"Charles Bukowski was a creature of perplexity and paradox, oscillating between romantic pessimism and luminous wisdom on the meaning of life, propelled by an outrageous daily routine. His expressive poems explored everything from the myths of creativity to his 'friendly advice' to young men.
In 1999, British animator Jonathan Hodgson and illustrator Jonny Hannah teamed up on a breathtaking animated adaptation of Bukowski's 1992 poem 'the man with the beautiful eyes' from his final and arguably best poetry collection, The Last Night of the Earth Poems."
(Maria Popova, Brain Pickings)
"Since its foundation 28 years ago, the Hamburg International Short Film Festival has been celebrating short films as an independent art form, while offering an opportunity for film makers from all over the world to get in touch with an eager audience and with each other. The International Competition mirrors current global aesthetic tendencies and narrative structures. The German Competition offers an overview of the state of the nation's short films and film academies."
"Italian film maker Paolo Gioli creates a haunting short movie by animating photographs taken by Bert Stern of Marilyn Monroe shortly before she died at the age of 36, fifty years ago today.
Filmarilyn is both beautiful and foreboding. As the film's jazzy rhythms start to disintegrate and the images slow to a crawl, 'X' marks on the contact sheets appear like magical curses and a fresh scar on Marilyn's flesh transforms into a stigmata while her face, half–hidden by shrouds of white, eyes closed, turns impossibly pale and lifeless. In the final moments, close–ups of her hands in death–like repose seem almost saintly and as the film's last frames unspool we are left with the sense of having seen an apparition, a ghost... a soul X–rayed.
It's amazing how much power and sadness Gioli creates from so few elements – a testimony to his artistry, Marilyn's radiance and Stern's skill in capturing it."
(Marc Campbell, 05 August 2012, Dangerous Minds)
Fig.1 Paolo Gioli (1992) "Filmarilyn", uploaded to Vimeo by Volodymyr Bilyk.
"The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) is the official agency for the collection, analysis and dissemination of quantitative information about higher education.
It was set up by agreement between the relevant government departments, the higher education funding councils and the universities and colleges in 1993, following the White Paper 'Higher Education: a new framework', which called for more coherence in HE statistics, and the 1992 Higher and Further Education Acts, which established an integrated higher education system throughout the United Kingdom."
(Higher Education Statistics Agency)
"1992 – 20 years ago: all countries belonging to the European Union decided to create a single market. This meant removing the obstacles blocking the free movement of goods, people, services and capital among them.
20 years on, we can travel across Europe without having to show our passports, work and live in another country without any difficulty, and find the best deals across Europe when shopping online. But we all agree that more work needs to be done in order to have a fully functioning European single market.
If you are 20 years old, we want to hear from you: your experiences, stories, complaints and proposals to make Europe a better place to live and work."
(Generation 1992)