Winter!

I hate how christmas is turned into a consuming holiday. Every other commercial on radio and probably on tv as well is about different "sales" and buying christmas "gifts". You can give a gift to an important person every day, as long as it comes from the heart. It's not worth buying something as cheap as possible just because you feel you have to. Heard the worst commercial on radio today from one furniture store. With an extremely sad tune on the background the message was something like "There are so many CHAIRS who have to spend christmas alone, do a good deed, come and buy the chairs so they would have a nice place to be in". I'm sorry.. what?!?

There was the Tallinn Latin festival, we had 12 workshops divided on friday and saturday days and a quite demanding house class on Sunday. Salsa, zouk, kizomba, bachata, bachatango, cuban body movement, reggaeton, colombian style, cuban salsa, semba - you name it. The gala performance night on saturday evening was on fire! So much fun and talented people. Latin is beautiful, elegant and HOT! Already the atmosphere itself gave me so much positive energy and motivation. The fact that we slept around 10 hours per the whole weekend makes me laugh, mainly for the reason that we spent more than14 hours dancing/training.

Also, there's The Black Nights Film Festival. 

Went to see "Lo Impossible". It had hollywood actors in it and was set in Thailand, but made by Spanish filmmakers. It's based on a true story, by the tales of one family about their survival. It's about the tsunami that hit the coast of Indian Ocean after the earthquake, which was one of the deadliest natural disasters in the history. "No one story can ever do justice to the events of that day and the days that followed. Nor can a story set in just one location ever capture just how wide-ranging were the tsunami's effects. How can you tell the story of what happened almost simultaneously in Indonesia and India, Myanmar and Malaysia, and eventually affected even the African coast. Thankfully, Bayona doesn't try. He focuses on the few, hoping that through them audiences will better understand the tale of the many. For such a story, The Impossible is perhaps a more than fitting title, but the film works and gives a view that is both visually impressive and dramatically moving."

Another one.. I don't know what word to use, as it was a documentary, a really serious, painful and psychologically hard to watch, I can't say good, but, an excellent film to make you debate over democracy, humanity, world... "Camp 14: Total control Zone". About a political prisoner who had escaped from North Korean labor-death-camp. The silence in the movie, the truthfulness, heaviness - it's really painful that this is the world we live in.

Apart from the festival, have watched: 

 "That's what I am". A beautiful movie about humanity. It was set in 1965. I love how well the characters portrayed different types of people. It was mainly about prejudice and intolerance that was in the society in 1965, but I have to say in 2012 not much has changed. "Human Dignity + Compassion = PEACE".

"Abre Los Ojos". A spanish movie by Alejandro Amenabar, we were watching in class couple of weeks ago. I love spanish movies, because they are always a little surreal. In this case surreal is an understatement. I don't know under what genre to put it, but it is moving, depressing, surprising, confusing, exciting, crazy, moving, thrilling all at the same time. Another movie that questions the boundaries of reality and the power of human mind. 

Stumbled on this remake of Massive attack's classic song "Teardrop" recently. I love the original but I do enjoy this one. The comments on youtube were so so negative that I had to comment on it. People were whining about the speaking and "poetry" onto the music. Did you actually check why the song was made? The "poetry" carried a message. It was made for "Children in Need 2011". Raising money for children who need it the most. For the record they raised around 7 million pounds. So, I guess "ruining a classic song" shouldn't be that big of an issue here.