Rooftop parties, movies, champagne and dinner with John Waters

I spent the majority of last week at the Offscreen film festival which my boyfriend organizes. Here's what those days looked like:

Wednesday: The festival started with a reception party at the Cinema Nova followed by the screening of Berberian Sound Studio in the presence of director Peter Strickland and voice-artist Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg. The movie was exquisitely directed with perfect visuals and sound design. Only the last ten minutes were a bit disappointing.

The evening ended with a rooftop party at Hotel NH Atlanta and lots of champagne.

Thursday: At noon, I attended the press conference of another film festival and had lunch with Jack Stevenson (an American film curator and author).

In the evening, dinner again with Jack Stevenson, this time in the company of visual artists Martha Colburn and Lotte Van Den Audenaeren. I went to the screening of a few of Martha's short films afterwards and they were very much like the woman herself: different and intense.

Friday: After a day spent writing from home, I  enjoyed Jack Stevenson's Trash From Hell show, a presentation of mainly unknown and never before seen (found) footage. The most remarkable of those films was 2069 A Spacy Odyssy, a short film Jack Stevenson made from damaged educational films, a children's Christmas film from the 40s, and porn. The film starts in black and white with two children going to bed the day before Christmas. They have strange dreams about pornography, monsters and getting lost in space. On Christmas morning, they wake up and all is well. Brilliant.

Saturday: On Saturday evening John Waters came to Offscreen for his standup show This Filthy World. I'm quite the demanding girl when it comes to comedy, but this had me laughing out loud.

The show was followed by a screening of John Waters' Polyester in Odorama, complete with the famous scratch and sniff cards. Never thought those cards could smell so bad.

Sunday: Hung out with John Waters all day. We accompanied him to his masterclass at the Cinematek in the afternoon, had a drink and went for dinner in the evening. He's a sweet man and one of the funniest people I have ever met. It surprised me how much he notices and remembers his fans. There are quite a few bizarre ones too. He talked about a fan named Asshole, and a few others who had his autograph or his screenplays tattooed on their bodies.

I also had the chance to see John's movie Pink Flamingos for the first time. This film is still amongst the filthiest after so many years (and probably will be forever). In case you're wondering just how filthy Pink Flamingos really is, think eating real dog poop, a mother felating her son, strangling and crushing chickens during sex, masturbation close-ups... Do you want me to go on?

What was your week like? Any fans of John Waters here?