Back from Berlin to -29c

Film festivals? I sometimes wonder what they actually are all about. I'm three days back from Berlin and Everyone I met, was either on their way to another meeting or just come from a meeting that was the best and most fantastic and they have been promised distribution or finance or both. So many air kisses and red carpet burns.

Stress was tangible, heartbeats raised to max, people sweat and don't look you in the eye. The different levels of power, or the game players, all guarded by the gatekeepers, positioning, pushing and shoving. Is this really a industry, and a multi million dollar one at that? And what happened to creativity, to the actual filmmaking or the writing? No one ever seems to mention the vision, the creativity. Cynical? Me? No, but I wonder how long this circus in a glass cage can continue, why does the next generation accept the rules, when there are alternatives. Are we all so duped or doped. 

I took time out and went to a museum. There in a dusty corner was a penny farthing bicycle, now how long did that take to evolve into the mountain bike of today, would you accept a piece of equipment that was life threatening to anyone stupid enough to mount the thing? The analogy is simple if somewhat obscure, the film industry needs to change and just like vinyl records it will adapt or die. There is a whole new audience out there that are being fed empty shells and soon they will come looking for the nuts.

Post Jokkmok...Pre Berlin

Suddenly the temperature has dropped again. As I write it's nudging minus 26. And I thought spring was around the corner.

Last week at Jokkmok market, my first visit, I can't understand what took me so long, it was the most exhilerating experience and I met a lot of new friends and contacts. This year the theme was food, so it suited me down to the ground. And what food.. smoked and grilled reindeer meat, smoked mountain lake trout, elk sausages and giant muraks of braised elk. The fur clad market stall holders shouting their wares a if they were in a medieval carnival, reindeeer pulling sledges. Everyone breathing like dragons and smiling at the same time. The whole atmosphere bubbled with bon homie, I almost forgot about the political questions of wolf establishment in reindeer areas and the Swedish governments refusal to sign the UN treaty on indigineous peoples.
This weekend I'm off to the Berlin film festival, I wonder if there will be smiling dragon breathers there?
Maybe the connection between food, art and commerce that I found in Jokkmok could be transposed to film festivals and they could burn the red carpet to keep warm.

Just in case you want to join me at my desk, here is the view from my office. It's also good to know, if you have to come searching when the ice is thin.

The big push

I have made a pact with myself. To place a stone on Nelson's, grave every day. She deserves it and I need to keep her memory alive. So far I'm keeping the promise.
This week has been so full of words, like jig saw pieces in a puzzle you bought at a second hand store and I've lost the picture. I'm sure it was a puzzle of sky and sea, two shades of blue that merged on a feint horizon. I'll get there.
Winter has taken a grip. The sea has frozen over and I watched daily as the ice bit fast. Soon it will be thick enough to sail a ice yacht, or go skating. If no more posts are posted, then come looking for me.

Some entries in a diary are the hard to write. Some entries are milestones. There is always something to write or think about. Yesterday was a black day.

There is no entry for yesterday, because I couldn’t write, I was paralysed.

NELSON, my best friend and companion is no longer here. I put her to sleep yesterday morning. I played God? And it did not feel good.

So, this morning starts a new routine, a quieter routine, no more the padding of paws or the clumping up the stairs. She will not follow me out to get the paper in the early morning darkness, although it was some years since she actually followed me up to the letter box. The house has a strange quietness.

Yesterday I did all the walks. The forest track one, to Thomas’s sign. I met a young Golden out on his morning walk, I cried. I felt Nelson with me, even though at that time she was in the back of the car, dead. I did the beach/forest walk, where on so many occasions we have met Kari on his walks, this morning we met no one. I stood and looked back waiting for Nelson to catch up, she never did of course. Then later in the evening, after the candle had burnt out on her grave, I went for our late night route. I waited by her grave, asked if she wanted to follow and whistled for her. I’m sure she came, tail swinging and nose to the ground as always. So ended one of the most painful days in my life. More so even than when Svensson went, because Svensson was really old and sick and on reflection I’d waited too long and she was suffering. No, with Nelson it was different. A week ago she was full of life and vigour, now she’s gone. A visit to the vet to make her better, ended with me carrying her home dead. It feels heavy and fathomless. I’m lost and I was the one who made that decision, which I knew had to be made, but it hurt so deeply inside that I wonder if I will or can recouver. I shall always remember that good trusted friend. She was a proud dog.

Culinary Suicide

After a day battling with empty hooks and a choppy sea. We eat in the local quayside restaurant. They had some sort of film show and talk earlier, the audience mainly glad old pensioners, their wheeled walking sticks parked outside like a motor cycle gang. Two old ladies hung on the porch and smoked, coughing and gossiping. The talk was about the history of a Norwegian ship, that had been sunk by the Germans and then rebuilt after salvaging. The food deal was a set dinner of fish cakes, potatoes, mashed turnip and a butter sauce, oh, I forgot the carrot salad and remoulade sauce. All followed by rice pudding and a chocolate sponge stuffed with pineapple. The whole creation, from start to finish, was truly disgusting. Like shoveling liquid concrete down your throat. The question must be raised, how can a nation with the longest, most productive coast in the world with fresh ingredients right on their doorstep, make such a culinary pigs ear. It is truly baffling, in fact it's a crime. A perfect idea for a documentary. A culinary suicide.

Bessaker. Norway. Tuesday and it's blowing a storm and raining. I'm here fishing or at least that's the idea. So far ten small sei, which will go into a soup tonight. I've decided to try and keep this blog updated, so anyone who reads it, please make a comment.
Saturday managed to finish the latest draft of the screen play Tostissimo and send it off to my loyal band of readers. With that done, a weeks fishing in Norway feels like a reward.
Last night on a walk after dinner, came face to face with a otter. (I actually thought it was a large rat? maybe it was, but a local also out for a walk said it was a otter, so who am I to disagree). I did lock my door though later.