IFF moves to memory lane,Expocomer and Biennial in focus

By Dylis Jones
PANAMA’S International Film Festival (IFF) which ended Wednesday April17 will soon be yesterday’s news as other events take over in Panama's increasingly crowded entertainment scene.

IFF  leaves behind many happy memories for film lovers, and the organizers must be beaming at the attendance figures at the film showings and the various seminars. Eminence gris Henk Van Der Kolk. who was one of the three founders of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) , and a key figure in creating the first IFF last year, spent most of this year as a sidelines figure, but he must have been impressed at the way the festival grew and took root in Panama’s eclectic society and having seen TIFF grow from a standing start to one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious festivals, could surely predict that IFF has nowhere to go but up. Henk still has the key to Panama City, handed to him by mayor Roxana Mendez, and I was a little surprised at how little recognition he got this year.

In an earlier column I questioned whether Panama’s better-late-than- early culture would adapt to the introduction of the Rush line, which meant attendees with tickets had to be in their seats 15 minutes before the scheduled start of the film. If not their seats would be up for grabs by those waiting in the rush line.
At the movies I visited, expats formed the majority of the crowd and were there early, and would likely have been there without the threat of losing their seats. But the show’s didn’t start on time. In one case over 25 minutes late. So technically speaking if there was a rush line, those people had priority for the empty seats. Maybe it’s an idea whose time has not yet come.
Meanwhile Panama’s focus has shifted to the ongoing Biennial event (everywhere) and Expocomer (Atlapa).

Biennieal Sur is celebrating the 500th anniversary of the discover of the South Sea (the Pacific). When I mentioned that to a Japanese friend, she emailed me back that he was a bit late as Asia was already aware of it.
If you make it to Expocomer you will get a chance to see one of the Metro trains which are to be tested Septembers or October, if Murphy’s law doesn’t intervene.
When you have recovered from the surfeit of films you can keep your eyes open for a new film that will surely be a centerpiece of next year’s IFF.
This week actors Edgar Ramírez and Robert De Niro, Ana de Armas and the singer Usher, met in New York to read with director Jonathan Jakubowicz the script of Hands of Stone, the story of Panama’s very own sporting hero Roberto who dazzled boxing fans through multiple decades as he went around winning titles in different weights.
If you want to get a glimpse of the real man, he owns a restaurant serving Spanish food and cool suds and non stop videos of his great fights, and you can witness his sporting acknowledgment of those he defeated.
Crews were scouting locations in Panama last October, and filming start in a couple of months.