REIFF 2012 - Day 1

A well-insulated, red bull in front of Yeiser? Better take a picture with it.

The first day of REIFF has come to a close and what a day it was. It started at 8am at the BG Parkway Park & Ride and is concluding in our oh so cozy hotel room. We drove straight through for four hours, actually passed Paducah and proceeded to cross the Ohio into Illinois. My first foray into the land of Lincoln. Where were we headed?

To Metropolis of course. That's right. The home of Clark K. Superman is right across the river. How could we not go? The only question is why has it taken this long. Let me just say that we knew from our first moments across the border, that we'd made the right decision. This is an... interesting place. We were beckoned by simple signs that offered the tantalizing promise of a "Giant Superman Statue." But before we could even wrap our minds around that, we ran smack dab into a completely different giant and this one's name was Big John.

Big John. Big groceries.

We were amazed by the size of the man and even more amazed by the size of his groceries. Somehow we pulled ourselves away from Big John and continued our hunt for the Man of Steel. We found him, my friends. In spades. It was easy enough. We kept going until we reached the corner of Justice and American Way. I'm serious. We took photos galore. (Just stop by Facebook for the whole collection of pics.)

You say you want more film fest news and less nonsense? Are you sure you know how we do things around here? Well anyway, we did see several good films today including a handful of shorts that caused us to laugh heartily. Our own screening went very well and we were able to return the favor of distributing the laughs.After our photo ops, it was time to high-tail it back to the Bluegrass State. Paducah held the moment we'd been waiting twelve months for: the chance to shove Kerchoff's Deli sandwiches in our faces. We were not disappointed and you can be sure that we'll doing it again at approximately 11:30am tomorrow.

We capped off our night by grabbing dinner at Cynthia's Ristorante (some proper Minestrone for me) and meeting a few fellow filmmakers at Night 1's after party. We chatted with the director of Storytime Time (from Louisville) before the party's bluegrass music duo got so loud that conversation couldn't continue and we retired to the Marriott where I now sit behind a desk to write this update for you fine people.

Tune in tomorrow on Twitter and Facebook for more realtime updates and later here for a full recap of Day 2. We're off to a good start and we're looking forward to more. Tomorrow gets started with hot chocolate and that's about all I have to say about that.