Stuttgart International Trickfilm Festival

I haven't written anything here for a while because I've been spending most of my time either in German class or studying German. The class is pretty intense with four-and-a-half hours a day in the classroom and usually at least two-to-four hours of homework each night. I've also been meeting with other students after school to help each other with difficult topics and to do some speaking practice. This past Tuesday, we were surprised that during our regular afternoon study sessions that a film festival broke out...

The Stuttgart International Trickfilm Festival and Festival of Animated Film (link) started on Tuesday and goes to Sunday night. It takes place at the Schlossplatz (Castle plaza) in the center of town and about two blocks from my school:

They set up a big LCD screen in the center of the Schlossplatz, which I think of as the front lawn of the city. It's sort of like Stuttgart's equivalent of Plaza Catalunya and La Rambla in Barcelona in that everyone meets up and hangs out there:

The films range from quick, two-or-three minute computer and stop-motion all the way up to two hour action movies. During the day they have been showing "family-friendly" films and at night full-length movies. On Tuesday afternoon the movies were really good and I ended up staying until around 6pm. Wednesday threatened rain so I went home and caught up on studying. Thursday was probably the first summer-like day that we've had here so I hung out for about two hours until the sun was too much to take. I ended up getting not-quite burnt but a pretty good red color on my right side - doh!

Das ist Louise. Sie kommt aus England. (That is Louise. She comes from England.) She's the one laying on her stomach along with a friend of her boyfriend's next to her:

Today (Friday) was our last class of the first level of German (that went fast). Five of us from class went to watch films for about an hour or so. I'd like to say that all the movies were good but there were some "not-so-good" ones like the two-plus hour live-action-death-march one from India that they showed on Thursday night. Yuck! At least we got to practice some German since about half of the movies were in German! Aber, Montag habe ich meine Abschlussprüfung! :-o   Ich spreche und verstehe ein bisschen Deutsch!