The Cleveland International Film Festival

The Cleveland International Film Festival.

Before you say anything, It does exist. It is not a made up festival or anything. The festival has for 34 years shown movies from around the world in all forms; short, full length, documentary, fictional, animated, and so forth.

For example today, on the 4th day of the festival I saw a french romantic comedy and a documentary on the history of film criticism. You can catch a plethora of films at the festival. You can see an Iranian film about guys wanting to lose weight who then train in sumo wrestling or a documentary about Allen Iverson. Variety - the spice of life.

I love talking about movies. I get into plenty of conversations about movies. I consistently hear people complain about the movies that are being made and shown in local theaters. Since many people out there do not know of or cannot make it to an art house cinema where foreign films or low budget movies are a regular occurrence, they are then stuck with the general milieu of Hollywood cinema at your near by megaplex. But countless amounts of people out there yearn for something more than some romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant as the awkward British guy or some over-hyped teen drama with countless minutes (which feels like hours) of intense yet unsatisfying staring.

What I am saying is... if you want more than what is available to you, then you have to seek it out or you can attend a festival in which there are dozens of options, easily packaged and available to you. Kind of like a buffet for movie lovers. If you cannot make it to Cleveland, fear not because most likely a film festival is closer to you than you think. There are countless amounts of festivals all over the world. In big cities, small cities, universities and even small local theaters organizing festivals ranging from genre festivals showing three nights of horror classics to international festivals displaying a world of cinema beyond your individual grasp.

I suggest going to the Cleveland International Film Festival. Supporting the arts never hurt anyone, plus you might be surprised by what you see or you might be surprised by what you like.