Summer Plans

Summer

Hi everyone! Today I'm going to talk you about my summer plans. I really don't have much plans yet, usually summer for me means traveling to the south in Chile with my family and going around national parks in the Andes hiking. My favorite parks are la china muerta and the surroundings of Icalma, just at the border with Argentina. I also like a lot the argentine pampa, it's close to those places and very calm and silent. outstanding beauty. I suspect these year I will stay in Santiago until February. During December (my birthday) and January I will attempt to relax, read a lot and watch many films! Me and my friends want to do a shortfilm or something and experiment with celluloid film. 

Then I will go to Puerto Saavedra in the south coast and going around those places. My family wanted to go to Isla Mocha, I will have to seek for that opportunity to go. I usually go to those places one week, the rest of the month I'm with my family in Victoria, just relaxing and spending time together. 

I also have a friend who lives in the surroundings of Calafquen Lake, It's a very quiet and calm place and she has a house in a mountain where you can see the whole valley and the lake for one side and then turn around and see the native forest valley to the other side, with Villarica volcano at the end of the valley. She always invite me every year and I usually stay the last week of February, then I comeback alone to Santiago to start the semester. I expect her to invite me again lol We usually go hiking around since there's not like 'private' zones and there is a widely open access to many places, like tiny falls, small caves and rainforest. We also like to swim a lot and tanning (one of my favourite summer activities, don't know why thought). 
And you? I will read you! 

Food

SUSHI

Hey everyone! Today I'm going to talk you about my favorite food(s). I'm a pseudo-vegetarian (because I eat sea food) and always have been. I've never really liked to eat meat, specially chicken, I don't like the taste and it's kinda disgusting for me. However there are a lot of foods that I enjoy a lot! There's a place in Vitacura that it's called Tanaka and it's a Peruvian-Japanese fusion sushi restaurant. It is expensive, not gonna lie. But I promise you that they DO have the best sushi in the world so far. They are so unique and have many flavors that you don't typically expect on a sushi bite. Sadly, I don't enjoy eating regular sushi that much, because Tanaka's is so wonderful that It's disappointing to me eating regular sushi. I go at least once every six months (that means 2 times per year lol), but It is a worthy experience!

I've never have cooked sushi myself, and probably never will, specially compared to Tanaka's level, I would have to learn a lot of Peruvian flavors and mix them with the sushi regular base (the protein plus rice), maybe I could try it sometime in my life, but that sushi has become such a religious rite for me that I can't imagine me cooking it hahahah lol. 

Nevertheless, I have tried other classical sushi food in Santiago that are really good. In providencia (I don'r remember the name) there's a vegan sushi restaurant that has a very tasty sushi (the same flavor as the fishy ones). It is not expensive and they have a lot of varieties. I would like to travel to Japan just to taste their sushi, to check how good or not it is and how different is from the concept we have of Sushi. 

Postgrade studies

Hi everyone! today I'm going to talk about my future postgraduate studies which, till the moment are inexistent in my future projections lol. Not because I don't want to, but because I haven't thought about it yet. I know a few people who have done postgraduate studies having studied filmmaking or so, mainly aesthetics and philosophy studies however, they're always more correlated to teaching instead of filmmaking so I don't know nothing about that yet. The only postgraduate studies that I know well off and eventually could do is the masters degree in documentary film that University of Chile does. I've been told that is the only documentary film postgraduate program in all Latin America and because of that the most important one. I had teachers who always said it was a really cool experience to not only dig deeply onto documentary filmmaking but also creating a network between many international and Latin American filmmakers, since It's the only university that offers this program in this part of the world. I also know some art production design masters that interest me in places like Barcelona or Madrid but I don't think of that these days. 

If I eventually do some postgraduate studies I believe I would prefer having part-time courses so I can have time to work or either make projects that are important to me. I'm not so sure. I would like to do studies abroad so I can connect to other people and cultures as well. I believe I could widen my visions and understanding of filmmaking studying abroad.

My future Job

Hey everybody, hope you're doing great. Today I'm going to talk you about my future jobs haha. Since I'm currently studying a film major, I honestly can only imagine the most variated and versatile jobs in the future. Many people in the area do a lot of things, working indoors on writting, editing and planning, as well working on outdoors shooting movies, publicity or television series. I plan to do everything I can in the future (and even now) so I can learn and meet people (also to have a very solid professional life). My biggest interests are working on script writting and a further teaching career. I'd like to travel a lot participating in many film festivals in workshops and as a spectator. Also, lots of people I've known and they do work in filmmaking are always traveling around Chile or South America working on their projects. I cannot say that is the way I'm headed to but I'd like to do the same as well.
I know for sure that it will be hard in the beginning since It's a very demanding work, specially in areas like publicity where they demand you a lot and you have to choice either to sleep or not being home for days. I honestly don't care about these situations, as long as they are useful for my career and they pay me hahaha. The few experiences I have until now have all been very good to me, so I don't worry sacrifice in the immediate future (I'm a little bit of a work addict). 

I've been thinking a lot of dedicating part of my professional career as a cultural affairs director in the organization and programming of film related cultural content in Chile. Don't know too much yet.
Before I decided to go on film major I considered studying philosophy teaching. Now I realized that I probably would have left the career hahaha and changed to something else. But the teaching desire It is still there. 

I will read what you guys think of your future :) 

My fav music artist

Hi! I will be talking today about my favorite singer of all time: Lady Gaga. I don't hear her music anymore to be honest, but when I was like 12 years old I was such a huge fan of her and she has deeply left a mark in my life as a child. I still recognize her achievements and admire her till this day. She's iconic, she's gorgeous, she's intelligent and puts a whole staging when It comes to her music. As a singer and artist she has a deep speech in the content she creates and the art concept she has developed (Haus of gaga 10/10). It is very inspiring and groundbreaking. 

My favorite song is Bad Romance so far. The first song I heard when the video was just released (I was 10 years old omg) and I was instantaneously impressed by her. It was so strange and creep and amazed me at the same time. I still sometimes play that song over and over. My favorite album It is however Born This Way. I remembered the whole art concept of the album and music videos (Also one of the first records I bought for myself) and the meaning of her songs had a genuinely connection with my feelings and thoughts at the time. The Fame Monster also such a good EP. I went to her concert in Chile when she came in 2012 with born this way tour (Glorious experience, because it was my fav album).  Finally, my favorite music video has to be Paparazzi/Telephone (They are supposed to be connected in the story). I swear I have watched those music videos A LOT. I don't know why I liked them so much ( I believe I had a huge interest of the world Gaga was creating for her music). Also Beyoncé plus Gaga committing a mass homicide and dancing with the bodies around was so iconic to me hahahaha. I always expected the third part (sad). 

At this day I do not hear that kind of music anymore. However It has a place on my memories and childhood. Now I like to hear a lot of Film score, lots of contemporary minimal music (Philip Glass for example). Lots of Jazz and blues (Bill Evans, Miles Davis and others). And much R&B (Solange, SZA, H.E.R, Frank Ocean, and many others). I have to give credit to La Rosalia, for creating such an amazing album: El mal querer. 

(The iconic meat dress)

(Lady Gaga faking her death while 'Paparazzi' at Vma's)

(Born This Way art concept).

(Gaga falling from the sky at the superbowl) 

(Of course she has an Oscar). 

Suffragette Review

Suffragette Review

I had not seen the film Suffragette before but yesterday I had a good time watching it. Although is very predictable in every event that the characters suffer or do, it was still enjoyable to me. I did know about the real stories of some the characters like Emily, and I thought that the film embraces very well the construction of the reality in terms of the world they live in and how the characters moved around it. 

My favorite character is of course, Maud. Because she is the protagonist and we accompany her through the whole movie. She represents the very emancipation of women and every cost it had (and still has today for many other). I liked the use of the character and her transformation arch to unfold the stories and the themes represented. A very complex character with many narrative lines that leaded her to achieve that emancipation. I also liked the fact that the women represented are laborers and often poor (although they have that very "clean" poverty look), it helped the story to have a much more depth and sense of realism.   

The camera treatment is one of the things I liked the most, sometimes the movement made the film look very documental and the realism of the emotions and characters were expressed on such movements and decisions in the photography work. The closed shots at the beginning were evolving to wide shots at the finale and gave me a breath of the tension and monochromatic choices of the first part of the film. That is one the things I didn't like that much, the staging. As I said, the characters, the camera treatment, the film editing and so on made the film very realistic, not the staging, at least in those very yellow shots at night or at Maud's house. Those places were so not interesting and aesthetically appealing to me, specially the lighting. I don't remember those scenes too well in comparisons of the daring wide shots and bright-blue/green colors towards the finale. 

My favorite scene was the footage film of the real Suffragette women in the finale, because It was the first moment I felt impressed and actually felt something. The film was very predictable because of the classical structure, yet the footage moved me all of a sudden. The film has very valuable achievements that I liked besides all. 

Best vacay ever

Winter vacays

The best vacation I've had is not specially because of the places I went or the things I did. When I was like 13-15 years old I went to see my mother's family (around 2013-2015, don't remember so well). They live near Victoria area, in La Araucania region. My mom lived there until she was 18 and then moved to Santiago. I remember I went for my winter vacations on July-august to my grandmother's house and stayed at my aunt's home. I was there for like 3 weeks or so. I went with my mother and siblings (brother and sister, I'm the middle child). My dad couldn't make it because of his work (and also we didn't have a car at that time). 

We didn't do many things actually. There's a lot of native rainforest to take a walk, very old buildings and cemeteries and the same as always, getting together for lunch, the talk after lunch, the discussions between my family, and dinner (till 2 am when everybody is drunk af) and cooking traditional sweets while it rains. I always eat so well when I go, specially stir fried "changles". They are a typical mushroom from the zone, very rare. My grandfather used to have a cured meat factory, he would give me and my siblings a sheep or chickens. We liked playing and taking care of the sheeps or scaring the chickens, but my grandfather always killed the animals he gave us and cooked them. One of the reasons why I'm vegetarian is because of such trauma.

I like going because I get to see my family, getting near firewood to warm up and not being able to get out because of the intense rain is such a delight for a city kid. A funny thing that happened is that one night, we were together at my grandmother's house, a very old (I think is impressively ugly) wooden house. My family didn't clean the gutters for my grandma and it rained so much that the water was falling from the ceiling aggressively. I swear we used every single pot we had to contain the water, I think it was so hilarious! like, seriously, those were REAL water leaks. I remember these vacations with a lot of heart-warming feelings, because I had such a great time that, when I came back to Santiago and entered my room and stood there I felt such emptiness and loneliness. I never in my life have experienced that sensation ever. I really missed so much being there with my family. And it is rare because I always go (till this day) and never experienced that feeling again. 

My blog number one

My blog number one

If I have the chance of going to Turkey I would probably pack my bags right away and leave as soon as possible, forgetting a lots of things on the way. It's really difficult to decide which country would I like to visit, specially because I try to avoid those thoughts since I can't afford those luxuries at this very moment of my life by my own. 

I am deeply interested in other cultures and learning stuff from the local people. I honestly don't know much about Turkey besides what I've seen in tv soap operas (a lot of misogyny), Fun fact is that the name Turkey is like turkey, the animal, I know a few people who have been there and they told me that their culture is a mix of very different things, they are not completely part of Middle Eastern culture group neither European as well, they are kind of a unique mash-up of both culture groups. Many historical civilizations have taken part of the history of the country, like the Romans, the Ottomans, the Arabs, the Byzantines and many other. So to me i believe there must be a lot of different things to do (and to eat) with a lot of variations depending of the region and so on. As I said, I really don't know much about it but it intrigues me a lot, specially the capital Istanbul and the Arab heritage they have in the architecture, history, food and society (It's very different from ours). My plans would be visiting the historical sites while trying to go to small villages and actually getting to know people and how they live, drinking Turkish coffee also an unforgivably to-do (It is boiled on hot sand).

I had a classmate during high school as well who was originally from Turkey. She told me lots of things about her country and many reasons why I wouldn't live or study there, mainly the violence and corruption problems they have. Terrorism is very common, and religious or ethnic problems between the nationalities are also known for their violence. I don't believe we will ever know how that feels since we don't suffer that type of violence yet. At least at the scale of bombing marches or churches. I may change my mind if I go and visit, but I couldn't live or study there.