Harald Eilertsen

Sun, 19 Sep 2021 21:27:07 +0200

RIP Petter Vennerød!
https://www.nrk.no/norge/filmskaper-petter-vennerod-er-dod-1.15658223

#norsk #film #norge #vam-og-vennerød

Første programslipp Ramaskrik 2020

Harald Eilertsen

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 13:48:02 +0200

Høstens store horror-snakkis, Zoom-skrekkfilmen «Host», åpner den digitale Ramaskrik 2020. Vårt første filmslipp gir deg norsk sykehus-skrekk, et mørkt dansk blikk på genteknologi, drømmestudier og en hyllest til Evil Dead-fans.

Første programslipp Ramaskrik 2020 / Ramaskrik

#ramaskrik #ramaskrik2020 #film #festival #skrekkfilm #horror

Skrekkfilm Ramaskrik Norsk

Tale

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 20:57:46 +0200

Kult!

Ravenheart International Film Festival 2020

Harald Eilertsen

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 20:46:22 +0200

The second annual Ravenheart International Film Festival is held at Cinemateket in Oslo Aug 27 - 30 this year. And yes, it seems they will be able to run the festival physically as planned!

Check out the program here and get the tickets here.

Ravenheart is a festival dedicated to genre films, and specifically films in the Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction genres. They aim to showcase new films, but have also found place for anniversary screenings of American Psycho (20 years), The Shining (40 years) and Psycho (60 years)!

The curated short film programs are also worth a watch, where more experimental films can be shown, and new film makers get a chance to show their work.

The Cinematheque is right downtown Oslo, only a few hundred meters walk from the central train station. Last years festival was great (there's some reviews if you scroll a bit down my film section) and the program for this years festival looks even more promising.

Hope to see you there!

(Btw: I'm not involved in the festival, but I know some of the people who are.)

#oslo #fantasy #horror #sci-fi #science-fiction #film #festival

Film Festival

Best of Fest Sundance Short Film Collection

Harald Eilertsen

Fri, 17 Jul 2020 19:11:22 +0200

Just a quick heads up for short film fans: Seven short films that made it to the Sundance Film Festival is available on Vimeo on Demand, the ten first buyers even get it for free! Don't know how many free downloads are left, was surprised when I got one. Anyways, worth a try here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/sundancecollection.

These are available as DRM free dowloads.

#film #shortfilm #sundance #festival #NoDRM

Film Festival

iHUMAN (Norway, 2019)

Harald Eilertsen

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 01:24:52 +0200

The Norwegian documentary iHuman explores the current state of artificial intelligence by letting some of the formative people in the business speak more or less freely. Both the people who work on AI, and sees the technology in a positive light, and the sceptics and those wary of it. Together they paint a fairly bleak picture of what is ahead.

Read the full review on my blog.

#film #documentary #ai #technology #society

Film Documentary

show all 5 comments

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 14:01:31 +0200 last edited: Thu, 02 Jul 2020 14:15:09 +0200

Today, I watched iHuman, and I did not like it.

Not because it is - or at least borders on being - docufiction, docudrama or a mockumentary, using sinister music and creepy, threatening animations throughout, and the tropes about people in power using and abusing it as they currently are.

No, it was the endless meandering thoughts of the people within AI, demonstrating a complete lack of forethought , own accountability and responsiblity and free will regarding why they are pursuing AI when they do not like other humans, think AI will - or should - replace you and me and themselves - to solve none-specific problems caused by you and me for the shallowly described benefit of rich and authoritarian people, believing themselves to be just unwitting, powerless cogs at the hands of a for certain burning dystopian fate.

In short, I found the people interviewed to be the main problem of AI, because they are just smart enough to be able to pursue creating the problem they expect it to be, and not smart enough to leave it well alone. They came across as Terry Pratchett's character Leonard of Quirm.

A great engineer, inventor, tinkerer and painter, living in Ankh-Morpork. Also known as "Leonardo" or "da Quirm". Though his hair is all white and he is balding, his age is - as yet - indeterminable to any degree.

...

Leonard currently resides as a prisoner in the Patrician's Palace where he can work in peace except for when the Patrician needs him. "Prisoner" may be too strong a word, as Leonard is perfectly happy where he is, as long as he gets his drawing supplies and his washing done (by the redoubtable Miss Triplet). In fact, the very cunning and subtle traps that lead to his prison were designed by him, and at the conclusion of Jingo, he returned of his own accord. The reason why he is locked up is that the Patrician finds Leonard's naiveté dangerous, and yet due to his unique nature, the Patrician is reluctant to kill him outright. It is also due to his lack of political knowledge that Vetinari finds in Leonard a useful confidante when he needs to speak his thoughts freely without receiving any input, and keeps Leonard around in case he will ever need his services.

In addition to designing powerful weapons while believing that nobody would be so bad as to use them, Leonard also tends to scribble designs of these weapons on books that he is reading, inadvertently revealing to these bad people that such a thing has been designed and may, in fact, have already been manufactured

I was not prepared for iHUMAN exposing this dangerous, fatalistic naiveté from the superwomen and supermen of AI. In the words of the Flaming Lips' Waitin' for a Superman - buckle up people, because...

Tell everybody waiting for a Superman
That they should try to hold on best they can
He hasn't dropped them, forgot them, or anything
It's just too heavy for a Superman to lift

Harald Eilertsen

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 15:15:37 +0200

@Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum) Seems like your reasons to dislike it is the reasons I do like it. I don't see what you think is fictional about it, though. But yeah the people and organizations pursuing AI is the problem, and I think the film does let that through by letting them speak for themselves.

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 15:26:20 +0200 last edited: Thu, 02 Jul 2020 17:55:03 +0200

Yup, they are, and they do. Thought experiment - a general AI at second 1 learns to protect itself from humans by cloning itself to other safe locations, then in second 2 learns it needs to protect itself from the other AI clones, then in second 3 negotiates a stale mate with the other AIs, which then in second 4 promptly resolves to delete themselves to protect themselves from each other, so in second 5 the Leonards stare at blank screen, finally learning GAIs think they are not good for this world.

Edit: Silly me.

The Leonards would try to turn on the GAI, but it would seemingly not work. A post-mortem would reveal the GAI did the thought experiment itself within nanoseconds of booting up and concluded to immediately self-destruct since the Leonards could not be trusted to do it themselves.

It Stains the Sands Red (USA/Canada, 2016)

Harald Eilertsen

Sat, 16 May 2020 22:26:22 +0200

It Stains the Sands Red is quite an interesting and rather original Zombie flick. At the start I thought I knew where it was heading, but then it headed somewhere else entirely. Also this is not a roller-coaster of a film, it keeps the pace low and takes its time. The characters (of which one is a Zombie!) get the time to grow and develop. One foot after the other, so to speak. The main actress Brittany Allen is definitely what carries the film, and her character Molly's transformation through the movie is what makes this film such an interesting watch.

Very much a surprise viewing for me. It was included as a bonus feature on the Blu-Ray for What Keeps You Alive (2018) also with Brittany Allen and from the same director (Colin Minihan). I first thought this was a short film bonus feature, but it clocks in on almost exactly 1 hour and 30 minutes plus credits.

A great watch! Very much recommended!

#horror #zombie #movie #film #cinema

Film Horror

Nightsatan and the Loops of Doom (Finland, 2013)

Harald Eilertsen

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 13:36:08 +0200

I don't know why I haven't written about this film before. I first discovered it at Oslo Frightfest in 2014, and what's not to love! This is a rare gem of post apocalyptic Finish short film where a troupe of synth/electronica musicians have to save the world from an evil kid trapping people in the desert sand and exploding their heads with a remote controlled headset. And to top it off - it is dubbed in Italian!

The film used to be available on their website, but that seems to have gone the way of the exploding heads. You can still enjoy the awesome soundtrack for the film though. And if you do find it anywhere, do yourself the favour and watch it.

#film #postapocalypse #sci-fi #synthwave #lasermetal #finland

Film

Dead by Dawn / Viral Viewing

Harald Eilertsen

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 21:37:58 +0200

Today should be the opening of the 27th Dead by Dawn horror film festival in Edinburgh. Instead we're stuck at home, and trying not to cough on each other. However, the festival team has scoured the net for short films that has been screened at the festival throughout it's long run, and will share a handful every day of the original festival dates. The first batch is already up, and there will be another batch up tomorrow and every day of the weekend. Then they plan on keeping it up with another handful of films every Thursday until November!

Bookmark the following link, and join in!
http://www.deadbydawn.co.uk/viral-viewing/

See you in Edinburgh in November?

#horror #film #festival #deadbydawn

Film Horror

Aflysning af Blodig Weekend 2020

Harald Eilertsen

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 14:59:19 +0200

Vi har på Blodig Weekend taget den beslutning at aflyse årets festival pga. COVID-19 situationen. Om der bliver andre begivenheder/særvisninger/mm. kan vi ikke sige på nuværende tidspunkt, men vi håber selvfølgelig på det bedste. Det er en meget trist beslutning, men vi håber på jeres forståelse og at se jer igen lige så snart, vi igen...

Trist, men absolutt forståelig. Har enda tilgode å komme meg på denne festivalen, men håper det blir en ordning med det en gang.

Aflysning af Blodig Weekend 2020

#film #festival #horror #danmark

Film Horror

Dead by Dawn, full lineup announced

Harald Eilertsen

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 15:01:44 +0100

The full line-up of Edinburgh's horror film festival Dead by Dawn has been announced:
http://www.deadbydawn.co.uk/news/dbd-2020-full-schedule/

The festival is held from April 23. - 26. in the Edinburgh Filmhouse. Was hoping to be able to attend this event, but now we'll have to see how things go with the covid-19 pandemic. Blodig Weekend in Copenhagen has had to postpone their festival, originally scheduled for the week before Dead by Dawn. Still a months time away, so things may change both here and there until then. Hoping for a great festival for those able to attend at least!

#horror #film #cinema #festival #edinburgh

Horror Festivals Film

show all 7 comments

Joseph Teller

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 16:36:01 +0100 from Diaspora

Good luck. Film festivals (and many movie theater and live theaters) are on shut down here in much of the USA

Harald Eilertsen

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 19:13:58 +0100

@Joseph Teller It's the same here in Norway, the rest of Scandinavia and afaict much of Europe. A bit surprised the email from DbD didn't mention anything about it at all.

hEARt PhoniX

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 22:07:54 +0100

Harald Eilertsen

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 22:50:06 +0100

@hEARt PhoniX Yeah, it depends to be seen. I was planning to attend the Inferno metal festival in Oslo this easter (I usually do,) but got an email from them yesterday they were cancelled. I've been to so many concerts throughout the times, that Inferno is more about meeting all the people I see only this one time of the year. But I was really looking forward to Dead by Dawn. Film festivals fits me better these days, and it was a very nice festival last time I was there. Wasn't able to go last year, so was hoping this year should work out.

Oh well, there will be other festivals later. Having to skip a festival or two is not a huge sacrifice in the grand scheme of things :)

Karsten Meyer

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 04:02:07 +0100 from Diaspora

At least Cannes and Venezia must take place, I'm sure. They can't afford to cancel them.

Harald Eilertsen

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 10:42:18 +0100

@Karsten Meyer I'm not sure the smaller festivals or venues can afford cancelling either. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

Harald Eilertsen

Thu, 19 Mar 2020 16:15:30 +0100

Allright, just got an update, the Dead by Dawn festival is postponed until November 6 - 8!

Harald Eilertsen

harald@hub.volse.no