AIFF 2010: World Premier of 22:43 Gets Good Audience Reception

22:43's Facebook page has this movie/tv page up showing the headline that the World Premier is in Canada.  Which they are quick to correct:

22:43 Natürlich liegt Anchorage NICHT in Kanada, sondern im US-Bundesstaat Alaska. Damit hatte "22:43" seine Weltpremiere in den USA ;-) Aber trotzdem vielen, vielen Dank für den tollen Bericht!!!

[Translation:  Of course, Anchorage is not in Canada, but is in the US state, Alaska.  Therefore, 22:43 has its world premier in the USA.  Despite that, many thanks for the good news!!!]

I would comment that the Germans who (rightfully) scolded Joe Miller in their comments on this blog for his comments on the East German border fence, might want to remember that this Austrian(?) newspaper thought Alaska was in Canada.


This is the third world premiere that I went to this week - The Last Station (world premier outside of Turkey); Journey Along the Wild Coast; and tonight, the Austrian film 22:43. The opening credits of 22:43 already had me sucked in as I tried to figure out exactly what I was seeing, but I liked the stuttering of the image. As the film began I was surprised at how clear the German was for an Austrian film. (OK I know they speak spectacular German in the Burgtheater, but I also know the Viennese can speak an unintelligible language of their own.)

22:43 worked despite a complicated set of plots and sub plots, despite the supernatural element, and despite the background airplane trip metaphor which made sense at the end.  Lots of stuff was happening, but even with subtitles, everyone I spoke to was able to follow pretty well.  (There's one woman on the video who needed help after it was over, but she said she'd see it again.)  It helped that Max, Hannah, and Chris were all appealing characters.  And the dog (I can't remember his name and the 22:43 website doesn't list him on the cast page) helped too.

I think it's still too early for me to write too much.  Some things are only now beginning to filter through and make sense.
 

I knew this was a world premier and no one was aware of anyone from the film being here, so I got audience folks coming out to give their impressions of the film for the benefit of the filmmakers.  I'll post that soon here. 




There was a good audience for a Wednesday afternoon. I'd say the Bear Tooth was 2/3 full - maybe 150 to 180 people.