I’ve been a fan of Milcho Manchevski’s obscure BEFORE THE RAIN for years – I remember buying a bootlegged DVD copy on Ebay years ago and printing my own sleeve, wishing Criterion would put out a quality version of this almost unheard-of gem (I first watched it in my globalisation class when I was studying in the Czech Republic, and it’s stayed with me ever since). Maybe it’s because seeing the darkly beautiful Gregoire Colin as a young Christian monk who’s taken a vow of silence sends shivers down my spine, or because the narrative connects from beginning to end in an unexpectedly magical circle, or because I find the Balkan countryside – chaotic, tentative, gorgeous, tortured, totally irresistable…Criterion describes it as a “gripping triptych of love and violence”, fittingly so.

After a 5-day smorgasbord of nonfiction action — from features about carnival workers to shorts about a man’s relationship with his pet sheep — I have arrived in Beantown on a mission for fiction. Of course, the three films I have seen so far are all of a post-Cassavetes/heavily improvised/non-professional actor variety, which makes me all the more aware of the new directions not only in making fiction and non-fiction film, but in thinking about them. For example, the film “Carny,” which I saw at Toronto’s Hot Docs, was a heavily saturated, montage-filled portrait of several workers of a traveling carnival. Using highly manipulated, “narrative” elements, it seems far more “fictional” than both features I saw here at Boston, Lance Hammer’s “Ballast” and Lynn Shelton’s “My Effortless Brilliance,” both of which were largely improvised by non-actors, including Harvey Danger’s lead singer, and primarily use hand-held shooting and naturalistic locations and situations. “Ballast,” filmed in the Mississippi Delta and following the aftermath of one twin’s suicide and the pain he leaves behind, is one of the most raw and emotionally honest films I’ve seen in a long time, and were it a documentary, I would call it a “feat of verite filmmaking.” In our strange categories that position “nonfiction” and “fiction” film against each other (even though a film like “American Teen,” — a “documentary” — was cast — while “Ballast” used first time non-actors who improvised most of their lines) the former is considered more “real.” I beg to differ; “Ballast” is one of the most truthful films I’ve seen in years.

The third and fourth installments of a block of powerhouse short films at the 6th annual Independent Film Festival of Boston really took me by storm. Benh Zeitlin’s GLORY AT SEA, shot over the course of a year in New Orleans, accomplishes in its short lifespan what many docs, news reports and stories on Katrina have tried to do: connect us with the humanity behind the loss. From the eloquently sincere score and casting to the camera’s eye, which lingers lovingly on collages of crushed dreams, the film is nothing short of a love letter to survival. Equally brilliant is LARRY: THE ACTOR, an indescribable homage to a down and out actor living in Los Angeles. It may or may not be a documentary – filmmakers Eric Poydar and Brett Portanova have called the film a “mofaux doc” – but it doesn’t matter; any artist of any stripe who has ever questioned his resistance to the corporate dragon will hail the film’s commitment to expressing Larry’s fiery, cuss-word-filled conviction. In many ways, Larry speaks for us all.

The first and last time I was at a drive-in was back in 1992 in San Diego, California. I went to see Terminator 2 (sorry, no promo link) in 3-D. I have a vague recollection that there were some fine points to this movie….a teenage Eddie Furlong in Public Enemy t-shirt and army jacket comes to mind… something else that caught my eye though while I was doing research for our OFF THE GRID -LIFE ON THE MESA theatrical roll-out were these guerilla drive-ins. And now, thanks to the pioneering heads over at Laughing Squid, I’ve found this little gem of an event! Touted as “the San Francisco Bay Area’s annual outdoor Drive-in, Bike-in, Walk-in Movie Festival”, Brainwash has been in activity since 1995. Something to check out if you find yourself in Oakland, headed to a Burning Man off-shoot party at a secret locale, no doubt.

A hauntingly beautiful video of a man trapped in an elevator for 40 hours in the McGraw-Hill building in NYC.

One of my favorite drugs-are-bad movies ever is the so-stylish-it-hurts CHRISTIANE F by director Uli Edel. Released in 1981 and loosely based on a true story, the film manages to make drug addiction look ugly and beautiful at the same time. And honestly – isn’t that what nails people? The allure? It’s difficult to see that this movie is not about heroin chic, a “movement” this film predates by 14 years, because it looks so damn good. And come on, any drug film that features a live performance by David Bowie is already walking a very thin line between indictment and apotheosis. The title character, played by the delicately stunning Kate Moss proxy Natja Brunckhorst, is a 14 year old Bowie fan living in 1970s Berlin. She does things most teenagers do. There’s no one incident that might lead you to suspect what she’s going to eventually turn into. What you see is a surprisingly subtle study of decay – like watching a moth decompose into fine powder. That the study happens to also be lovely is part of the film’s honesty. Looks can be deceiving, as are drugs, and beautiful youths…