Thursday 10th February 2011

4.25am
I am in the back of a mini-cab hurtling through the night to Stanstead airport. I say hurtling but my driver just stopped to check what is happening with the lights – we have no lights – and now is just cautiously motoring. I’ve made it clear to him that I want to continue hurtling no matter what; no lights, no breaks, no steering wheel. Just hurtling. I don’t want to miss the plane even if that means certain death.

In my opinion there are never any certainties.

6.40am
I am now on the plane. In theory I should get some sleep on this flight but, by chance, behind me is Daniel Castella, an assistant director. Daniel is in a talkative mood. His mother did the raw Spanish translation for DEP. Daniel is also going to the Berlinale and the European Film Market but also he is going to the “Fruit and Veg market” that takes place in Berlin at the same time. Allegedly it has more attendees than the film festival and even better parties with much better food! It makes me think of the many other festivals that take place in Cannes – reputedly the annual gynaecologist’s festival has more attendees and more riotous hedonism than the film festival.

11am
I was glad to see no snow on the ground as I walked out of the airport past the stands for the two festivals and said goodbye to Daniel. Last year the snow was relentless, inordinately deep and the Berlin government ran out of grit. It was total chaos and much colder than this year.

I am now in my accommodation in the former East, a room behind a small shop. It costs me just €20 a night compared to Cannes’ de rigueur €50 to €100 a night. Along with the lack of tourists, this makes Berlin, for me, an attractive market to attend. But, like Cannes, I always feel a kind of dread at the work ahead as the date looms on the calendar. Now I am here that feeling has left me, as usual.

1.15pm
The Martin Gropius Bau, the place where most of the sales agents are based, is covered in plastic tarpaulin and thus the neo-Bauhaus exterior is disguised. Only the statues with bullet holes from 1945 are visible outside.

I have collected my accreditation and blagged the items missing from the basic package. It is nice to see DEP in the screening guide and the market brochures. I see that the roundabout image is the main one that has been used. I notice for the first time that the address of Elixir (the Singapore subsidiary of KWA), our sales agent, is One Raffles Quay. That makes me think of the hours Jonnie, John and I spent in Singapore, throwing peanuts, drinking Singapore slings, eating frog (the latter only me of course) and wandering the streets throughout the night, on the way back from Phuket. We had walked right past the office, not knowing that it was part of our destiny.

5.01pm
I am now in the lobby of the Marriot hotel, one of three hotels where people congregate and have meetings at the EFM. Earlier I signed a long discussed and negotiated deal for Bluebell Films. Presently I am waiting for my film-making friend Alex Ross, who I have known since film school in Bournemouth in the early 90’s and who lives in Berlin.

DEP screens for the first time in the market in an hour and a half’s time. That will be the culmination of a year’s work since completion of the film in 2010.

9.15pm
Earlier, I went with Alex to pour more coffee into my gullet before the screening. Second wind hadn’t yet kicked in – it has now. We shared notes on our two films - both were completed last year. He has also been on the festival trail, going to many in Germany as well as Bergen in Norway, Ourense in Spain (I love that festival) and Iasz in Romania. The latter sounded absolutely brilliant. I also learnt from Alex that has self – distributed his film and that it has been playing once a week in cinema in Berlin for 26 weeks. I promised to go see it on Sunday.

I turned up with Alex to our screening. There were already a few people outside queuing with market badges (they are bonafide distributors). One German says when the gate opens “I want to see if elephants pray?”

In addition to the bona fide distributors, Alex, Daniel and John, a crazy Finn, and his girlfriend are watching the film. Earlier, I had sourced some tickets myself for the screening. When asked how many, I’d said “four” and as if by magic that was how many guests we had. I hope that these friendly faces will generate a few laughs at the right moments. Market screenings are the worst type of screening in the world. Not only do people turn up late, they also check their email while in the screening, check their screening diary of what to see next or pop out to make calls. Some times they have programmed their day that they will see 10 or 12 films in one day and so end up seeing half an hour of each of these films.

As a result I do not attend market screenings. I did so with BKO but haven’t done it since. It is too demoralising. Also I have not got involved in checking the projection or the print. I have done this consciously (but under duress) as part of my self-enforced handing over process. Before the EFM, I had an email exchange with Kevin Williams, the CEO of our sales agent and he had said “Don’t expect too much.” He hadn’t needed to say that as I knew our slot on the evening of the first day was not a premium one – we had been late in doing the deal with Elixir and I know full well what a first market screening is like. I had emailed him back saying I expected “no more than two men and a dog.”

In our DEP screening we had about 6 people on time, 4 people about 5 minutes late, two more 8 minutes late and two that were unbelievably 12 minutes late. Twelve minutes!! – not only have they not seen the initial dream/set up, they haven’t even seen the introduction to Malika!!… I had been texting Jonnie a running commentary but at that point I left to wander around. So at present I am not sure of the total figure for distributors. In any event though, at least we had attendees. I have seen many market screenings of films where there is not a single buyer in the room at any point! Anyway, both Julie in LA and Jonnie in Carcassonne have texted me that they have lit candles…

As I walked from the Cinemaxx, I wandered towards the red carpet opening of “True Grit” in the Berlinale. Like in Cannes there were hundreds of people jostling to get a look at a star. Over the sound system “The Guns of Brixton” started to play and I felt quite serene.

I am now outside the screening reading Gilgamesh.

2.05am
Just back at my accommodation. After the screening, Alex, John and I went to a reception in a small coffee shop (it culminated with music blasting out and with girls dancing on the tables) and then out to a bar to continue drinking. We were somehow celebrating.

I couldn’t ascertain how many distributors had stayed until the end or their reaction because of the positioning of the cinema door and the fact that three films finished at similar times. What I do know was that as Alex slowly walked from the cinema towards me, he was visibly moved, had tears in his eyes and could hardly say the words “I love it. I love it. The last twenty minutes just blew me away.”

John Hakalax, in his inimitable style had kept saying while getting drunker and drunker “You are a great director, Paul. More drinks!! You are great director. More drinks!!!” etc. etc.

Hopefully later in the market I will find out which actual distributors saw the film and what they thought of it. Now is time to sleep…

Friday 11th February 2011

9.16am
Considering last night, I feel good but I am still very tired. Even before yesterday it had been a long week.

Anyway, today is a day dedicated to Bluebell Films and talking to sales agents from the other side. As I walked into the Martin Gropius Bau I heard from behind one of the bullet ridden statues “Ahh Paul, Paul. I hoped you would be here. I need to talk to you…” A deal descended on me from nowhere that I had written off long ago. Many times you think things have gone away only to have them come back to you on your terms at a later date or get done just through constant persistence.

Along with the deal I signed yesterday, this makes the EFM already very positive for the Bluebell.

7.26pm

The rest of the day has gone well. Tomorrow I will start work on the film projects I hope to make in the near future. At least one of which has solid foundations. But there are no certainties.

PART TWO CLICK HERE...