Day Two: Show Your Colors
za isolacinema.org pi??e Joe Valenčič
foto © Jure Vi??intin
The colors of Kino Otok exhilarate me. Hot sapphire skies. Gold glinting on the azure Adriatic. Roses bursting crimson and pink from every garden. The scarlet shirts of a hundred Otok volunteers. It’s overwhelming. Winter was way too long in my town. When I left Cleveland, it was pallid with snow. Leaden clouds weighed down my spirits. I led a lackluster existence. It’s not easy to dance in galoshes and a parka.
Imagine: a film festival where no one wears black. When you’re here, you’re primed to show your colors – both on the outside and from the inside. During the day, Izola shimmers in the sun. In the evening, arresting images burn from the screen in the Piazza Manzioli. Argentina, the Ivory Coast, Iran, Morocco, Bosnia, Egypt, Peru, Iraq — the world brings its colors to Kino Otok. You want to drink them in at every showing.
No place is more vibrant than the Punta at night. The DJs know how to get a crowd on its feet. The images stay with you. Fire dancers, belly dancers and free-style dancers. Bubbling pots of Jamaican soup and smoked chickens bobbing on a clothesline. Arresting visions from the Video on the Beach entries. Intricate patterns from Iran on carpets and hangings. Glasses of Slovenia’s sweetest squeezings raised in sloshy toasts. The Kino Otok experience isn’t complete without a rowdy time on the Punta. Join us tonight as we raise a ruckus loud enough to wake Trieste across the bay.
I know you live for film. But between the screenings and roundtables, indulge in a stroll along the riva or enjoy a grappa in a gostilna. Check out the sculptors tapping away at the ?�kamp. Admire Jo??e Rehberger Ogrin’s portraits of the first Otok’s guest directors at the Alga Gallery. Buy a bright Kino Otok tee-shirt. Climb Radivoj’s squiggly Otok fish sculpture on the edge of town. Izola has charmed visitors since the Romans first arrived. Kino Otok makes it glow.
Joe Valenčič
