Naked Sushi Invitations to film festivals

I'm back in LA/USA, the land of XL everything, ice, salad dressing options, spicy food, and variety.  When I say variety-I mean it in every sense of the word.  From the people, to food, to cars, to fashion plus, plus! I never realized how diverse the USA is until visiting Europe. Even though we have our issues it seems that we are able somehow to co-exist within close proximity to so many cultures, religions, nationalities, and ethnicities that I did not see over there. Although they embrace internationalism and new ideas, etc. I just did not see them all living together like here in the south of France and Rome.  That is the beauty of the US and of Los Angeles.  I absolutely loved my trip to the South of France and to Rome. I could totally live there. It's beautiful and inspiring. I now understand a little how and why this place was the source of inspiration of so many great artists.  I could only be so lucky to get to film over in Europe!

One thing I will add that I found odd was that the beautiful seaside restaurants of Cannes at the Croisette are not allowed to be open other than during the day except July, August, and during the festival. How can that be good for a business? I guess that they are trying to funnel business to the other restaurants across the street.  I saw that as an interesting use of government authority over business enterprise.  Mike and I spoke with one restaurant managers and he told us that he wished he could serve us a drink and dinner so we could enjoy the beautiful sunset while dining. But he said that they would get a huge fine!  I was surprised at this. Maybe someone can share with me the reasoning behind this law. Secondly, I would have to get used to the constant strikes though. During the festival, the electric company shut off electricity to several shops and restaurants across from the Palais. Riot police were everywhere. But nothing scary seemed to happen.  This last Tuesday the trains went on strike in France and the Paris airport struck. It's a good thing we did not have to rely on a train or fly through Paris to get back home on Tuesday. Otherwise we would have been stranded! Not good for a traveller who does not speak the language.  The family we rented a studio from said that teachers also strike during the school year forcing parents to take off work to watch their kids. They also shared their views of the French perception of US policies towards healthcare and immigration. We shared ours with them and we had a nice meeting of the minds. I would say the hardworking middle class from my observations are not so different from us.  I must say though that it takes some major lifestyle adjustments, but mostly for the better I think. For instance, I hope that I continue to walk a ton everyday. Even if I don't have a particular destination that I am trying to get to for a meeting, event, lunch or dinner, or sightseeing.  I hope to continue building the new international relationships that I have made and make new ones.  I hope to learn more about other world cultures through filmmaking and/or promoting my film bringing awareness not only to myself but to others.  There is something to be said about countries/cultures that have been around for hundreds of years-or centuries.  I realize that I only scratched the surface in my little whirlwind tour and know so little. 

I hope that Naked Sushi will give me an excuse to travel to festivals all over but that I will have the opportunity to work on other projects soon that will bring me back over there!  I will update as things progress. Another little bit of advise I will give here is that I learned that Cannes is pronounced "CAN" as in "YES I CAN". It is not pronounced "KAHN" as in "STAR TREK II-WRATH OF KAHN."  I was corrected a lot by folks here in the states telling me it was "KAHN." Now I know. So I now bestow this new found wisdom unto you. :) Thank you for reading and stay tuned! PS we received invitations to Raindance Film Festival and Levante Film Festivals. The Levante was more personalized and I feel good about this one!