Slogging at Home and a Broad

Not only a great artist,
but also a freedom fighter.
--Miriam Makeba on Nina Simone

The film festival is over and I'm no longer blogging for The Stranger, so here's a follow-up to one of my posts. To see all Slog entries pertaining to the 33rd Seattle International Film Festival, please click here. Thanks to Bill for the following.

Nina Simone as Soundtrack Signifier

Fresh Air, the Hungarian movie about the lavatory attendant, features another Nina Simone song: "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" [written by Bennie Benjamin], the first third of which is played uninterrupted under a shot of the attendant's daughter laying awake at night, trying to figure out what to do.

Endnote: Bill adds that Larry Fessenden's The Last Winter features a Nina Simone number and that Monkey Warfare references the artist by way of a record. Unfortunately, I missed both; Winter only screened once, but the IMDb lists a Sept 19 release date.

Also, I wore my Simone t-shirt when I interviewed Steve Buscemi. "Who's that?" he asked. "Nina Simone," I replied. "She's great," he said (David Lynch said the same exact thing when I asked him about using Simone's "Sinnerman" to close out INLAND EMPIRE).

Incidentally, Bill saw 104 films to my 62. Makes me feel like a slacker, but it was the best I could do, and I still fell behind on personal business, although I kept up with all of my Amazon assignments. By way of comparison, Sean saw 66, Steven saw 36, Tom saw 31, and Kevin, who was out of town for most of the festival, saw one. 

Nina Simone image from In These Times.