Sunday, December 18, 2011

Now Playing

If you're a casual reader of Bermuda Shorts you probably know that in addition to writing for the New York Times, Caribbean Travel+Life and Jetsetter among others, that I'm also a correspondent for Outside Television. It's a fantastic gig, especially in May when I head to Telluride, Colorado, to host Outside Film Festival: Mountainfilm, a 16-episode show, which airs the finest independent documentary films shown at that year's festival (that's me and my co-host Lynsey Dyer on location near Wilson Peak this year). I've blogged about it again and again, even though it had no real connection to Bermuda but that just changed in a major way. This year's festival screened Matt Morris' fantastic short film Mr. Happy Man, a fourteen-minute documentary featuring Bermuda's own Johnny Barnes. In case you've never heard about Johnny, he's an 80-something bearded Bermudian man who greets Hamilton commuters every morning with a wave, a smile and boisterous shouts of "I love ya!" He's so beloved that Bermuda erected a bronze statue in his honor, which stands just yards down the road from where he greets people each morning. If you're interested in watching the entire film in addition to an interesting chat I had with filmmaker Matt Morris in Telluride, head on over to OutsideTelevision.com where you can view the complete episode. And if you feel like sticking around for more you can also watch The Fall Line, about an injured Iraq war veteran who overcomes great odds on the ski slopes of Aspen and Wild Water, a beautiful short film about big water kayaking. Go ahead, check it out! It's the best fourteen minutes you'll watch all day.

No comments:

Post a Comment