the hour of living
  • home
  • synopsis
    • zusammenfassung
  • credits
  • the team
    • das team
    • dan absalom (ivor)
    • pepe belmonte (the singer)
    • adam berzsenyi bellaagh (codirector)
    • gregor brändli (director of photography)
    • sam fordham (theo)
    • gary grant (harry)
    • charlotte heinimann (gabrielle)
    • georg isenmann (production manager swiss unit)
    • livia krummenacher (production assistant swiss unit)
    • sebastian michael (writer, director, producer & george)
    • jay ramirez (continuity & styling)
    • moritz anselm schermbach (camera assistant)
    • christoph schwegler (werner)
    • andrea spolarics (eva)
    • pascal verdosci (coproducer)
    • david wade (conrad)
    • geoff widdowson (sound)
  • blog
  • images & sounds
  • screenings
  • reviews
  • locations
  • infopack
  • factfile
  • contact
  • buy

encounter on 44th street

28/10/2012

0 Comments

 
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

0 Comments

two days to remember

27/8/2012

1 Comment

 
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.

1 Comment

and the winner is...

10/6/2012

0 Comments

 
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...'



 









0 Comments

basel premiere poster

29/5/2012

0 Comments

 
The Hour of Living Basel Premiere Poster
0 Comments

basel premiere

7/5/2012

0 Comments

 
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

0 Comments

screenplay available in print

5/5/2012

1 Comment

 
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.)
1 Comment

the hour of living nominated for award

21/3/2012

0 Comments

 
with the arrival of spring comes the happy news that our film has received its first nomination, for the basel film prize in the feature film category. the basel film prize is awarded each year in a range of categories and nominated films are screened as part of the ZOOM season at the stadtkino basel, the biggest and most important independent repertory cinema in basel. this means that the hour of living will be shown there between 6th and 9th june 2012 - we are awaiting confirmation of the actual date, so watch this space, if you're in switzerland in june!...

0 Comments

the hour of living complete

12/2/2012

0 Comments

 
it took precisely 111 weeks from original conception, through writing the script, bringing on board the core team, sourcing locations, casting, raising the funds, shooting, editing, re-recording and mixing sound and grading, and today, after final tweaks and adjustments to the tweaks and fine-tuning the adjustments, at 11:12 on the 12/02/2012 our film, which is now 112 minutes 07 seconds and 01 frame long, was labelled 'final' and is therefore complete.

it's been an amazing journey and this project owes everything to the many people who have given their talent, inspiration, time and unwavering commitment, who have helped in kind and in deed and who have financed it by funding frames. to all of you my most heartfelt thanks!

the process of submitting it to film festivals has already begun. we don't expect any news now for at least a couple of months, but you can be sure that if and when we have some, you will get it here first.

with love and immense gratitude
sebastian
0 Comments

our first front page...

6/1/2012

0 Comments

 
and this is the article by dagmar steinemann in the rhiiblatt, the local paper for safiental, where we shot just over half of our film, reporting on the special preview which we held there on 30th december 2011. it comes complete with pictures and a front page lead. if you read german, you can do so here.
0 Comments

a genuinely special 'special preview'

1/1/2012

4 Comments

 
so this is what happened on 30th december 2011:

we took our film - now in its practically complete state - to safiental in switzerland where we shot just over half of it, and showed it to the people there as a special preview, so they could get a first glimpse of what we'd actually been doing there, a bit over a year ago, in october 2010. this also, of course, gave us the opportunity to test screen the film in front of a real live audience and catch any problems prior to an official premiere.

now, before i tell you how this went, let me tell you a bit about safiental.

it’s a valley, about 30 kilometers long, that branches off the bigger vorderrhein (anterior rhine) valley in the swiss canton of graubünden. it’s about as remote a place in switzerland as i know of: for most of its length, the road leading from the already tiny village of versam (which does, however, have a stop on the rhetian railway, the regional narrow-gauge railway network of this part of switzerland) up to turrahus (a guesthouse where most of our crew stayed during the shoot and where the road ends) is a country lane on which two cars can’t pass each other with anything resembling ease. it winds itself through a forest on the edge of the dramatically perpendicular rhine ravine up to just above tree level at 1700m, through three or four settlements, dotted along the distance. the main village is called safien platz, and it consists of a tiny church (of course), a tiny café (with about four tables), a guest house, a school, a school library, a number of farms (one of which home to llamas, yaks, highland cattle and two double-humped camels, seriously) and a spanking new and pretty much up-to-scratch multi-purpose hall, which is where our film screening is to take place.

from here, you drive another forty minutes or so to the end of the road at turrahus, and from there another ten minutes on a field track to our location. there, you are at the end of the valley. beyond the alp where we shot our film, there’s one more alp with a couple of huts on it, called z’hinderscht, which means ‘at the farthest end’. then the valley slopes upwards towards a mountain range which you can hike across, if you’re fairly good on foot and of a fit overall disposition...

the valley itself has a population of about 400 people and they are really what makes this place what it is. it’s the kind of place where, even though you couldn’t be further from the realities of your own home, you feel at home because you’re made to feel welcome, and with minimum fuss.

i get off the train at versam together with half of my family, because they’ve all decided to come along and spend new year’s eve in safiental too. although the valley is remote and its facilities sparse, at this time of year the postauto bus fills up, because there are only about six a day, and in winter, whether or not they go all the way up to turrahus is dependent on how much snow there is. these last couple of days it’s been snowing heavily and it continues to do so as we arrive, but at the moment, the buses are still good to go all the way, just.

while his bus is filling up and he’s busy organising the luggage hold, the bus driver immediately recognises me from last year and says: ‘oh hello! i’m coming tonight! i’m getting off my shift early, so i won’t miss it!’ he’s not actually swiss, he’s german and of course i remember him too, we’d been chatting a few times when he was having his break at turrahus, not so much even during the shoot (we were mostly on location then) but on my two recces before then, during the summer.

because of the snow and the uncharacteristically large number of people on the bus, he’s running a bit late, but that doesn’t dent his spirit, and on the way up he slows down and cheerfully points out the hair-raising ravine to our left. later, he chuckles at the horn of his bus because one tone of its famous three-part too-taa-toh call keeps hissing air instead of sounding the note, and he bursts out laughing when he has a group of unseasonal mountain bikers nearly bumping into him on their way down through the snow. 

my family get off the bus at safien platz, where they’re staying at the guesthouse, and i get off here too, even though i’m staying at a farm five miles up the road: i have to check in at the venue and test the technology for tonight. i notice that my suitcase has moved right to the back of the hold, so i ask the bus driver if he wouldn’t mind taking the suitcase out for me at the end of the line at turrahus. he wants to know if that’s where i’m staying. no, i’m staying at gasslihof. ‘oh, no problem, he says: i’ll drop it off for you there!’ gasslihof is not a stop, it’s just a farm en route. later i hear that he carried my suitcase all the way into the farmhouse right up the stairs to the door of my room.

(and he’s not the only friendly bus driver in safiental: the next day when i take a bus down from my farm back to the village, a different chap is driving. he whistles all the way as he bounces his bus down the snow-covered track at a perky old pace, with snow chains and all. rather than slowing down all too much when approaching a bend, he gets on his feet and leans over to the side to get a further-ahead peek of what’s around the corner: he looks like boy in a toy. suddenly he brakes because somebody on the way up has got stuck. this car is wedged right across the road, skidding badly. the car’s driver is a nervous wreck: in switzerland, you always give way to the postauto bus. but he can’t move up or down and he’s panicking, so he’s accelerating far too hard, making his wheels spin pointlessly on the snow. the only passengers on this bus are an elderly lady and i. the bus driver turns around to me and says: let’s go and push him a little, otherwise we’ll never get anywhere. so we both get out and try to push this fairly hefty family/people carrier, luckily with no family in it, but the man in the car is too nervous to follow the bus driver’s calm instructions and instead of moving forward he just skids backwards, with his tail end now aiming for the flimsy wooden barrier. as the car pivots by default, the man realises he can probably turn it around this way and so he opts for heading down instead of up, at least until the bus can pass safely, and we’re back on track, as it were...)

i get to the venue and we test the technology. after a couple of initial near-hiccups, which we had already mostly sorted over the phone, everything now works fine, and adrian, the man from the local firm that set up the projector and PA, goes out to get a couple of bits he’s missing and i head off to hook up with my family again briefly before going back to the venue for 6pm to talk through the ‘programme’, as it were, with philipp, the initiator and organiser of the event, and to run a final check.

philipp arrives and tells me that a woman from the local press will be coming and would i mind giving her a brief interview. obviously i don't mind. the journalist is called dagmar and she’s really friendly too and asks me how i found safiental. after i tell her the story - which i’ll later also be telling the audience - and rave a little about how perfect this location was for our shoot and how easy everybody had made our time for us here and how the valley itself had become, through its presence, in a way a character in the film, she asks me if i think that safiental is a kraftort. i’d never heard the expression before, so i ask her what that is, and before she finishes explaining, i get what she means: a place that has a power to it, a strength, or a force. a positive force, what you might call a good energy. i don’t know if this is necessarily a spiritual or metaphysical thing or not, and i don't want to go out on a limb that i may not be able to climb down or take off from, but i had thought before that safiental certainly is the kind of place that has good people in it. and so maybe it attracts good people who click into the ‘vibe’ that’s already there. certainly, i feel energised by it. exceptionally nervous, too, but although it is with some trepidation, i do now look forward to the screening, now that i know that the technology is working, that we have vision and sound and we may have, it seems increasingly likely, an audience too.

dagmar, the friendly journalist, gives me a lift to the guesthouse where my family is staying and where meanwhile also our production assistant on the swiss shoot, livia, and virginia macnaughton, who has contributed two of her songs, played in the background of two scenes at the troubadour coffee house in london, have parked themselves with a drink.

livia didn’t tell anyone she was coming, but i’m not surprised to see her, only delighted. she had intended to put on her snow shoes and take a five and a half hour hike across the mountain from the neighbouring valley to get here, but had been deterred not by the snow, or the mountain, or the five and half hour hike, but by the acute risk of avalanches. so she’d got here on the same bus as virginia who’d come all the way from lincolnshire, because she felt this would be a bit of an adventure. livia hadn’t organised any accommodation for herself, but this time of year the valley is full (there are only the two guest houses and one B&B), but livia is unperturbed and has her drink before worrying about where she’ll spend the night. ‘i have my sleeping bag, i can sleep on some hay.’ within an hour, she has spoken to the lady who runs the village grocery store and who recognises her from the shoot fifteen months ago and says to her, of course you can stay here, i have a room for you upstairs, no problem.

i am starving but my appetite has all but gone. luckily virginia hasn’t eaten her salad so i just eat half of hers. dagmar gives us all a lift back up to the venue and as we get there, just after eight for an eight fifteen start, there are cars jostling for parking spaces and people queueing up to get in and by the time we get into the hall, virtually all the seats are taken. the audience ranges from about five years of age to about the mid-eighties, and the caretaker of the hall reckons there are about a hundred and twenty people or so, maybe two thirds locals and about one third visitors. i like the fact that he doesn’t call them tourists, because here nothing has the feel of tourism about it, really. there are farmers, local lads and lasses, my friendly bus driver, there are people who have come here to the valley to retire, people who have moved here because they wanted to get away from the rat race, people who have grown up here and hardly ever set foot outside the valley. there are people who are involved with the cultural society and there are film-lovers who know their indie repertoire inside out, and there are people who have never seen a film with subtitles before. i estimate that around a third or maybe even half the audience speak little or no english, or have a very basic school-english grasp of the language at best, so they’ll be relying on the subtitles.

the caretaker also, incidentally, reckons that if it weren’t snowing so hard, there would be quite a few more people, a view shared later by marco, my host who owns and runs the gasslihof, where he rears organic cattle. he is, by coincidence, the only local who appears in the film, together with his beautiful dog timo. they are seen, from quite a distance, through a grainy, misty haze, walking up the path going by the hut, and then walking down it again a few seconds later.

as a warm-up, we screen a short animation i’d made a few years ago of a popular swiss song. it’s gentle and a little amusing rather than laugh-out loud funny, and the audience take it in very much in that vein.

i introduce the film and i tell the people of safiental how grateful i am to have been able to shoot this film here, and i explain a little the concept of having a broken-up timeline in the first half and of mixing black and white with colour. i also tell them that this is a big moment for the film and for me because this is the first time that anyone who has not had anything to do with it - with the exception of one or two close friends - gets to see any of it. and i tell them there will be an interval. this had been requested by the organisers, and while i don’t generally like the idea of interrupting the flow of a film, i felt in this case this would probably be a good idea, because the film is quite demanding, especially if you have to read subtitles for so long.


we start the film and now i begin, for the first time in about a week, to relax. i’m not being melodramatic about this: for the last few days my anxiety levels had risen to the point where i found it really implausible that i would emerge from this event without some sort of calamity having befallen me, if at all, but now, within minutes, i lean back and i - yes, i actually - enjoy watching our film.

the audience is completely silent. i sit behind most of them, close by the projector, and while i can’t see their faces, i also can’t see or notice any kind of movement. there is no rustling and no fidgeting. no restlessness. for just over an hour, they sit and watch, making hardly any sound at all. two or three lines get a laugh, and you sense an easing of the concentration, but no letting up, when theo arrives at the end of the safiental, where he meets george.

i’ve placed the interval at a small ‘cliffhanger’ moment, where theo suggests to george that he, george, thinks that his, theo’s, dad killed himself over george. george responds by saying that he doesn’t think so, he ‘knows’ this to be the case (he later acknowledges that he's wrong).

i wonder what will happen during the interval: i half expect some people, maybe some of the lads and lasses, or maybe some of the older generation, or maybe some of the farmers, to possibly take this as their opportunity to sneak off, not least because it’s still snowing, just more heavily now. i go outside to smoke, and indeed, i overhear one of the lads saying to one of the lasses that he nearly dozed off during the first black and white bit. but then he reasons that it’s hard when you’ve been outside all day, working, to then sit down in a warm, dark room, and keep your concentration. i like both the candour and the reasoning. nobody leaves. when i go back in, i ask adrian, the technician from the local firm, if he could put the volume up a bit, because i’d felt it was just a tad too low, and he does so.

we start the second half. the interval turns out to have been a good move. people are clearly refreshed and as, towards the second half of the second half, the colour - and with the colour, as per concept, the life of our characters - returns, so does that of the audience. they still don’t let up in concentration, but now they laugh when something funny happens. marco and timo get a cheer. when theo takes off george’s beard, you sense the relief and wonder that george and theo feel, felt by the audience.

the film comes to an end and the credits roll. marco and timo get another small cheer and finally it is over. there is a short silence, and then there is a long, sustained applause.

i know now that our film works. from now on in, i am a happy man. because it’s already clear that no matter what every individual member of the audience will have made of it, as an audience together, they went with it. from start to finish. i do not think for one moment that all of them liked all of it. but that is not the point or the aim. the point and the aim is to take everybody on a journey and get everybody to experience that journey, together with the characters. and that’s exactly what’s happened.

the people who come up to me afterwards are those who loved it. of course. the ones who didn’t make much of it won’t be so likely to come up to me afterwards, in fact they most likely won’t do so at all. but those who loved it, they really loved it. and what is for me so intensely rewarding is that they loved it for precisely the right reasons. they loved the space it gave them to think and the slow pacing, the rhythm of it. they loved the fact that for a while it doesn’t quite make sense, but then it all comes together. they loved it for being subtle and intricate. one man, elderly, comes up to me together with his wife and tells me: ‘this film has in it the stuff of ten ordinary films.’ he tells me that this is the best film he’s ever seen. i know it isn’t, but the fact that he feels it is makes me beyond reason happy, because if nothing else it means that he gets our film. ‘the honesty’, he tells me, looking me in the eyes: ‘there’s nothing fake about these characters, they’re not easy but they are real.’ i love him for saying this to me and i thank him for it. his wife seconds his motion. several people tell me they didn’t realise it was me playing george. some not until the beard came off, some just weren’t sure, one didn’t click until the credits. i find that hard to believe, but nevertheless flattering. one of the lads wants to know when he can watch it online...

consensus quickly emerges on three points. 1) sam fordham as theo is excellent. i know i can agree with this without seeming conceited: he just is, he’s wonderful. 2) as is pepe belmonte. people love the figure of the singer. and they love his songs. a young woman asks me: where can i get the CD. i tell her, on pepe’s website. and i’m thinking we should, perhaps, pursue this thought of ours of putting together a soundtrack CD. 3) and people love the photography. gregor brändli’s camera work, they recognise, is outstanding. and all of this reassures me too. because i’d felt, from the moment i first looked through our footage and started putting it together, that there are three pillars that to me are absolutely solid, no matter what you make of anything else: sam as theo, pepe and his music, and gregor’s photography.

and this is why i am such a happy man today. this wasn’t a premiere. it wasn’t a breakthrough, it wasn’t an award. but it was this: a first, and truly significant, test. because it was a first and meaningful exposure. and from it i learn that the film can and will find its audience. because there is, already, an audience who can and will relate to it. who wants to relate to it. and who understands it. in some cases, every nuance of it. there will be many people who won’t and there will be, i know, many people who will tell me in time what they hate about the film, among them perhaps reviewers, among them maybe friends and people whose work i really respect and who i'd rather they appreciated it than that they didn't. but the fact that this audience was able to take it in, to connect with it and the fact that there are people who don’t just like it a bit or in parts but who categorically love it, means the film can stand up now on its own and be sent out into the big wide world and find - and be found by - these people, the people who relate to it.

and that means i no longer need to worry about it now: i can now let it go, knowing it will find love.

(and it cheers me no end that this happens right at the end of an old and at the beginning of a new year. yes, i reckon safiental may be a kraftort...)


4 Comments
<<Previous
    due to the horrendous evils of spam i've had to set comments to 'approval needed'. but please feel free to comment: i won't censor or hide you; this really is just to spare us all the intrusion of unwanted advertising for decidedly crap websites.

    sebastian

    i am, i suppose, the instigator of this project.  i wrote it, i'm producing it together with pascal verdosci, i'm directing, together with adam berzsenyi bellaagh, and because i've got adam codirecting, i'm even acting in it. but really the impetus for it came from our director of photography gregor brändli, who said to me 'october i'd be available to make a film'. and we'd been meaning to make our first feature ever since we first worked together, back in 2005...


    so it is, as you can imagine, a complete team effort, this, and we are fortunate to have on our team people with years of experience, as well as complete novices who are just starting out.


    i'm sure this will make it both solid and fresh at the same time...

    archives

    October 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010

    categories

    All
    Article
    Basel Film Awards
    Basler Filmpreis
    Complete
    Completion
    Coverage
    Director
    Film Festival
    Film Festival Della Lessinia
    Film History
    Final
    Framefunding
    Gregor Brändli
    Italy
    Leap Day Special Edition
    Lessinia
    Neues Kino Basel
    Paperback
    Pepe Belmonte
    Poster
    Premiere
    Pre-release
    Press
    Preview
    Rhiiblatt
    Safiental
    Sam Fordham
    Screenings
    Screenplay
    Stadtkino
    Stadttheater
    Switzerland
    The Hour Of Living
    Zoom
    Zoom 2012

    RSS Feed


    banner image from our footage, shot on location in safiental, switzerland
an optimist film by sebastian michael
©2012