"I make money on painting, I lose money on my films"

That's what the drop-dead gorgeous Austrian director Edgar Honetshläger www.honetschlaeger.com/about/ said when we talked with him after seeing his film Omsch at the Nyon Visions du Rèel documentary film festival.

Each year I try and do many days at the festival with the creator of  http://livinginnyon.com/ (see for more film reviews). Sadly, so far it has only been one each year because of other commitments.

Omsch covers Honetschläger's friendship with his cantankerous, wise neighbour from the woman's 90th year to her 102nd when she died. Friendship between generations and despite often large swarths of geography, their friendship was touching, wise and sometimes funny.

Northern Lights by Nick Bentgen reported on a remote corner of Michigan where the main interests are snowmobile racing, cheer leading and body building. Like many young directors the film needed to be cut where the camera was too in love with beautiful shots that stayed on the screen far too long. The three families and the three interests were too jumbled, while alone each would have made a separate and social revealing documentary. Still, it was an interesting social commentary in a sad, depressing way, although sad and depressing is not a reason not to tell a story.

Just the opposite as Asi son les Hombres? told by Klaudia Reycike, using family films. Born in Peru she moved to Switzerland when her mother married when the child was 10. Because phone calls were expensive the family sent videos back and forth. Klaudia moved to the US then back to Switzerland where she now lives with her husband and young son. Her family ended up in Florida. Talking to her aunt, mother and grandmother in Florida sandwiched between the family films, it is a startling revelation of cross-culture, changing mores, strong women, male-female relations that brought long, long applause from the audience that included Klaudia's mother, aunt and the Peruvian Ambassador to Switzerland. For a first film, there was not one thing that could have been cut. I would go see anything this woman produces.

Dayana Mini Market is almost documentary meets Bollywood and tells of a Sri Lankan family living in Paris. Despite money problems, they share living quarters behind their store. The tenderness of the family working together for the common good was a perfect film to top off the day.

Another aspect of the festival that I enjoy is lunch and conversation about the films not only with my friends, but other people we see. Than there was the nice glass of wine while waiting for the last friend. I
asked the waiter...

"Ou est la toilette."
"Les fleurs dehors." Then he laughed and showed me that the toilet was really inside at the back of the restaurant. When I returned I told him, his toilet was pretty, but I would love to see flowers to make it even prettier. He pointed out that there really were no flowers outside.

There were so many good films, that I didn't get a chance to see.

Next year, I promise myself to do at least three days.