's concerts are held at the entrance to the official Guča Festival building. This event features previous winners, each orkestar getting to play three tunes while folk dancers, all kitted out in bright knitting patterns, dance kolos and oros in front of a hyped-up audience.
An English site has named Guča the best festival in the world.
“ Forget Glastonbury, Reading, Burning Man and Coachella: the wildest music festival on earth is a cacophonic and crazy brass band festival that takes place every summer in the tiny Serbian town of Guča in the western region of Dragačevo."

So the girls will for sure arrive at this festival! And make a small documentary of this crazy party.

Bulgarian Village Party

2010-08-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

The Solar Girls are so happy because finally they got some stamps in their passports! On a real quiet border between Romania and Bulgaria we had a lovely chat with the official and they stamps our documents! Getting into Bulgaria we slowly enter the Bulgarian road to nowhere....Nowhere is actually our destination: Rocen! Here Solar Girl Eva is awaiting us and we are happy to be reunited.

Eva's father and girlfriend live in the old school of the village Rocen, which has 80 inhabbitants in totall: all mainly over 50! about 60 Bulgarians and 20 Gipsy's.

Here we will be the main entertainment of the village banquet organised by Alan and Jessica and Eva. After our arrival we enjoy a glass of the homebrew Rakia and go to sleep with only the sound of the cricket and dog ochestra.

The next morning the preparations for the party starts: the girls are preparing the tomato salad and grilled aubergine whilst i do the necessary blogging, washing, cleaning, editing and emailing. For the first time in 5 weeks i get a little bit of order back in to my life on the road, with a hint of 'fresh' smelling clothes and van.

It is so great to see the party starting slowly with wooden tables with white table cloths, plastic cups and bottles of homemade Rakia....it already looks like a picture from a Kusterica film....At 7 all villagers slowly arrive, grandparents in their best froks and their grandchildren keen to meet us.

The food served is wonderfull and before we know it Rakia is being poored...because your shopka is suppossed to be accompanied by this strong drink. Actually a great combi: tomato with a kick.

We spend the dinner at the table with the wonderfull old lady Mitka, a hardworking woman of 78 who still works on the fields all day. She cant stop laughing and smuthers us in hugs and kisses.

In between courses we have a traditional band playing music, man dancing and the kids performing their own choreagraphed shows.

After the desert of lovely homemade cake we present the Solar Cinema and all eyes are glued on the screen....but after a show of about 40 min all villagers (including us) have ants in their pants and the music starts again. We all dance hand in hand, and its great to see the dutch, bulgarians and gipsy's all enjoying the parties. We've been told that eventhough all people live peacefully next to eachother in the village there has always been a bit of a natural devide between the bulgarians and gipsy's but on this party it all dissapears.

The village is a tight community and the new arrivals Alan and Jessica are totally blending in, the village loves them and they love the village (kids are named after them!).....The party ends with the lovely site of all tables full of empty bottles. A party to be remembered.....It was great to be in this 'moviescene'....

Eventhough Rakia doesnt leave a hangover because its nearly pure alcohol we do feel a bit wiped out all day long, we enjoy a walk in the Bulgarian country side, i make some shots for the educational DVD i'm working on (which involves a musical trio which sings bulgarian songs!)....and we have a lovely dinner on the veranda.

Together with the laptop in the hammock we mail, blog and make tommorrows programme....
next show: Dobrich

What a special

Bucharest Reunion

2010-08-11T02:37:00.000-07:00

Our main business in Bucharest is a live interview on Radio Bucuresti and a reunion with some RO friends. It's funny to realize i have been in RO so much this year it kinda feels like a second home ;) I see my RO friends more than my dutch friends....is this a sign?
After a 5 hour drive to Buch we park the Solar Cinema in front of the radiostation and make our way to the park, just to have a little time to relax before the interview. We finally sit down to write the few postcards we bought: cards bought in Belgrado, written in Bucharest and probably sent in Bulgaria!

It was wonderfull to meet up with Catalin again and to be live on air. I even got to choose some 'dutch' music, not that i like it, but for some reason the Romanian Radio has a dutch song in their musiclibrary.

We were part of the cultural item, where also Catalin talked about this wonderfull filmfestival: Anonimul

ANONIMUL International Independent Film Festival, the 7th edition, will take place between the 9th and the 15th of August 2010

ANONIMUL Film Festival has two close locations in Sfantu Gheorghe, Danube Delta: all the films are screened from sunset to sunrixe.

And as i believe this place is absolutaly magical...The place where the Danube meets the black sea. You can only get there by boat and on foot.

What a shame we cant go there with our solar cinema, not only due to time, but also because we would have to transform our cinema into a boat...I guess this will be our next project! The Sailing Solar Cinema.

The night in Bucharest was long and we danced the night away in club B52 together with the Sniper and Co.

The summer sundays in Buch are quite, where the streets are normally packet with cars,now we could just 'criss-cross' the street. We enjoyed brunner (breakfast-lunch-dinner) at "Caru cu bere"a true living legend and also one of the oldest beerhouse in Bucharest, was opened for the first time in 1879 in the old Zlatari inn and, after 20 years it moved to Stavropoleos Street, where it can be found even today.

We met up with the Stufstock gang to discuss our show on the 18th in Vama Veche and i'm delighted to here we will show a really interesting results of a film-project organised by S.P.E.R. (Stop the ethnic prejudice against the rroma ethny - it translates to HOPE in Romanian).

The films were shot between the 2nd and 14th of August, 2009. Three camps were organised for rroma (gypsy) kids, aged 10 to 16 in Timisu de Sus and about 400 children took part. The aim was to encourage and devolop the self-esteem, by teaching them about thei own history, language, music, costumes, traditional jobs and tradition in general. 15 specialised trainers helped. The kids were part of 25 traditional communities and spent 5 days together.
The workshops they attended had a motivating end: a short film. Specialists in directing, screenwriting, acting, set design and editing helped the kids to create the story, act and produce the film.
The kids chose chapters of the rroma history. They made 15 short film in which they did everything from scratch.

So again business and pleasure mix quite wel in Buch, we have another drink with the Snipers dad and talk projectors and digital cinema and after we go to the barbeque party of one of our filmmaker friends, there a storm breaks loose and we dance in the rain.

Rainy Buch is hot Buch the next morning and after Breakfast at Mushu's the Solar Cinema heads of for Bulgaria for our next show: in Bulgaria we will meet up with Solar Girl Eva again and we will provide entertainment for the village (80 people) party! It will be like a scene from a Kusturica movie.

Sweety and Sweaty get lost

2010-08-10T03:08:00.000-07:00

Some how the new crew: Mo and Julie...or now called: Sweety and Sweaty seem to make a habbit of getting lost alot. On the last tour to RO my GPS was working perfectly fine, i bought a special eastern european roadmap. My new GPS tells me it's west and central Europe with Eastern Europe extras....We are just finding out these extra's mean: only the main roads and no city streets. And when you have to find a hostel in Sibiu this turns out to be a true disaster, but luckely after driving around the city for one hour we get some help from the local taxidriver and find our way to our Hostel: Villa Teilor. Run by the ever so friendly dutch guy: Hans. He was so kind to offer us a bed as a form of 'sponsorship' for our show in Sibiu.

The Sibiu is a very international relation: the show is organised by Adriana, a dutch woman who moved to Romania with her Australian partner 2 years ago, she was also organising our show in Sibiu last january. And this time it was really special, because the shows in Romania were not settled at all before i left on tour.

I just decided to send some emails and both Romina and Adriana picked up the idea and organised all things for the show in a real short period of time.

In Sibiu partnerships were arranged with (local) Greenpeace and they even supplied us some shorts which we showed on the night and will take on tour with us.

/http://www.greenpeace.org/romania/link-uri-utile

another partner was:

/http://www.letsdoitromania.ro/

A great initiative that tries to 'clean up' all illegally dumped waste in ONE day!
On the 25th of september thousands of volunteers are motivated to clean up their country. This project has started in Estonia and was a great success.

On our way to make the Solar Cinema show in Sibiu, ofcourse Sweety and Sweaty got lost again. Whilst asking the way to our spot to a guy sweaping his veranda, he decided the language barrier was to big, so he jumped into our van and gave us derictions. Whilst he was doing this he was enthousiasticly telling us about a solar powered cinema that was going to give a show in the park this evening. And eventhough we tried to explain him WE were this Solar Cinema, he didn't seem to get it. A great combi of being lost and lost in translation ;)

We set up the cinema at a nice open grass field and awaited our audience. Which in fact was really big! Even on a cloudy/wet night we had about 200 people coming to see the show, including 1 tv channel and 2 papers. So we were very very impressed by the way our host had organised the show!.

After the show we were tired of getting lost and made an early night in our hostel. Unfortunately the show we had planned the next day couldnt go ahead in Fagaras....But this gave us an extra day to enjoy Sibiu.

Sibiu is a touristic town with a beautufull small centre. It was such a strange experience to enter Piata Mare again, the square where we did our show in January. I adore visiting RO in summer and experience the contrast with the wintertime. Last time we were on the square it was minus 15 with 20 centimetres of snow, now it was flaming sunny and hot, 35 degrees....
We once again got lost on a bike tour across the city, but it was great! Getting lost on the bike is the best thing to see other sides of the city. We had some great Ciorba on the square, did some RO style second hand clothes-shopping and met up with our hosts for a drink and some food in the oldest Romanian restaurant. The place was embedded in the city's old walls. The food was great and the rest of the evening we spend talking about romanian culture, what it's like to be an expat, films, work projects....all accompanied by some nice cocktails.

On our way back to the hostel, (which should take 5 minutes and we had a map) ofcourse we got lost again. Luckely we met a boy on a bike and were invited into his home where we had a chat with his german parents. It was now 3 in the morning and a strange encounter. The boy was our pivate escort back to the hostel.

After this free day we have more 'free-time' ahead, making our way to Bucharest to have a live interview on Radio Bucaresti and see some old friends.

Arsenal Park show and beyond

2010-08-09T14:49:00.000-07:00

After a good night sleep at Arsenal park and skipping the military training that takes place at 7 am sharp, we enjoyed our romanian breakfast. Visiting this place does represent the diversity of our Solar Cinema tour. I dont think we would ever have known about this place let alone visited it. But just by being in touch with my 'new friend' Romina, who was one of the organisors of the show in Timisoara in january this year we ended up at this crazy place.

Romina is a freelance project manager and as well as organising events with the timisoara Eco club, she works for AP....A brief intro to AP: Arsenal Park Transilvania is an outdoor theme park in Orăştie, Hunedoara County, and reportedly Romania's largest exclusive retreat.It was opened in June 2009 and is the only military themed park in the country and one of the few in Europe. The theme park is located on a 80 hectares plot of land. The location is the former site of an arsenal factory, Rompiro Orăştie specialised in producing explosives, land mines and ammunition, now a four star resort.

We have a show in their outdoor theatre which actually already has the perfect white wall to project on, which makes our setting up pretty easy. Actually we have the honour to be an AP premiere: our show is the first outdoor filmscreening of Arsenal Park.

Its nice to see that not only the visitors of the park: in this case a group of youngsters, enjoy our show, but also people from the town Orastie have come to see the solar cinema.

I totally love the combination between the elements of this night: military holiday meets eco films.....open your mind and broaden your view....its really interesting.

After the show we talk: film, war, going greener and guns....and all fit in the conversation.

Unfortunatly the Solar Girls have proven themselves to be quite lazy, and again they let the chance of a good military training pass.....7 am turns out to be too early for the girls....

Maybe we have to return again to be drilled.

After breakfast we say goodbye to the Comandant and his crew and we set of for Sibiu for our next show, the road is again one where the solar crew gets lost....

The Serbian road to Romania

2010-08-05T23:06:00.001-07:00

The next morning we left for Serbia, after our speed-tourist tour and quick drink in Zagreb we set of for the place we picked on the map....a small town with a lake, so we try our luck and hope to find a campsite....Again this is a moment in which my immagination of a place was completely beyond reality: the village at the lake, actually was a one street village and the lake was non-existing.

Time to make a plan, but both Julie and I seem to switch from plan a, to b, to c....eventually not making any decisions. After getting lost in the dark roads of Croatia, trying to find a parking spot, asking people for campings or a place for the night...we finally just continue driving towards the Serbian border. After a roadside picknick we cross the border with no problem...a tired cute smile was enough to pass through customs.

So our plan in the meantime was non existent. At the signs of Motel Fresh we decide a fresh sleep might be a good idea.

Motel Fresh is something else i would say.....The Serbian idea of fresh is a very 'interesting' one. But we are tired so what do we care. With not even thinking about it we give our passports to the owner of the Motel and a very suspicious looking moustache.....and as we go up to our very unfresh and sticky room I have only one thing repeating in my mind...a thing as was warned about just before leaving on tour: 'look out for men with suspicious looking moustaches'.....With all new Kustarica style film scenarios in my head i fall a sleep in the sticky bed.

I can proudly say: i had one of the best sleeps of the tour in Motel Fresh, so feeling fresh as a fiddle we have some strong serbian coffee, claim our pasports back and set of for Belgrado.

Belgrado: the dirty, warm, big but smilling city is a good 'holiday-break'. We enjoy some coffee, some walks and for the first time in a month: some shopping: actually: we spent about half an hour in one bookshop and on the streets we by some classic easternblock vinyl. I cant wait to play these balkan tunes!

At the end of the afternoon we set of for Orastie Romania, another 385 km...which is about 6 hour...it still keeps on frustrating me to know you can not dirve 100 km in 1 hour on the romanian roads.

Its hot and after 1 hour of trying to exit Belgrado we are finally in the backroads of Serbie, where we are witnesses of a Serbian roadside arrest, and lots of horse and carriages making their way to Romania.

The border crossing is something else....a strange filthy place, packet with people on foot crossing the border, stray dogs, filth, lots of police and trucks that seemed to have been waiting forever to cross.

At the moment of crossing the border we have decided to go for our end goal Orastie and to keep on driving. The roads are actually not that bad!

But when night falls all i recall is another friends advice: don't drive during the night in Romania! Well after having some experience with the romanian nightdriving in the past i do know what i am up for. Holes in the roads, roads ending and starting, people walking on the roads without a care in the world. Stray dogs and one-lighted cars.

Finally we make it to Camp Arsenal Park in Orastie....a really strange place: a holidaycamp on the terrain of a former munition factory, where you can enjoy your holiday in military style, including shooting and sleeping in a tank! Our sweet, but slightly drunk host Romina awaits us. Within seconds we are enjoying the good Ciuc beer, homemade blueberry wine and Wodka...our first night ends in a private poolparty.

KIds Solar Cinema Day

2010-08-04T01:58:00.000-07:00

We left Koper, totally prepared for some more 'boarder-troubles'. As we experienced the day before when our van was checked at customs. Being a bit naive i never even thought of the fact that crossing the borders between Europe and Eastern Europe could be troublesome when you transport equipment. As it turned out we should have had an ATA file that explained what our lugage was. At customs we were checked but when we told the officer, with a cute smile on our faces, we were making voluntary shows during our 'holiday-tour' it was no problem for crossing. But he warned us for: 'a next time....'. So leaving from Koper we searched for a new border and had lots of 'invitation letters' with us..... The crossing was a 'non-event': we crossed with no problems or not even a check of the van. On arrival at the Novigrad kamp all the groupleaders were already partying like crazy, we didnt join them this time and had an 'early' night. That is early as in 02.00hrs.
Some 4 hours sleep and than i had to get up to take my beloved crewmember Eva to the boat in Porec. Our 4 week tourstory together ended this morning. But in only 10 days we will meet again in Bulgaria!

Eventhough being really sleep-drunk all day Julie and I made a plan to have a stopmotion workshop with the kids in the afternoon. We had a few boys interested in our workshop and we made some stopmotions with them. It was short but sweet. With not much time before the show I went to work like crazy trying to edit the programme for the kids aged 6-14. Quite a task because of the age range. It was a race against the clock i nearly lost it! with Julie setting up the solar cinema and me running up and down we finally managed to get the programme finished! On the beat of the clock at nine our biggest audience so far in the tour: 251 kids gathered in front of our screen.

It was an amazing show with the kids laughing out loud and enjoying their popcorn in selfmade popcorn bags. As quick as they arrived the kids left after the show and 5 minutes later all of them were a sleep!

So we had some time to have a drink and a nightswim with fire works on the background. A perfect end to our stay in Novigrad. We pay an ode to the lovely campleader Urska who was always in control!

Next stop: Ostarie in Romania, but first some 985 km of travelling via Zagreb and Belgrado.

Solar Cinema @ the youth camps

2010-08-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

At the youthcamp Marindolus we show the kids (40 in total aged 10-17) a compilation of Shorts and we planned a 'deep in the woods' show. Unfortunately the weather is against us and the programme stays on the campsite: the youth votes for a feature: paranormal activity and as they scream their heads of we enjoys some drinks inside. The camp experience has been great, what a nice group of kids and leaders. The rules are simple: you stand in line in the morning and evening, sing the Marindol anthom listen to the leader Mocja and enjoy lots of great animation. Apart from being the Solar Cinema team we were also invited to be the jury of the Miss Marindol election. A great event where the crossdressing is the theme of the evening. And if boys are girls than of course a girl should be a boy. As a proper international jury we judged the lovely girls....and ofcourse the girls had the best example from the host of the night. As dreary as the weather we were again sad to say goodbye to our hosts....We set of to pass Rijeka again...we kind of feel like we are locals....On arrival at Novigrad we 'meet again' with the lovely Urska!

Tonight its the night of the new-crew-arrival...For the first time i do some 'solo' driving to Trieste and I pick up Julie, my french connection. Its so unreal to see her, together we cross drive to three countries and arrive in Novigrad to be part of the 'Croatian party' we were looking for.....actually....kind of a mixed party: Slovenians on a Croatian beach. We have a nightswimm and dance untill three.

We find out our next show is actually in Koper....funny thing was: when we saw our friends Motovun they asked us: ' Are you doing a show in Koper, because we saw it advertised on a big billboard'? Our answer was: no not that we know of? Well how silly things can go and how flexible is the solar cinema! Driving back from Trieste through Koper we actually noticed the big billboard where we were advertised! Nice surprise!

Our show in Koper went well we had a nice spot, next to the palmtree-avenue in an old arcade. The audience seemed to find our show very 'relaxing' or maybe boring? After breaking down our cinema we left with our 'sleeping audience'.

Chilling at Motovun Film Festival

2010-07-29T04:11:00.001-07:00

It seems the dutch are everywhere! Our friend and 'outdoor projection-colleague' has been working for the Motovun Film Festival ever since it started, providing all screens and equipment. So we were delighted to be able to visit him and his crew at Motovun. This charming festival takes place in the small town of Motovun which is situated on top of a hill. An amazing sight. We parked our van just outside the campsite (in this way we avoid the crowded campsite full of partying youngsters). We rearrange the van and there we have it again: the solar cinema campervan! I'm still amazed everytime how we can put so much stuff in it and still have room for a cosy bed...we liven up our palace with orange partylights....From the van looking up at the town of Motovun you can make out a screen (from this point with the size of a stamp) on the edge of a cliff. Pure magic to be able to watch open air films here! We set of for the steep climb and meet up with the dutch crew to enjoy some coffee and talks some 'projection jargon'. We are immediate fans of the festival: even before checking out the programme! We even buy the festival t-shirts ;).

We enjoy the local delicacy: Black truffles and after dinner we settles ourselves in the plastic chairs in await for the opening ceremony. The 'Motovun-pope' blesses the festival and we all sing: Always look on the bright side of life.....(The festival has a Monty Python retrospective)

At the opening night we see the french film In the Beginning:
France, present day. A professional conman passes himself off as the boss of a construction site building a highway extension. He cons the whole region, hires dozens of workers and cynically enjoys the profits of his scam until he meets the lady mayor of a small village that the road will go through. She intrigues and unsettles him, before revealing to him a world he never knew: feelings. How far will he go now to save his victims and save himself from his own lies?

A very 'french' film but also one that was true food for thought. We meet up again with some friends from Rijeka and Ljubliana and wonder through town in search for the much talked about parties. It seems that most people (mostly aged 16-25) come to Motovun to party and not necessarily to see the films. Somehow we feel a bit like watching our possible sons and daughter getting totally hammered and dancing the night away! We catch a glimps of the Sex Pistols rockumentary projected on the 'cliff-side' and enjoy some more beers....slightly tipsy at 5 in the morning we manage to find our way down the slippery roads back to our solar van...only to find out the brake lights have been on all night...due to a box the i carefully placed on the brake. We try the engine but nothing happens, so just to postpone our worries we crawl into the bed and hope for the best in the morning. At wake up time we carress the van and it starts up! With a hangover we enjoy our mobile mountain office with a view, buy some more tickets for the shows, make our way up again through the pooring rain and enjoy the slow italian cinema: The Four Times with an italian mountain goat as the main character.
As a fan of Romanian Cinema i am delighted to go and see a RO film on the Cliff-side but it turns out to be a very boring film. Some sort of realistic personal drama of a guy with a midlife crisis...not my cup of tea, tired and slightly dissapointed we decide it is bedtime but we end up drinking some bottles of lovely wine with our dutch friend talking about wine, families, business and friends. So a perfect ending of our time at Motovun. After a 'muddy' sleep (everything is totally wet and muddy because of the thunderstorms) we set off for our next stop: Marindol/Slovenia where we will visit a youth holiday camp. After getting lost for 45 minutes in the village of Marindol (which actually exists of 5 houses) we find our host Andrej waving at the side of the road.
Again we timed our arrival very well and are just on time for lunch. We are introduced to the 40 kids in the camp and at night we present them a short filmprogramme of about 65min. We also had another plan to go deep into the woods to show a horror movie....a great idea but as it is already 0.00hrs when the first programme ends the kids decide to prospone the 'deep in the woods solar cinema show'.
Probably for the first time i initiate the 'early' night and am totally happy to sleep in the 10 bed wide bunkbed. The surroundings in Marindol are amazing, lots of greenery, fresh air and fresh water in the river. We enjoy a morning swimm and play in the camps' beach volleyball team.

Tommorrow we will drive to our next stop: a youth camp in Novigrad, this is also where the 'crew-swap' will take place. Julie will arrive tommorrownight and Eva will leave sunday morning. I am already feeling strange about this...saying goodbye to the old-crewmember and hello to the new one....Luckely we will see Eva again in two weeks when we arrive at her place in Bulgaria to make some shows.

Rijeka style Sheet-Beach- Moonlight Show

2010-07-27T03:36:00.000-07:00

Our second show in Rijeka is located on the 'city beach' (croatian english: the city bitch) and after the windy night before we are quite weary of the weather....on arrival we change locations about 3 times not knowing what the best projection option will be: on the wall of the local football pitch, on the pebbled beach, with big screen or with the sheet screen,
The wall projection will be too far away from our possible audience, the van nearly gets stuck in the pebbles so we decide to set up on the edge of the parking with our screen facing the beach. Just as we are ready to put up the screen two local guys warn us for the upcomming wind. And eventhough we dont feel a thing yet we choose for the safe and alternative option: The Solar Sheet Cinema. We were smart enough to have discussed this option during the wonderfull dinner that Zelkjo cooked for us ;) This sheet brainwaves serves to be the savior! The lo-fi version of the Solar Cinema looked magical on this beautifull place. With a view on the sea that was lit up by the moonlight. Tears of cheer joy welled up in my eyes.
This night we screened a 30min programme of Go Greener Shorts, and some Croatian films, the beautifull animation:
First Thing- Martina Lukanović and two social documentaries of young filmmaker Igor Bezinovic: Susret and An Encounter, Susret shows us a strike the croatian farmers were forced into due to the fall of milkprices....students and the local communities were actively supporting the farmers in their fight.
Our friend Stipi gave us some extra insight of the local and national politics whilst watching the film. This show was a magical ending of our stay in Rijeka, we said our goodbyes to our lovely hosts: Maria and Ana. Enjoyed another wonderfull reviving sleep in Jelena's bed and after a coffee and a quick tour through Zelkjo's Cinema: Art Kino Croatia we gave a big goodbye hug to Zelkjo, Stipi, Jelena and Kristina and with again a melancholic feeling we set off for Movotun, to meet up with our dutch open air projection-collegues and enjoy the charming mountain top Film Festival.

Solar Holiday on KrK

2010-07-25T06:45:00.001-07:00

Because we had an unexpected 'free' day we set of for the island Krk, our lovely new host Helga show us the island in it's full glory! We enjoyed a wonderfull relaxing swim and sunbathing session at a small private beach...The most extraordinary cricket-symphony was filling our ears, quite deafening. After the swimm we met Helga partner in all crimes: Dennis. The couple has a local NGO organising an producing film and video production. Our filmproduction companies are very alike! After some food cooked by Helga's mum we set of over the bendy roads to our sleep place: the little house in Čižići. Such a cute little house near the sea.....After a quick cold shower we set up for a concert in Omišalj where Dennis and Helga have to make a reportage. It's funny how I always make a picture in my head of where we are going and how often it is totally different: with the word concert I had this idea of a big openair stage with a band....only to arrive on the local mini-square where 50 plastic chairs are ready for the local public to enjoy some jazz. So a cute mini version of my 'concert' picture. We have a productive speed date with the local cutural attache and make an agreement to come back next year and be part of the Ska festival on Krk. Very productive night.....After missing most of the concert due to important girl talk we take a seat on the plastic chairs to enjoy the last song....which is interrupted by a massive thunderstorm....a very welcome one for us! we dance in the rain looking for cover. The band packs up their stuff in no time and Helga and Dennis are so wet that in a whink of an eye I am suddenly their camerawoman filming an interview of the jazzband. Always nice to get a sudden job. The afterparty takes place in a local 'arts and craft' gallery with bread cheese, wine, a chat with the local prince dressed in white and an interesting view on fashion....admiring the rockabilly with the overtheshoulder beltbag.
After a lovely sleep I pay a visit to the city of Krk where the funny encounters continue. First we meet a Japanese woman that is trying to set up a gallery and sushibar in her own one room apartment with the crazy dog Jay....Jay: dont touch because he will bite...this cute little dog is so enthousiastic and looks sweet as anything but as he is a Japanese dog he only knows the Japanese way: they own dogs, but dogs are never touched....poor Jay. We leave Dennis to do some business talk and potter through town only to meet Busy, another Krk friend who tells us he had been arrested recently whilst protesting with his elderly neigbour against the closure of 'free water taps'...the local Krk governement had decided to close the public taps because they want people to buy bottled water. The elderly lady protected the tabs with her own body...and they won....ode to the lady! and time for a free fresh drink of water from the Krk taps. After the Krk visit it was time for a quick nap and getting ready for our show in Rijeka! in the garden of an old school we set up, made some interviews and started the show. Unfortunately the wind came and eventhough we acted like proper screensaver girls. We had to cut the show short and went for a drink in the local roadside pub the Tunel...hoping for some more jazz music, but the only band that was playing were the Dolls. After a wonderfull sleep we are now having a proper laptop morning, being quite lazy drinking coffees and updating the blog. Tonight we are at the beach in Rijeka, lets hope the wind doesnt blow us down....NEXT STOP: Motovun Film Festival where we don't have any shows but will visit the dutch projectiontechnic crew.

Rijeka Style

2010-07-23T01:39:00.000-07:00

Wirth a melancholic feeling we left Pula and our new made friend behind us to enter our new Solar Cinema adventure in Rijeka! On arrival our host Ana and Maria awaited us, soon to be followed by Stipe.....they took us to 'there small version of Rocj' an building in the middle of the harbour where a small group of cultural associations work. Here Stipe took out the paperwork he had to fill in for the shows....soon we found out that all things are still not totally sure: our place to sleep, the shows....but we dont mind we kind of like adjusting to this Rijeka style of: yes maybe, or maybe not, but in the end all will be well ;) So we are looking forward to the results of this Rijeka style business. After parting with our hostesses we settled at the local cafe to do a bit of work.....Well Eva worked well and me, i fell a sleep with my laptop on my lap....We finally met up with fellow San Servolian Zelkjo and spend a lovely night on our arses (konten) at the Cont. After a sweaty harbour night today we will have a mini holiday on the lovely island of KrK....where even MAYBE we will do a show....it's Rijeka style....we will see!

Last day in Pula

2010-07-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

Our Pula adventure is coming to an end! Yesterday we did our final show at Rocj a very interesting place: Cultural Center Charles Rojc, located in Pula in the complex that is until1991. served as the barracks of the JNA and shortly thereafter became a squat, and now a cultural / social center. The building used by various associations and musical groups and clubs are often a gathering place Pula students, young artists and creative people prefer alternative music.
It's great to see so many diverse associations housing in this massive complex, all striving to 'make a difference' in their own way. At Rocj we were hosted by: Zelena Istra or Green Istria. An NGO that focusses on the protection of the environment, natural resources and social justice. They develop actions, projects and campaigns on a local, national and international level. Reaching from organizing public lectures and round tables with environmental subjects to developping an 'ECO-Label' for eco-tourism but also the small quirky projects like an 'eco-fashionshow' incollaboration with the designer Robert Sever and ofcourse our Solar Cinema show! In Rocj we presented a 45min programme of our Go Greener Shorts together with the premiere of a short documentary the Rocj people made during an 'action' that took plays at Rocj in the Spring. The action was set up to 'demonstrate' against the plans of the local governement to build a massive parking garage on the Rocj terrain. Fortunatelly the action worked and Rocj is continuing like it is.....now they want to strengthen there collaboration between the 100 associations to be able to join together and set up bigger projects, they aim to make a bar and hostel at the location so it can become a vibrant cultural, sports, social center.....a bit like Metelkova in Ljubljana but than a lot bigger.

Apart from making our shows we were also a guest on the Pula Film Festival and we enjoyed watching the films from the national programmes. Which i would describe as: interesting....i think i will have to think a bit more about the films we saw but it's great to see these films that would probably not be distributed in Holland....
We saw the dark comedy: 72 days and the Some Other Stories: a feature constructed out of 5 short stories all from a different country. In Some Other Stories it was great to see the countries' style, way of storytelling and most of all: humour juxaposted.

After the shows we enjoyed the festivals parties at the Circolo....together with the ever so TIRED crew. The boys and girls were working round the clock to keep the festival going and at the parties you could find them sitting like zombies sipping on their Karlovacko's. Because of our timid festival friends the Dutch girls took the lead in dancing the night away.Unfortunately the music of the local Croatian bands and Radio Pula was not our total 'cup of tea'. But this didn't stop us dancing with the croatian grandpa and getting cheered at by the singer of the band. SO the search of the real Pula party will continue and it's an extra reason to return......Unfortunattely we can't be here on the Punk festival at Rojc, as i think that would defenitally ROCK!

We grown fond of this little town, are impressed by the way the Festival team set up our shows: with lots and lots of PR, and last but not least we will miss our daily swimm in the sea and the bikerides into town.

NEXT STOP: RIJEKA!

Some Pula Press Releases

2010-07-19T03:36:00.000-07:00

/http://www.ipress.hr/gradovi-i-opcine/pula/solarno-kino-cosymo-na-turneji-po-puli-banjolama-i-premanturi-7365.html

/http://www.barkun.hr/index.php/2010071438892/PULA/Mobilno-solarno-kino-stize-u-Pulu-Banjole-i-Premanturu.html

/http://www.zelena-istra.hr/?q=hr/node/638

Opening night of Pula Film Festival

2010-07-19T02:51:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we enjoyed the immaculate opening of the Pula Film Festival: it was awesome to enter in the Arena, see the huge screen and the even bigger audience....at least 7000 people enjoyed the opening film: The Show Must Go On by debut director Nevijo Marasović

a strange croatian sci-fi-reality show-big brother is watching you film....Not sure if it is typical Croatian....as our host Vidor has taught us: all croatian films are depressing.

It's so great to see so much of the local Pula population coming to this festival, where the films that are screened are defenitally no Blockbusters, but even quite cutting edge art-house. We could not imaging a festival like this taking place in Holland. It would never generate such vast amounts of local audience.....The explanation of the staff is mainly: it's the oldest festival we have....but is that the only reason? Or is it a geniun pride?

Another funny note: the opening of the festival was the 'grandest' we have ever been to so far: with fire works, national anthem, presenters in suites and cocktail dresses and applause for the whole crew of the films.

We were surpised to see the whole crew of the film being invited to the festival, but again like our hosts told us: 'its a small country you know: all the actors, directors and crew work on the nationally produced films'.

The opening night ended in a true film festival party at our favourite Club Histria...where the dutch girls took over the dancefloor straight away and the night was finished of by an amazing performance of our solar girl Geraldine!

Saying goodbye to the solar girls

2010-07-19T02:31:00.001-07:00

Sadly Eva and I have said goodbye to the extended Solar Cinema crew: Maartje, Willempje, Stien en Geraldine. The girl made our performances and stay in Pula shine even more!

After Camp Stoja we also enjoyed setting up shows at Camp Indije: where we had our biggest audience, with a lot of kids. It's amazing to see how much the kids enjoyed our films. And eventhough we dont play any mainstream films and all films are experimental with an environmental message the kids seem to pick it up so well.....and as they are our future it fills us with confidence that these little ones might be able to chance the world....filling it with art and going greener.....

Our last location of the 'campsite' tour was situated at sea at camp Stupice. The lovely sea breeze was very welcome after again another hot day.

After the show we enjoyed a croatian concert at the film festival...where offering the singer a cigarette resulted in the announcement: 'Thank you girls from Amsterdam, you know we have alot of single nice croatian men.....and lesbian too....' So well i guess that was a great introduction ;).....Have to say it was an 'interesting' experience to listen to this croatian pop-band: full of cosmo and energia.

The quote of the day: 'Will you want to go to the end of the evening with us?'

Shows at 57. PULA Festival Igranog Filma

2010-07-15T07:53:00.000-07:00

During the 57 Pula Film Festival, CosyMo's Solar Cinema will be touring some lovely campsite locations situated at the sea side. This is the first time the festival experiments with bringing films to the holidaymakers. For us it's a very exciting event, also to see wether we can get audience and how people react to our films. We have an intensive 4 day tour, each day presenting our Go Greener Shorts and a Croatian Film Programme (shorts and animations for children).

The Pula Film Festival is a 14 day festival with extended openair screenings is the most amazing places in Pula.The festival is the oldest Croatian film festival which is held annually in a Roman amphitheater known as the Pula arena since 1954.

Apart from film screenings open to public, the annual Croatian film industry awards are also traditionally presented at the festival. The awards presented at the festival (called Golden Arenas) are the main national film awards in the country and they serve as the Croatian equivalent of the American Academy Awards, British BAFTA Awards, Spain's Goya Awards, France's César Award, etc.

The festival was originally started in 1954 and within a few years it became the centrepiece event of the Yugoslav film industry, with first national awards being presented in 1957. This lasted until 1991, when the festival was cancelled due to the breakup of Yugoslavia, only to resume in 1992 as the Croatian film awards festival.

Our first show was an easy ride: with a spot just located at our holiday-apartment's doorstep. Between the tenniscourts we didnt expect much public, but it was a great 'passing place' so we had quite a lot of holidaymakers catching a few of our shorts.

All shorts were applauded by our audience which always gives me such joy, it's a lovely sign of appreciation to the filmmakers.

We also had some interest of the local press: check out the site:
http://regionalexpress.hr/site/more/mobilno-solarno-kino-zabavlja-publiku/

After the first show a long night awaited us as we were celebrating one of the solar girl's birhtday! Untill the early hours the solar girls danced on trashy music at club Histria.

Our next show was at the iddylic small campsite Stoja, a really small family campsite at the sea....we had our pre solar show picknick at the water and set up for the show. Unfortunatelly we didn't have much audience and I felt a little dissapointed, especially because we showed some amazing animations including: Gulliver by Zdenko Basic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtGwVjdfBzo

Pula: Solar Cinema Girls

2010-07-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

At our arrival in Pula our team has extended with 4 other lovely Solar Girls.....having great fun at our Holiday Resort, with swimmingpool, sea, animation team (i say: we are the animation team), camping disco, buy 5 get 1 free cocktails, salsa lessons and more! Not to forget some lovely campsite Solar Cinema shows.....a story to be continued!

Slovenia show in Kranj

2010-07-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

Time is passing by so quickly and lack of internet connection is making me fall behind in keeping this blog....memories seem to fade quickly and new stories are waiting in line. But luckely i have kept my notebook and reading back the notes i fondly remember our tour. So for our show in Kranj: Kranj is the 4th biggest city of Slovenia and at the sight of it you will immediattelly understand how small Slovenia is! We arrived on a sunday afternoon in the 'one-street-sleepy town of Kranj. It was so silent that the skype call i made on the local terrace echoed all through the street. Andrej our host joined us on the terrace and gave us a quick tour of the town, read: street. Our solar cinema spot was on this street, his house was on this street, the parking was on this street and the local bar was on this street. EASY....We settled in to his apparment, had some chats about future, past and present plans and we got ourselves ready for the World Cup final! Watching this game in this sleepy town was something to look forward to. My lovely friend Urska joined us, she works for Animateka Film Festival and supplied me with some lovely animations for the tour, she also will host a show in a childrens camp at the beginning of august. During a lovely dinner served by a grumpy waiter we discussed some workshop plans for the youthcamp. film making, solar fun etc. Ales also joined, he works in the lovely cinema Kinodvor in Lublijana. After dinner we settled into a local cafe and saw the dutch getting defeated.....to drown my sorrows i dipped my orange bum in the local fountain.....hoping for better luck next time.

On the monday we went for a trip in Ljubliana, walked around, did some sightseeing and windowshopping, had some dinner and got ready to do the show at Pungert....this place was the town's end overlooking a small canyon and the river. Andrej was a real superhero, he spent all day making phonecalls to the town office clerks to find out 'who is the care taker of the public lighting'....as we had a problem with one big light shining on our projection spot. After a day of getting the only answer: the person in charge of that is on holiday, and actually his/her secretary too....Andrej managed to get into the building, reach out of the window and turned the light to shine avay from our spot.....So we had a lovely dark place next to the othodox church to make our show!! Only a small audience but all enjoyed our go greener shorts. After 2 strong local drinks we were ever so happy to be in this little one street town as our beds were only 1 minute away from our bar.....
After a great sleep with a small slight hungover feeling we set of for our next stop: Pula Croatia where our team is extending......

Camping mobile office and off to Slovenia

2010-07-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

The wonderfull thing about the Solar Cinema (and wireless internet) is that we can virtually set up our office anywhere...so our work remains a constant perfect match between work and pleasure. Our mobile office was set up at a campsite at the sea near Venice. Unfortunattelly this region is totally crowded by tourists and set up as one big holiday camp. Not really our idea of an idyllic seaside spot. But after 3 hours drive in the hot sun searching for a place we settled for it, set up the mobile office. Did some 'speed-working' as we only had limited access to paid wifi. After work we had a well deserved picknick with proscecco on the beach.....A beautifull night....untill the mosqiutos started to attack. In about 10 minutes i was bitten at least 54 times, this explained the horrible night and the poisonous feeling the day after....looking like a white & red-dotted mushroom. After a morning jog we set off for Slovenia to our next stop: the sleepy town of Kranj.

Solar Cinema in the Dolomites

2010-07-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

After a lovely night in Mestre Venice, with Proscecco and the best pizza ever we set of for our next stop: Agordo, a village near Belunno in the middle of the Dolomites. On arrival we briefly met the major and were given the key to our private parking: next to the two local police cars! After a quick visit to San Tomaso where Silvia's family house is and where we enjoyed the mountain view, some local cheese and ham...we had some more work to do: editing the final short filmprogramme and trying desperatly to get the film HOME ready with italian voiceover. Andrea, Silvia's brother saved the day and provided us with a copy. The local venice department of Greenpeace was also present at our shows. Seeing the Solar Cinema set up in this beautifull place in the mountains filled us with cheer joy....almost had to pinch ourselves! We had a lovely show with a nice audience! Our compliments go out to Silvia organising the 2 shows: with posters and flyers all over town presenting the project, getting local tv: TeleBelunno involved and getting Greenpeace as a partner (we showed there production Terra Reloaded). It was great to be in such a small town where the nearest cinema is about 30km away and the people are not really used to cinema, and especially not to the kind of films we bring. So taking a great risk to show shorts and the enviromental documentaries was an experiment. But one that turned our really well! Great weather, great audience and a beautifull spot. During the daytime we were escorted to the most beautifull places in the mountains to have lunch and we even enjoyed a swim and a pedalo trip at the local lake. We enjoyed spritz on the terrace and a wonderfull sleep in our hotel. We really hope to come back to the mountains again.....next stop is Slovenia, Kranj where we will have a show on the 12th so first a pitstop at sea, for some sunbathing, mobile office work and a swim.

Pitstop in Torino

2010-07-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

We left Basel and set off for Torino, a last minute de-tour to pay a visit to my new friend Alessandro who was my fellow jury member at the Romanian Sighisoara filmfestival. To discuss and view some more short, as Ale has an extended library of wonderfull shorts because he had been working as the shortfilm programmer for the Leeds film festival. And we are taking the opportunity to discuss some plans for next year: a short solar cinema tour around 15 villages in the Torino region....We arrived late afternoon, parking our van safely in a 24 hour carpark watched by some lovely old italian men. Soon we were dropped of at a lovely cafe enjoying a ice coffee. Ale had to rush to go to his German exams. But as a true italian our stay was planned and we were dropped with his friend and fellow future festival organisor: Antonio. All of a sudden we were enjoying his graduation party together with his italian family! It felt like a warm welcome! Ofcourse we HAD to see the semi final and ended up in a lovely riverside cafe watching the game in a crowded room, cheering for Holland. Next day we had a quick morning tour of Torino and had the most amazing lunch ever....typical torino pasta dishes...delicious! In the afternoon we set of for our next stop: Venice/Mestre to meet up with our italian representative: Silvia...

1st show is done

2010-07-05T23:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening we had the kick-off of our european tour in the lovely Basel. 'The tranquille, clean and mellow city'. After a morning of editing the final filmprogramme and a swim in the Rijn we set of for Kult-Kino Atelier. One of the four filmtheatres under the wings of Kult-Kino in Basel. In fact, only this week one of their single screen cinema's was closed. The competition with Pathe and others was getting too big. A great loss, but as Tobias said also making new oppurtunaties to make the 'best out of the rest of the arthouse cinema's. Which are actually pretty impressive places. The Kult-Kino Atelier is situated in Basel at the Theaterstrasse. You could call it a 'cultural heart'...with the cinema situated 'under' the Tinguelly fountain, in a former theatre place. Next to a lovely big theatre and connected to a squarre where the old church meets an impressive Serra sculpture. ......A perfect Solar Cinema location!

In a totall non-swiss style we parked our van on the middle of the pavement, unrolled the screen in front of the terrace and presented our Go Greener Shorts programme! It was good to see our public had actually come especially to see our show and were not just random 'terrace-goers'. Our youngest fan Lorna (5 months) couldn't keep her eyes of the screen and her mouth of our flyers.

All in all a very succesfull first night with clapping at the end of our show and a lot of 'good-tour'wishes'. Very content we will go and move on today....making a pitstop in Torino and Venice on our way to the next show-stop: Agordo!

italian press

2010-07-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

check it out:

http://www.comune.agordo.bl.it/opencms/comune.act?news=%2Fopencms%2Fopencms%2FCMA%2FAgordo%2FPrimoPiano%2FSolar_Cinema_Goes_Europex.html

Solar Cinema driving and

2010-07-04T14:07:00.000-07:00

arriving with a warm welcome at our friend Tobias his wife and lovely children....getting ready for the first show of the tour tommorrow @ 21.30 untill whenever the public wants to see our films ;).....loving switzerland already!

AND THE TOUR BEGINS

2010-07-03T14:11:00.000-07:00

Finally after months of preparation the CosyMo's Solar Cinema Europe Tour will start! This tour will be the first pilot for our new association: Solar World Cinema. We hope this will be the beginning of the Solar Cinema travelling everywhere bringing inspiring, fresh and sustainable films to the people!

our schedule so far! (please keep checking this blog for updated info):
5-07: Basel- Switserland
8-9-07: Agordo -Italy
12-07: Kranj - Slovenia
13 to 16-07: Pula-Croatia
...20-07: Rocj-Croatia
23 to 25-07: Rijeka-Croatia
28-07: Marindol-Slovenia
1-08: Novigrad-Croatia
3 to 7-08: Romania
10-08: Varna-Bulgaria
12-08: Dobrich-Bulgaria
13 to 18 -08: Varma Veche- Romania
28 to 30 -08: Mestre/Venice - Italy
9 -09: Chateauroux- France

First stop will be a night organised with our friends at KultKino in Basel, show will start 30 min after sunset and will take place at: Theaterpassage, Theaterstrasse 7, Basel.

We will be showing Go Greener Shorts (70min) and more! All our shows are for free so please come and join us.

The first announcement of our tour!

2010-06-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

Only three more weeks and the Europe Tour will begin! Totally excited and slowly getting ready it's becoming a reality whilst seeing the first announcements of our show in Switzerland!

/http://www.kultkino.ch/events

tourdates:
5 july: Basel-Switzerland
9-10 july: Agordo- Italy
12 July: Kranj- Slovenia
13-16 July: Pula- Croatia
23-25 July: Rijeka- Croatia
28 July: Marindol- Croatia
1 August: Novigrad- Croatia
4-9 August: Macedonia
12-18 August: Romania
1-4 September: Mestre-Venice/Italy

@ The Dutch Environmental Film Festival

2010-05-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

We are very happy to be able to show some 'green' films on the Dutch Enviromental Film Festival @ StudioK on 3rd of June!

The filmfestival will also be a partner in our EU tour submitting films for our special programme: Go Greener Shorts

/http://www.strawberryearth.com/deff/news

GO GREENER SHORTS...call for submissions

2010-05-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

For the CosyMo's Solar Cinema Europe Tour we are developping a special programme:
GO GREENER SHORTS, with a great selection of inspiring short films that (in a broad way) deal with the theme: sustainability, going greener, climate change etc.
We hope to inspire our audience with these films in 'making a change'.

We hope to preview our GGS on a few shows in Holland and than take them with us on a 10 week tour around Europe travelling through: Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Romania, France.

Just a few of our selection so far:

Broken Horizon- Simone Hooymans

/www.simonehooymans.com

Silent Snow- Jan van den Berg
/www.silentsnow.org

Sharing a beautiful Sunset- Jasper Elings

/http://jasperelings.info/?page_id=16

Structures- Jasper Kuipers

http://www.jasperkuipers.com/pages/structures2.html

Volgens de Vogels- Linde Faas

But also the young filmmakers which won the Green Planet Blues contest!

We are still looking for inspiring GO GREENER SHORTS so if you want to enter your film please contact us on: info@solarcinema.nl

Home from Hungary

2010-05-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

This morning @ 5 o' clock, after an 18 hour drive the Solar Cinema crew arrived home again! We had a great time in Pecs, with two great Best Of Brabant shows on a brilliant location. Meeting some very enthousiastic public and making new friends and business contacts. We surely hope to return to Pecs in the near future! Hopefully as early as in october where we hope to be a part of the international film Festival.

A warm thank you to all the organisors of Europe Mania and we really enjoyed the festival. After our work we were able to just catch a glimpse of a few wonderfull acts on the festival like: the swiss band: Copy 'n Past, French band: Nosfell, danceperformance from Jelena Kosovic and a lot more!

Simultanious Solar Cinema Shows PECS-Utrecht

2010-05-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had our first show on the Europe Mania Festival in Pecs, Hungary at a beautifull spot in front of the Dome. Showing Best of Brabant a 2 hour programm of the best shorts made in my province. It was a great atmosphere with a lot of audience and passers by. Lots of laughter and friendlyness. Also this night was a special night because it was the first SIMULTANIOUS Solar Cinema show, as the other CosyMo's Solar Cinema van was doing a show on the Latin American Film Festival in Utrecht/Holland! Presenting Habbanna Blues on a cold spring day. Both show were a success and solar power was in the air!

In Pecs the Budapest Filmschool students are making an extensive item about the CosyMo's Solar Cinema. Tonight one more show and than the party is over!

Bye bye Budapest- Hello Pecs

2010-05-06T01:10:00.000-07:00

Two Solar Cinema shows @ Trafo (contemporary arts centre) are in the pocket! Today we will continue our tour to the Europe Mania Festival in Pecs. It's been a funny 'do it yourself' operation in Budapest. We've met some nice people, unfortunately we didn't reach the big audience we would have liked, also due to sudden rainfall.....after another strange sleep in our Celler in the BudaBasement (Buda Base Hotel) we are now ready to hit the (NEW) hungarian highway again!

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

2010-05-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

After some testing and adjusting of the motor we are on the road to Budapest again: so we will be just on time to do our first Solar Cinema show tommorrow....The van is driving better than before, but to be safe we will continue our journey on pertol and will save the cowfarts for back home......We are very Solar Happy!

SOLAR CINEMA HAS STRANDED

2010-05-02T13:14:00.001-07:00

Now i wonder if going Greener doesn't just mean: NO MORE DRIVING!! Today the new CosyMo's Solar Cinema started her trip to Budapest/Hungary....After our planned route passed CNG (Natural Compressed Gas/Aardgas/Erdgas/Biogas) stations we were moving nicely (little bit too slow to my opinion) on the German highway untill some lights started flashing in the van.....luckely we stopped immediately to get some AA help.....We found out the van was too NEW to be able to be connected to the AA's computer system. We are now stuck with a Solar Cinema van with a motorblock which is nearly falling out because of strange rattling and shaking caused by: probably the gassystem as the AA man told us.....Of course we DO NOT believe this and are still very fond of our Cow-fart petrol....The Solar Cinema has now choosen to use another alternative form of transport: Hitchhiking!!!

So for now the crew is stranded in Landgasthof Franz in god knows where in Germany....Grussgotti!

OUR NEXT INTERNATIONAL STOP

2010-04-14T13:57:00.001-07:00

In the beginning of May the new Solar Cinema van will travel to Hungary to join in the Europe Mania Festival!
check out the line up on: www.europemania.hu

Cinema Vans Let's Unite!

2010-04-14T02:58:00.000-07:00

http://splendorcinema.blogspot.com/2010/04/cinemas-in-van.html

The New CNG driving CosyMo's SC in the making!

2010-04-14T02:29:00.000-07:00

So finally it's really happening: CosyMo's Solar Cinema is going Greener, Driving Cleaner! Our newest van will be driving on Compressed Natural Gas, which is the least poluting fuel you can drive at the moment. It is just like the gas from your cooker, and eventhough it is still a fossil fuel, it will soon (and already is being) be replaced by Bio-Gas or Bio-Methane.....FART-GAS!!! I love the idea of waist being used to fuel my Solar Cinema van.....So our new brand spanking CosyMo's Solar Cinema is being kitted out with even more solar cells and battery's...to have more power for more films! And the way it is looking now: the 22nd of April the van will be completed! Can't wait!

reviews & news

2010-03-23T12:42:00.001-07:00

just a quick review of our performance during MuseumNacht in Rotterdam
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/artikelen/artikel/43204405

NEWS:

this week CosyMo's Solar Cinema will appear on International Film Festival Breda
www.iffb.com
presenting short films that fit with our Solar Cinema just outside the festival Cinema.
We present a selection of films from the Cinestud Festival
www.cinestud.nl
which will take place next week together with a selection of films made by local filmmakers....including an oldy of mine: Smell what time it is.....lets hope springs stays in the air for a while!

Solar Shorts

2010-03-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

Bij Go short houden we van kort en niet alleen op de korte termijn. Voor een levendig en creatief klimaat is een leefbare planeet een eerste vereiste. CosyMo’s Solar Cinema is de eerste mobiele en volledig met zonne-energie aangedreven bioscoop van Nederland. Zonnepanelen op het dak van de CosyMo’s Solar Cinema bus leveren alle benodigde energie voor de filmprojectie. Solar Cinema zet het zonnelicht voor je om in projectorlicht!

In samenwerking met CosyMo’s Solar Cinema organiseert Go Short een duurzame open-lucht-vertoning. Solar Shorts wordt gepresenteerd doorO ns Groene Hert en Stichting Slimmer.

Donderdag 18 maart, 19:30 – 22:00, centrum Nijmegen, gratis

Solar Shorts Programma

Peripheria
Marcel Barelli | Swiss | animation | 8'48"

Stil Leven
Tim de Groot | Nederland | animation | 3'10"

Basta!
Michiel ten Horn | Netherlands | fiction | 13'20"

How to save a fish from drowning
Kelly Neil | UK | documentary | 13'12"

Packing
Behrooz Karamikaze | Germany | documentary | 4'

Volgens de Vogels
Linde Faas | Netherlands | animation | 2'00"

Guerilla Cinema with CosyMo's Solar Cinema

2010-03-07T12:32:00.000-08:00

Duing Museum-night in Rotterdam the CosyMo's Solar Cinema did a real a-team style guerilla cinema action in Rotterdam. Hosting the wonderfull outdoor city animationproject: Reis door de stad.
www.reisdoordestad.nl
Animation on walls accompanied by life music form convoi exceptional. Hope we can do this project again one night!

2010-02-24T11:45:00.000-08:00

CosyMo's Solar Cinema will be hosting this wonderfull project during MuseumNacht in Rotterdam on the 6th of March.

crossing through town and 'wild-projecting' a beautifull animation about a trip through a city, the animation was made by 10 different artists. Live music is added by Convoi Exceptional

Dit project is een ritmische performance waar djembeeband Convoi Exceptional en een projectie van animaties door de stad verplaatsen. Bij het animeren is gebruik gemaakt van het thema ‘Reis door de Stad’ en het ritme van de instrumenten. Op de Rotterdamse museumnacht 2010 rijden we met een busje langs het Centrum Beeldende Kunst, het Maritiem Museum, de Kunsthal, het Nederlands Architectuurinstituut en Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

Berlinale: one film and on the road networking

2010-02-19T13:57:00.000-08:00

My intentions to go to the Berlinale were never to see a lot of films. So i didn't. I only saw Fucking Different, Sao Paulo. A series of gay & lesbians shorts which did not inspire me. Maybe i rated it worse than it was because I could not get over the fact that a Festival like the Berlinale dares to put such a crap projection on. The quality was so poor it should not be allowed. Berlin was a trip of great reunion, good walks, nice beer and on road networking, just how i like it. Again a step further in organising the Solar Cinema Europa tour. As San Servolo is added as a rest point to tell a succes story I am even more driven to make this tour a succes! Places added: San Servolo, Toulouse and Skopje.

the last impressions of our tour

2010-02-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

Check us out on Romanian TV!!! (our item starts @ 48.00 min

2010-02-08T04:59:00.000-08:00

Click on the link below!

Ora Verde - 05.02.2010

When I get home......

2010-02-07T09:05:00.000-08:00

3 days of traveling with my foot stuck on the paddle for about 33 hours.....we only got lost once in the outbacks of Romania, by night in the snowy mountains, petrol running low with absolutely nothing around us.....untill we met the loggers.....time to turn around and try to get to Sibiu asap. First day travelling was the hardest, only 8 hours travelling but over constant bumpy roads full of romanian dare devils.....two more 14 hour days followed.......We would like to give an ode to the Solar Cinema Van, i got took us on a great adventure and returned us safely home.....I am impressed! And now back home back to the daily life, back to the piles of work preparing for the next trip!

One more night....

2010-02-07T07:49:00.001-08:00

The snow and our sweet new friends got us convinced. We stayed another day: visiting the local filmschool, falling in love with the Steenbeck....eventhough i consider myself as an editor I never got the chance to work on one of these old beasts. It's good to see the youngsters do learn their trade on this beast. The understanding of editing starts with the linear way.

Not ready to leave just yet

2010-02-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

At the sunday dinner up in the mountains in Sinaia things people have said to us were repeating in our heads: 'Come to Bucharest....it is quite different....In Bucharest you can find GOOD food....Bucharest is another world et c etc.' So still slightly hungover we decide: what the heck, we might as well pack up now, drive 2 hours to Bucharest and enjoy one FANTASTIC meal in the concrete city. So we did. After a city car tour through Bucharest passing the most important buildings like the unmissable but super scary Casa Poporului built by Ceauşescu. Impressive building but with a very bitter taste knowing building it required demolishing much of Bucharest's historic district, including 19 Orthodox Christian churches, six Jewish synagogues, three Protestant churches (plus eight relocated churches), and 30,000 residences!
While the building was intended to house all four major state institutions Ceausescu intended the palace also to be his personal residence and the government was to operate in it.
The name People's House seems such a contradiction.

Titus and Irena were the best Bucharest guides we could have wished for. They took us to La Mama where we enjoyed and orgasmic good meal! The best in 14 days! I even had a taste of the local Tripe soup, which actually tasted pretty nice. Good decision to visit Bucharest for one more night.....or two?

the closing party

2010-02-07T03:48:00.000-08:00

So all the work is done, it all went so quickly, so now it is time for the closing party....but where is the closing party. As good as last night was, tonight seems a little different. As we caught up for some sleep and missed out the guest dinner we met up with our romanian friend who works for 'Let's do it Romania!' in the Old Nick.

A great clean up innitiative which started in Estonia:

We await the others but we never got a chance to meet with them again. The Old Nick also felt totally strange and different than the night before. So we end our night with waving our friend goodbye @ the trainstation at 4 in the morning.

Green Planet Blues Solar Cinema show 3

2010-02-07T03:24:00.000-08:00

This time at the bottom of the ski-slopes, a beautifull spot in the middle of the snow!

THE NIGHT WE WILL NOT FORGET @ Old Nick

2010-02-07T03:14:00.000-08:00

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Green Planet Blues Solar Cinema show 2

2010-02-07T02:59:00.000-08:00

First of all I would like to compliment the festival for the great line up of films...of which i've not seen much because of being too busy ;( but i would like to feed you with a few trailers:

For our second show we set up at Casa Duca and we had a wonderfull vibrant young audience! Laughing smilling and dancing to the video's. Great show! After the show we set of for a night in town, getting drunk romanian style in the Old Nick.....

opening of GPB

2010-02-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

After our first show we freshen up an rush to the very luxe festival venue. Somehow it feels kinda strange to have a eco filmfestival is such a posh place, but than again, it in this gorgious surroundings it makes you think about what we are about to destroy. Sinaia has such beautifull mountains and forests. All of a sudden i hear i have to do a welcoming speech as well....o well i'm kind of used to the press attention already and yes I love to be on stage. So i practise my new learned romanian....say buna serra...and of course Mulţumesc to Avis....They sponsored our tour and we are so thankfull, and the guy from Avis is such a gentle and kind guy! After the speeching we watch a bit of the opening film and than had our opening banquet.....again the strange romanian style foods...and some bublly. Meeting some of the fellow guests, the lovely dutch director Jan Louter and a few others (so sorry i forgot names). This was our only time with the other guests really because unfortunatelly we were quite busy managing our shows.

Green Planet Blues Solar Cinema show 1

2010-02-06T12:02:00.000-08:00

So after a few days of well deserved rest, we start the day finishing the final edit of the GPB trailer, check our equipment and get ready for our first show! We will be in the middle of this touristic town in front of the biggest supermarket (just to compare sizes: just like your local happyshopper). Our Romanian team member Gabi is already waiting for us trying to get an really old lady to get out of the way. We have learned during the shows in Timisoara and Sibiu that we only have one problem regarding our set up. Our screen doesn't like the cold one bit! Like everything 'sensitive' it tends to SHRINK like crazy when it comes in contact with cold. And yeah minus 15 is cold! So we have managed a new way of setting up the screen, it involves Chris wearing the screen around his waist whilst we travel to the location. On arrival we prepare the frame and count down: 3,2,1: in exactly 30 seconds we need to make sure the screen is clicked on the frame. A real new sport! In Siniai we premiere a great wonderfull funny short: Crazy Peeing Dog from reciclatorii.ro
This video is just such a spot on little animation getting across the 'green spirit'. Funny, well made and making you laugh and think at the same time! The perfect Solar Cinema animation. We would love to take this video on tour!

We have again alot of press filming us, which is great, we give little interviews and see passers by stopping and watching a few of our video's. After playing the set twice we pack up to get ready for the opening night!

Festival Working Mode

2010-01-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

So today we slowly start being in the fesstival working mode. After trying out the Romanian skislopes on my snowboard, an experience that threw me right back into the seventies, with old wooden/iron chairlifts and a hummble 1 slope piste....not really to be compared with Val Thorens...but with it's own charm i would say ;) Our day ends at the Festival HQ where i finish the final edit of our Solar Cinema show and am also now working as the festival FCP editor. This suits me just fine, combining the pleasure time with hard working time....And again we are getting accustomed to the local food traditions which still strike me as pretty strange: porc (fat) belly with raw onion and washing it down with Palinka. Chris is the die hard in this one: he will have this traditional breakfast tommorrow when we get up!We are also falling in love with the lovely romanian stray dogs...that must resemble the BEARS everyone was warning us about (luckely they are asleep in winter ;)... So tommorow our 3 day of showings in Sinaia will start including a show at the bottom of the telegondola...the gondel that takes you up the mountain. Can't wait! Hope our sweet van wants to start up in -15 degrees after standing still for 2 days.

Arrived at our Festival stop

2010-01-26T10:17:00.001-08:00

In the pictures: 1: our view from the hotelroom 2: the local press 3: the festival location 4: our hotel. I have to start of with a little Ode to the Solar Cinema van. It managed the roads up the mountain really well and we arrived safely at our final Festival location: Sinaia. The beautiful mountain resort is located at 120 km distance from Bucharest and 49 km from Brasov, on the Prahova Valley. Sinaia takes its name from the 17th-century monastery built by a Romanian nobleman after undertaking a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai, Egypt. Sinaia is one of the most famous and oldest mountain tourist resorts in Romania, known as “The Carpathian Pearl”. It is best known for being the summer residence of the Romanian Royal family.
Just the right place for the Solar Cinema and the Green Planet Blues Film Festival. Our resident: Hotel Palace....a 4 star hotel....with the appearance of a 4 star hotel but as we discovered slowly but surely, with the cuisine of a 1 star hotel and service of a.....well can't compare it really....But our beds, bath and view are absolutely wonderfull! So we have decided we need a little unwind time and get ready for a big 'Pressconference' on tuesday. A little nervous we arrived at the Festival location: The Casino, to take place at the 'press-table'...only to find out the local press consists on 4 people who are not really interested in asking us anything. So i said Mulţumesc to Avis (thank you Avis for being our sponsor and making it able for us to travel to this beautiful country with these wonderfull people!!) and that was the hard work for the morning done! So it was time to explore this beautiful mountain resort and we visited the local monastry, petted all the local dogs, took more pictures had lunch and went for an audiocable hunt, which we eventually found in a dungeon-internet cafe, which had a sign on the door prohibiting dogs, food, drink, phones and porn!
This cable should surely work! In our immense hotelroom it was easy to make a solar cinema set up and it felt nice to check everything an be sure to have a good show on Thursday. Our night is ending at the Green Planet Blues Head Quaters, where we are surrounded by laptops, hardworking crazy sweet romanians and FINALLY: GOOD MUSIC AND THE BEST HOMECOOKED FOOD! Can't beat this! Together working and enjoying film, music and food. I can't wait for the festival to begin. Another nice note: the dutch will have a pretty big part in this festival, with 3 dutch films and 8 dutch guests. Should be funny to meet them.

Romanian Adventure

2010-01-25T02:57:00.000-08:00

So finally I have time to sit down and write the first blog of the trip to Romania. Chris and I are sitting down in Fagaras, the hometown of one of our wonderfull hostess Ana. Our trip so far has been a very inspiring and smooth operation. With pitstops in FeldKirchen-Westerham where we visited family which i haven't seen for years. A stopover in Hungary at the dutch diplomate and some new friends which invited us for a 10 day Solar Cinema event in Pecs during the EuroMania festival in May.
In Hungary we were introduced for the first time to the local drink Palincka, very very strong fruitliquer....which we soon found out also was the local brew in Romania....
We visited the fantastic A38 bar and saw some Hungarian emo-rock bands.
Just experiencing a hint of Budapest we will make sure we will visit again!
Excited but also a bit scared for the 'bumpy roads' in Romania we set of for our first 'showtime-stop' in Timisoara....just for the records, the Romanian roads are just fine and the trip went very smoothly, and Timisoara was easy to find: just one road crossing the border and than entering the town. Unfortunately we arrived too late for the Bicycle escort into the town of Timisoara....The local ECOCLUB had arranged a beautfull spot for us on the townsquare and welcomed us with bread and salt (a local tradition). Than the hectic night started, Oana and Ana arrived and it was wonderfull to realize this trip was actually REALLY happening. It was great to give my little romanian sister (as i call Oana) a big hug and get started. I left Chris with 5 eager romanian boys to set up the solar cinema system whilst me and Oana tried to get the programm edited, a programm full of wonderfull little video's made by teenagers who entered the Green Teen Spitit contest, a part of the festival Green Planet Blues where local teenagers are challenged to express their view on the climate problems in a creative way...the best films will be selected and will travel back with the Solar Cinema to be taken on a European tour...And between all of this both me and Chris had to give interviews to the local and national television. At 6 it was showtime!! At minus 6 degrees we had a fair bunch of people coming to see us! It was just great, great little film, applausse and kind people.
The night was finished of with a plastic of homebrew Palincka in our pocket and lots of beer in our bodies.

Next stop Sibiu:

After a night full of bedbugs in Timisoara we set off for Sibiu....this time: a bit more holes in the road. At arrival a friendly dutch woman awaited us and instructed us to the middle of again a beautifull square. The deeper into Romania, the colder though. We are pretty impressed with the Solar Cinema system withstanding this extreme cold and: it's even charging up in the winter sun!!
Unfortunattely in Sibiu not all our public was enjoying the show, as we were disturbing the sunday catholic mass.....one (american, so not even local) church go-er was not impressed neither interested in the ecofriendly message we were bringing.
Than we packet up again and set off to Fagaras where Ana's lovely mother supplied us with some local Romanian food....including meat jelly.

Today we set off for our final festival destination: Sinaia.....
And we will be free for the next three days!

Start of the new year

2010-01-19T13:29:00.000-08:00

2010 promisses to be an exciting Solar Cinema year, not only will CosyMo's Solar Cinema extensively tour throughout Europe but we are officially starting our association: Solar World Cinema to organise exciting audiovisual projects hosted by the Solar Cinema(s). In Latin America we will build a new Solar Cinema....the Solar Cine Movil which will start touring LA and working closely with several partner organisations.

The cold January holds the newest adventure: a tour to Romanania! CosyMo's Solar Cinema will drive all the way to Timisoara, Sibiu and Sinaia to present the wonderfull film of the eco film festival: www.blueplanetblues.ro

We, that is Maureen Prins (aka CosyMo) and her crewmate Christian are very excited to start the cold trip thursday early morning.

As we are new to this 'blogging' we hope to keep you informed and will post lots of pictures of our Solar Winter Expedition.