One of the fun things about going to film festivals is that you get to meet old acquaintances, and this has certainly been the case in the last few days at the
Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Yesterday, I bumped into
Mike White, who is here in support of his directorial debut,
Year of the Dog, which I
talked to him about a few months ago. We had a brief catch-up chat, and I was amused to notice that he was wearing exactly the same ski jacket as the cold spring day we had spoken in New York. (The Edinburgh weather has not been at its best, as the summer has seemingly still not arrived in the U.K.)
White was also at the
Writing Comedy interview with
Judd Apatow (above), part of the festival's writing theme this year. The two former
Freaks and Geeks collaborators greeted each other warmly before proceedings began, and later on in the event White was given a microphone so he could contribute to a discussion of the cult TV series. Apatow was typically charming and self-effacing in front of a very obviously appreciative audience: at one point, one of the audience questions was "Can I come and hug you?" Apatow obliged, and then pledged that he was now going to "hug every one of you motherfuckers before this is over!"
Later, I caught up with Apatow, who I also
interviewed recently, at the party to celebrate the highly successful festival screening of
Knocked Up - as well as, unofficially,
Superbad being the current U.S. box office champ. We talked about
Hal Ashby and
Charles Bukowski, and he joked about a possible Best Actor Oscar nomination for
Seth Rogen, who was also in attendance. (Quite bizarrely, while we were talking a man of Apatow's age came up to me, and said, "Judd?! Judd, is that you?" I had to sheepishly say, "No, that's Judd next to me..." It turned out that he was an old college mate of Apatow, and left me all the more certain that my festival fuzz beard does indeed need a trim.)
Another amusing incident came during Apatow's Q&A session when, seeing a woman fleeing the theater, he upbraided the audience member asking the question, saying, "Your question is so bad that she's leaving!" The young lady making a quick exit to fulfill interview obligations was none other than one of our
25 New Faces Jennifer Venditti, the director of the excellent
Billy the Kid, which has been a favorite among the EIFF festivalgoers. Another of the New Faces,
Alex Holdridge, director of the excellent
In Search of a Midnight Kiss , was also here a few days ago. I got talking to him while we were both checking our emails, and he told to me that the
Swingers analogy I made when writing about his film was the biggest compliment he could have hoped for. Last night, I saw
Teeth (above), the extremely likable Sundance hit starring New Face
Jess Weixler and, completing the circle, I am now off to have dinner with yet another New Face,
Hope Dickson Leach.
# posted by Nick Dawson @ 8/20/2007 01:52:00 PM
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