37th cleveland international film festival :: April 3 - april 14, 2013
Film Festival Blog
April 2nd, 2011 @ 5:51pm

Spontaneous Magic!

Oh, how I wish I could instantly put things on YouTube! I wish I could just upload things straight from my eyes! Because we just had the most amazing experience in the Hospitality HQ.

It started innocently enough... Walt Mahlovlich, one of our stellar staff members, had mentioned to me the other night that his musical group, Harmonia, would be playing in Tower City today in conjunction with the film The Border. Many of you have probably even seen the short article about their appearance on the back page of today's Daily. As I was coming back from the theaters after catching up with current events, I realized that they were playing by the fountain and hurried down with a small video camera to catch their last song.

Afterward, we talked for a few minutes and decided to do a longer interview up in the media hub. Next thing I knew, they were asking me if they could bring their Cimbalom -- think of a dulcimer on steroids -- up to the hub with them! Suddenly I was bringing up a band and all of their instruments... and there was talk of them playing a set in the hub itself!

Oh, I was in a panic! I'm not our main videographer by any means and while I know my way around cameras, I didn't feel up to the challenge. I sent some panicked text out to our two main videographers, Laura Blake and George Gund IV, begging them to come back up and rescue me from making a mediocre recording of something amazing. And then stalled by recording as long an interview as I could. (Which, by the way, is full of totally amazing things!) Fortunately Laura and George both arrived in time to save the day... and the group set up and performed two songs for us and everyone in the HQ!

It was incredible! Laura got lots of great footage and George got a whole lot of lovely stills of the performance, so we should have it up online in the next few days.

I'm breathless. There aren't words for how elated I am. Every year, the Film Festival has moments of spontaneous magic, and this was a particularly powerful one. I am so grateful that I was right here to experience it. I wish all of you had been! But we'll get the video of it up as quickly as we can, so that it can be your experience, too.

Walt, I love you forever. That was so beautiful. Thank you so much, Harmonia! You just made my day.

Posted by Lara Klaber

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