The complaint I hear time and time again from my friends and colleagues about living in Canberra is that there’s nothing to do. This never ceases to amuse me, because when I ask them if they’re going to various events the answer is always “I didn’t know it was on.” I’ve realised that the problem is that they never bother to look to see what’s happening, so they just assume nothing is going on. So I’ve started deliberately looking for upcoming events and passing the information onto my friends and co-workers, and I thought why not expand the audience a bit. We may not get all the huge concerts and so on that Sydney and the other cities get, but we do have a lot worth checking out.

The biggest upcoming event at the moment is the 17th Canberra International Film Festival.

The festival opens on Wednesday the 23rd of October with a members only screening of The Butler, and officially runs from the 30th of October til the 10th of November, with a members only screening of On My Way in the week following that. There are over 60 films from all around the world and from a wide range of genres showing at 100 screenings throughout the festival. The films are split into ten strands, nine of which are then grouped into sets of three that share similar themes. The groups are Sex, Politics and Religion; Individual, Family and Planet; and Life, Love and Liberty. The final strand is Freaky Fridays, and only contains four movies that are horror/thrillers and are being shown as double features on the Fridays. One film from each of the main nine strands has a discussion/Q&A session following it.

You can find a complete list of the films showing at the festival here.

The individual pages for each film have a blurb about the film and the trailer for it. I’ll be attending sixteen of the films throughout the main part of the festival, as well as both of the members only screenings. I’ve listed my picks below:

• The Butler
• Ginger and Rosa
• Mirage Men
• Magic Magic
• Patrick
• In Bob We Trust
• The Priest’s Children
• Michael Kohlhaas
• Night Train to Lisbon
• In Bloom
• Short Term 12
• Filth
• Only Lovers Left Alive
• Blue Ruin
• John Dies At The End
• What Richard Did
• Intimate Parts
• On My Way

I’m thinking of trying to fit in a screening for My Sweet Pepper Land as well since it looks like an interesting take on the Western genre, but the only time I can do that is on the same day I’m seeing two movies already, so I’d have to get to work ridiculously early and then spend around 6 hours in the cinema straight after getting out… could be worth it though.

The one I’m looking forward to the most is Filth, which is based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, who also wrote Trainspotting.

So if you’re going to be going to the festival, or know anyone in the area who might be interested, please pass the info on to them. Hell, just take a look at the list of films and see if any of them catch your eye. I know I’m going to be trying to get hold of most of the ones I don’t have time to go and see anyway, because they still interest me.

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Apologies for yet another non-gaming related update, but this one is related to an event that starts within the next week in Canberra, so I had to get it posted now. Gaming stuff is on the way, I’m back to attempting to write campaign setting stuff to get Cooking the Cosmos up and running again.

Written while listening to the album Questions and Answers by The Sleeping. They’re a post-hardcore band, and the song most people would know of theirs is Don’t Hold Back, which was featured in Guitar Hero III.