there is something special about walking through times square on a saturday morning, among the throng of people, between the honking cabs, past the smiling beggar who holds up a sign saying 'i need money for weed', illuminated by the panoply of lights that advertise everything the world has to offer and quite a few things it doesn't, and thinking: my film is screening five minutes from here, in about half an hour. - everybody who knows me knows how much i love london, but if london is my spouse of a city, new york has to be the thrilling affair...

we were, to be perfectly honest - and what's the point of a blog if it isn't honest - not entirely sure whether we should submit our film to the 3rd NYC independent film festival, running for the first time under this name. having previously been known as the astoria/LIC film festival, the organisers argued, not unreasonably, that nobody knew "where the fuck astoria was" - their words, not mine - and so felt that NYC would be a better bet and label and took themselves across the east river to manhattan, all of which seems a fair assessment of the situation and a wise move. once we had submitted, we weren't entirely sure whether we should accept the very kind invitation we received to screen there and once we had decided to screen there i wasn't entirely sure whether i should go to attend the screening. money is tight and time anything but spare, but then i reckoned: how much of an excuse do i really need to go and see my 'mistress of a city' and bask in it, for a day or four?

being so new, unsponsored and unfunded, and put together, it seems, by the willpower of its founder dennis cieri with a little help from some hardworking friends, the NYC indiefest is still very much in its infancy, and as is the nature of infants, they take small, sometimes clumsy, steps and fall over a lot. and they have a fair bit of learning to do, even when it comes to some pretty basic common sense things that to a grown up or even a slightly older child might appear as glaringly obvious. but it's hard not to love them, infants, because though they drive you up the wall with their unreasonable behaviour and you wish they could, quite literally, get their shit together (and dispose of it), when they smile at you they are golden and all is forgiven.

after the magic combination of ultra-professionalism and unfailing personal attention of lessinia, with an audience in their hundreds who absorbed the film in absolute silence and then responded with fully expressed appreciation, the experience of the charming though decidedly battered producers' club on 44th was almost bound to be something of a juxtaposition, which is not, perhaps, entirely unhealthy, if nothing else for the purpose of an occasional reality check. new yorkers are a restless bunch at the best of times, and although this auditorium was tiny and by no means full, their apparently innate propensity towards motion was exacerbated by some creaky old velveteen seating and the typically frequent passing of sirens outside, which you get in london too, even in the best of west end theatres. the sound was set too low, so listening and concentrating felt like hard work, and the picture might have looked better with a slightly more pro projector properly calibrated and aligned, but other than that the screening went off without any hiccups, and mercifully we suffered few interruptions, aside from people quite liberally coming and going, a practice that appears to be de rigeur in this town... but that was all as nothing compared to the screening i went to the following day by fellow film maker gustavo ramos, during whose delightful urban comedy delusions of grandeur a young chap came into the room, squeezed past several members of the audience, stood on a seat, fiddled with the projector (thus wobbling the picture for a long few seconds), and then walked away with a power lead he obviously needed for some other significant purpose that couldn't wait until after the screening.  (it was at moments such as these that you found yourself thinking: baby steps, people, i know it's baby steps, but just hang on in there, you know you can make it...)

it was gustavo ramos and his film, it was the incredibly moving and revealing short documentary that preceded his feature (a surprising, joyous piece called kung-fu grandma telling the story of kenyan, slum-dwelling, grannies who take self defence classes because young men there have started raping them - in preference to their previously younger victims - thinking that this way they would either not get, or even be cured of, AIDS), and it was the people i spoke to at the 'closing gala' that made my festival. (the choice of vocabulary here is perhaps also a tad misleading: this 'gala' took place above the irish pub next door, where, of course, you bought your own guinness...)

gustavo had been at the bar in the half hour before our own screening (and bear in mind that was at 11:30am) and struck up a conversation with me and my friend willow as we were waiting for willow's wife to catch up with us. gustavo had created the most imaginative poster design for his film, which fused its characters with the figures of a mexican card game. like us, he had postcard versions of this lovely piece of publicity with him, and he explained in caring detail each one of the tableaux he'd drawn and what it meant. we told each other about our films and he decided on a spur of the moment to come and see ours, so of course i felt i should, at the very least, go and see his. and man am i glad i did: if a festival like this is not, perhaps, the most glamorous of occasions or the most career-changing of events, it is still a wonderful opportunity to see the kind of inspiring work you wouldn't otherwise get to see, and so suddenly i felt in good company. i was in good company, and when we met again at the closing party we got on - and here it is again - like old friends, like people who already knew each other, talking for hours, long after everybody had gone and they'd moved us down into the main room of the pub until we were practically the only ones left.

that affinity, and the fondest of farewells at the top of the steps to the subway station, the insight into another film creator's mind and seeing their part of the world they want to share with you their way, that is what makes any trip, be it down to your local arthouse cinema, be it across the pond to another great city, or be it round the world to some place you've never been, more than just worthwhile. it's what 'it's all about'.

and, yes, the feedback. i was not, as you can tell, overly thrilled with the screening itself, i felt the film was short-changed somewhat by the setting and the standard of technology and expertise that determined the quality of the projection, but to my unending surprise, when the next day i bumped into someone who had seen the film, he told me something i half knew and half needed to hear: it was, he earnestly announced, a unique film. like everybody who talks about it, he adored sam as theo, relished pepe's music, marvelled at the photography and praised the writing. and he admitted: at first he wasn't sure, he didn't want to like it. but he kept being drawn into it, and it wouldn't let him go. notwithstanding the distractions, the low sound and a picture that was slightly askance, the film captivated him and he came to appreciate, even love it.

i have a feeling that the hour of living hasn't quite finished yet, with new york. i have a feeling that it may need - and get - another opportunity here to captivate an audience. that it is capable of doing so, of that i now have no doubt...

the website of delusions of grandeur
the facebook page of kungfu grandma

you know you're in the right place and company when, an hour after they were going to go home, which was about two hours after they were meant to close, the bar staff - all volunteers - offer you one for the road, with not a hint of a hurry for you and the people you're with to drink up.

it's half past four in the morning and i've had one of the best nights of my year so far, arguably of my life. our film has had its italian premiere at the eighteenth edition of the small but perfectly formed film festival della lessinia and the response to it has been really quite humbling.

this has been our first  genuine, face-value exposure to 'absolute strangers', in that nobody in this audience knew me, or any of us, or was in any way associated with the film, nor had anything to do with its location: it was a house of festival-goers, plain and simple. and it was a respectable house too: the beautiful, modern, three-hundred-odd seater auditorium was, by my estimation, about three quarters full, if not in fact a bit more, and after nearly two hours of more or less complete and concentrated silence - there was hardly any laughter, even at the funnier moments, and no rustling here either, no restlessness - it released its own tension into a long, sustained applause that did not seem to want to abate for what felt like minutes. and what followed was a Q&A that stood out not only by the number of questions people had, but also by the thoughtful, intelligent way in which they were formulated, by how relevant and pertinent they were: i was left with no doubt that this audience had not just appreciated the film, but connected with it, found it thought-provoking, moving.

my whole brief experience of this festival has been overwhelming: from the moment i arrive at verona airport, where i'm met by mattia, one of the drivers, who speaks a local dialect that i struggle a little to understand but who relishes driving the new courtesy car that the local dealership has made available by way of in-kind sponsorship, i feel like i'm visiting home. i haven't met anyone here ever before.

mattia drops me off at my hotel, which is a short walk out of the centre of the village of chiesa boscanuova, and reception is staffed by a boy of about 12 or 13 who gets about the house on his skateboard. he comes across a whole lot more competent than many a grown up i've seen in a similar job, speaks a perfectly workable english and shows me my room. i ask him for the wifi password and he writes down on a piece of paper a 50 character string of random letters (upper and lower case) and numbers, from memory. it's 100% correct.

having settled in, i make my way up to the festival square where i am greeted like an old friend by alessandro anderloni, the festival's artistic director and life force, and whisked upstairs to grab hold of my pass, programme, bag, t-shirt and a bundle of food and drinks vouchers. from now on in, any attempt of mine at buying a round of drinks or paying for any food is futile. the local tv station nabs me to do an on the spot interview and i'm scheduled in for the early evening to have my director portrait taken and do a short interview for the festival website. i am essentially taken care of by the incredible team that alessandro has assembled, who effortlessly and with the greatest natural ease make me feel like i belong right here, and nowhere else, right now.

having got back to my hotel bed at five in the morning following the premiere, i'm rather looking forward to a bit of a lie in, and then catching some films in the afternoon. a phone call at 7:30 from my downstairs neighbour in london puts paid to that: the leak from my flat (so far surmised) has got a lot worse overnight, action needs to be taken immediately. i spend the next seven hours intermittently attempting some shuteye and making several dozen phone calls to my niece (who happens to be staying in my flat), the people who installed my boiler (to an attachment to which the leak has now been traced), my neighbour (who is keeping calm although he's clearly worried), some builder who'd helped find the leak, and variously backwards and forwards between all these, until, at three in the afternoon, my niece texts me to say: it's been fixed, the water is back on. i grab an hour's sleep and head back up to the festival, where i'm stopped three or four times by members of last night's audience, who tell me how much they had liked our film. later, already back home in london, i get to read a generous review in the local paper, which calls our film 'one of the best things seen at this year's festival', and i'm told that the audience vote gave it an average rating of 4 out of 5. i am quietly chuffed.

many years ago, around two in the morning of an australian midsummer night, sitting on a bench outside the hostel-type accommodation where i was staying at the adelaide fringe festival, a young man i'd barely met a few hours earlier quoted to me the line: 'there are no such things as strangers, only friends we haven't yet met'. we're still friends today. and that is exactly the atmosphere that this glorious festival knows to convey. i have a feeling and hope i will see these old friends i've now met again before long, and come what may i will never wish to forget my short but exquisite stay in lessinia.

well. there’s bad news, there’s weird news, there’s good news (sort of) and there’s news that’s just a tiny bit sublime...

we didn’t win the basel film prize. that’s the bad news. this came as even less of a surprise than it might have done - and we did consider ourselves rank outsiders - because while the official announcement was made last night as part of the really rather swell awards ceremony at the basler stadttheater, we actually knew that we hadn’t won since tuesday. one of the jurors had, somewhat indiscrete perhaps, but with no ill intentions and very obviously sorry about the turn of events, let it slip towards one of our actors that try as he might, he could not sway the jury vote our way. that’s the weird news: for half a week we had to pretend that we didn’t know the outcome when, excruciatingly, we did. so whenever one of the organisers wished us good luck, i had to smile at them inanely and utter something proto-cryptic like: ‘thanks, to the extent that luck comes into it...’ or similar.

we also knew, and that’s the good news (sort of), that it was between us and another film and that there was only one vote in it. so we were, it would appear, credible contenders and close runners up. that’s encouraging to know and in itself very gratifying. so cheers for (and to) that!

things then went from what it would be churlish to call ridiculous (although it was more than a little strange) to the genuinely sublime when, asked by the host of the awards ceremony how the panel felt about our category, one of the jurors grabbed the microphone from the hand of one of her colleagues, insisting that she handle this, and then emphasised to the level of labouring the point that there had been, from the word go, one clear winner and one winner only on which the panel wholeheartedly agreed as one. mostly, at events like these, even for the sake of sheer courtesy, jurors go out of their way to stress how difficult it had been to reach a decision and how every entry in a category - in ours there were five - had its own merits. so this must have come as a bit of a slap in the face to our fellow filmmakers who ought to have been entitled to think that they were at least in with a chance. for us it had just the tiniest whiff of ‘nay, but she protesteth too much’ about it, because we had intelligence pretty much to the contrary and by now every reason to believe that the fact that we had that intelligence had reached back to the panel...

(perhaps a touch unorthodox also the fact that one of the two people then accepting the award was the person who had hosted our screening, introduced our film and conducted the Q&A session - and wished us luck! - which, without wanting to cast any aspersions, to an outsider like myself, is in danger of conveying an impression, rightly or wrongly, as if some conclusions were ever so slightly more foregone than even we, with our four days’ advance notice, could have anticipated...)

all of this notwithstanding it was a splendid event and i feel genuinely happy and privileged to have been nominated and considered and invited, and from what i’ve seen and heard it looks as though the prize went to a worthy winner. (as it happens a documentary about an organic chocolate farmer in ghana. wherein lies one more slight oddity, that feature-length docs and narrative features were judged in the same category.)

the only thing i really wish had happened differently was that the jurors hadn’t contented themselves with watching the DVD (in our case an early version, with unfinished grade and sound) and - as one of them put it - made the award dependent on ‘what mood we were in on that day’. that, for my money, isn’t strictly the best and most professional way of going about handing out several grand worth of prizes that may or may not make a significant difference to their potential recipients. since the experience of watching a film at home on DVD is so categorically different to watching it in a dark cinema on a proper screen with decent sound and in communion with other people, my recommendation, to film jurors the world over, would be to watch the films at the official screening and then get together to come to a decision. i’m not suggesting that with this sort of procedure our film would have won, but i’m fairly certain that all the films that the completely separate selection panel had so diligently nominated in the various categories deserved to be seen by the jurors in the setting they were intended for, which, in our case, and i imagine also in the case of all the other feature films, most assuredly was where they were shown so beautifully and in such fine and compelling quality: the cinema.

but, as our DP gregor put it afterwards: the first ice is broken, now, like an ice breaker, it's full steam ahead. i rather liked the analogy. 'but maybe', he added, with a glint in his eye, 'we're a submarine...'



 

and it's official:

the basel premiere of THE HOUR OF LIVING will take place on wednesday 6th june 2012 at 21:00 at stadtkino basel as part of the ZOOM basel film awards showcase.

there will also be an additional screening on saturday 9th june 2012 at 21:00 at neues kino basel (note different location!) plus we will host an invitation-only preview event for cast, crew, participants and framefunders on tuesday 5th. (if you are among these, you will receive your invitation with details shortly.)

getting very excited here now and looking forward to seeing those of you who are in switzerland and who can make it then!

details of screenings

as we are gearing up to our first official public screenings in basel (details very soon), not just one but two versions of the screenplay are being published simultaneously: a simple paperback and the beautifully illustrated leap day special edition. both come with an introduction in which i explain a bit the rationale behind making the film and doing so in the way we did, and while the leap day special edition features some two dozen stills, the plain paperback just comes with the script and a technical fact sheet. 

both editions are based on draft 3.3 of the screenplay, which was used as the shooting script (and so differs a bit from the final edit, for those who like making comparisons).  right now they are only available here, but we expect them to go 'live' on the usual major online bookstore retail sites soon. (there'll be an update when that's the case, of course.)