From Sushi to marriage proposals - Film Fest 2006 a report!

For my part this year's Wurzburg 32nd International Filmfest was anticipated with a passion that was contained with a little hesitation. From Feb 01st I will no longer live in Franconia. I still intend to be present for many future Festival weekends but, the whole package of Saturday morning Stammtisch Cafes, Sunday nights with three or four Film Ini people and as many bottles along with TV, video and about 15 hopeful entrants that had to be evaluated before patience or the wine disappeared are now memories of former times.

This fact aside, it was all systems go once Film Fest week came about! On Monday after a 12 hour bus,plane, train journey and a quick shower it was off to nerve-centre of the week's event - Fest Buro. It's actually the house of two of the Festival's main organisers who have their basement permanently converted to serve as the office for the event. Catching up was done over sushi and Riesling - was amazed at how simple it is to prepare this traditional Japanese dish. We then played the pretend audience as Franzi and Hubi practised narrating all the German text, that they had translated, for their chosen Hebrewish language childrens' film. Sounds complicated... and it was ! But the film's screening received a standing ovation from the young audience the following Sunday.

Tuesday morning started with'face the landlady' about trying to hand back my apartment. Words can now not describe how devious and manipulating this retired company chairman's secretary turned out to be!! Not to take up too much of this report with boring details, suffice it to say she wanted the place like a Grade 100 semi conductor clean room!!Ould cow!

At 1330 went to meet rookie Margit and figure out the process of decorating both cinemas (Corso & CinemaxX) with all the film posters that would be screened during the upcoming four days. Quite a logistical task considering there are over seventy films' posters that have to be unpacked and allocated to the cinema on the particular day that the film is screened. After four hours we'd a plan and went off to decorate CinemaxX and do a photo shoot for the local papers. Job done and back to 'scrub scrub land' of the apartment for the next few hours before sleep came quickly.

Wednesday was an afternoon in the Fest Buro covering the phone for Franzi and trying to get a Polish Feature length film urgently shipped from Warsaw for its scheduled screening on Friday morning! The situation was made all the more acute as the film's director was coming to talk about her work after each screening!! At 2200 Corso cinema hands over their keys to us for the next four days so Margit and myself, armed with hammer, nails and ladders, set about covering walls, window displays and cinemas doors with the promotion posters to inform the punters what delights are coming during the next four days. At 0130 we'd everything finished and all tools stored away, so off to the 'Standard' to celebrate Miller time and debate where King Arthur was a Celt and vent frustration about twice widowed unreasonable landladies.

Daylight hours of Thursday were spent getting the apartment to Grad 1000 Cleanroom Standard. Afterwards it was the official opening ceremomy and let the games begin!Everything went smoothly and whatever latecomer posters arrived were quickly displayed.

Some familiar faces were present and it was also good to chat to Jens, a Thueringer native who was one of the 7 founding members of St Kilians five years ago. Lots of good news on his part and we look forward to the next generation of St Kilians arriving later on this year - go neiri an bothar leo!

Friday is when the Festival really gets going for me and all the friendly faces begin to start walking through the train station doors. Aidan came up from Freiburg at 1500, smoking like a trooper and blaming the joys of parenthood for his inexcusable relapse! Also managed to pick up our star attraction and leading actress of the film 'Mollys Way' (www.mollysways.com).....Mairead McKinley!! She added to Aidan's conscience by announcing she's been on the 'patch' for the past two weeks and hadn't inhaled the poisonous fumes during that whole time... ("wait until she has her first child" was his only defence)! Mairead was tired from her trip from London so we dropped her off at her hotel. Two hours later the film's young director Emily Atef arrived in from Berlin- very friendly, immediately likable while still exuding the charm and charisma that being the director of one of the most talked about films being screened at the weekend generates.(Kinda like the vibe one gets talking football with a Kerry native!)

Our other Film for the weekend was 'Idir Dha Shaol'. A 25 minute Irish language documentary by David D'arcy and John Fallon chronicling the life story of Connamara native Willie Walsh. Willie left Ireland for London in the 1960s speaking Irish and with no English. He established himself there, was working regularily, had a family and seeming to be doing fine. He became an alcoholic. The film sensitively tells his life story which has an uplifting effect in that Willie was of those lucky enough to get help from support groups in London. But the statistic remains that one in ten people who are currently homeless in London are of Irish origin and that a lot still needs to be done to deal with this very tragic and solveable problem. Between all the wheeling and dealing both John and Dave were collected by either Martin or myself and gotten to the 250 seater Bockshorn venue for their 2230 screening.

It was a mad dash to see their film as Mollys Way was screened at prime time in the 420 seater at the main Corso Hall at 2030. Afterwards there was a very enlivened Questions and Answers session. Emily, ever the director, informed,explained and clarified while Mairead charmed and entertained the captivated public. A great buzz was there after the screening and many of the older Film Fest people were enthusiastic and personal in their praise to Emily and Mairead in the corridor afterwards - a little bit like the unforgetable 'Photos to send' experience of two years ago...! 'Idir Dha Shaol' was part of a bloc- the other two were award winning Polish documentaries. Also a good Q&A session afterwards, with both David and John pleased with the audience responses. The number of 'bums on seats' wasn't as large as 'Mollys Way' but, this is the inaugural year of the short documentary bloc and we'd see what impact word of mouth would have for the second screening on Sunday.

Afterwards everybody went to the official Film Weekend party and forgot to leave until about 5am that morning. If you ever attend one of these things and you want to be pestered by glossy eyes girls captivated by the film industry, wear a scarf (at all times!) preferrably white and have sunglasses perched on your hair! Sounds cliched and corny but, clinically proven to be effective. Anyways before the sun was about to come up myself,Aidan and Margit got a cab home and left the rest of the revellers hard at it.

Saturday was a day of relative rest as neither film was screening. However there were guided tours of the historical Residence, city tours,media interviews and film dinners for all the invited guests of the weekend. More than enough to keep the four occupied.

We'd a few hours of final poster decoration - a couple of 2*3 metre monsters came in overnight but, apart from that everything was going clockwork smooth. At about mid afternoon Aidan hastily departed the scene (in a haze of smoke!) to meet mother and daughter at the parents' place. Next Tom, another vetern of the Film Fest scene, arrived down from Cologne. We grabbed something French (are in Franconia after all) and split with Margit and Co who went straight to the Trash Film Night party while we went to see a late night screening of a Belfast film. We'd promised to meet up afterwards. I introduced the film, fatigue set in and Tom woke me up as the cinema was beginning to clear! Enough was enough and after a quick beer we'd an early night at 2am.

Sunday was shoulder to the wheel time. At 1100 Mollys Way was screened, again to a very large audience for that time of the morning. Q&A session went very well with Emily and Mairead getting very comfortable in their handling of the Franken audience. 'Idir Dha Shaol' was shown at 1630, audience numbers had quadrupled! Probably of all four Q&A sessions this was the most interactive - questions and observations came from such a broad spectrum, social workers in Wurzburg, English and Polish immigrants to Germany, fellow film makers and more. It left us on a high about the whole short documentary bloc idea and it will be repeated again I'm sure next year. After lugging furniture into a basement and enduring the berating of a neighbour (who lived beneath!) of washing one's balcony at minus 4 degrees celcius Tom too had to return home. It'll probably be Liscannor when we'll see one another again.

Made a dash back to the Prize Ceremony in the Corso. 'Mollys Way' was up for Best Film. 'Idir Dha Shaol' was not in any competition as we'd no Short Documentary Award category - this great little Festival is still evolving so..maybe next year! All of us were rooting for Mairead and Emily and were delighted, if not totally surprised, when 'Mollys Way' won second prize after the Bulgarian 'Stolen Eyes' film!!! Both girls were floating and naturally thrilled! Afterwards anybody and everybody involved with the weekend made their way back to our Stammkneipe 'Standard' and effusive energy abound. Aidan texted in his congratulations- along with a little addendum that his proposal had been accepted by his long suffering girlfriend Anke the previous night!! In traditional Irish fashion 'Standard' shut its door a 2am and many went dowstairs to continue celebrating-until they got breakfast at opening time next morning. Was a lovely, if bitter sweet evening, as similiar to 'Wunder von Bern ' I know this constellation won't exist again.....but that'll be a story for 2007!

Emily, Mairead,John and David were full of compliments for the weekend and I along with JP on behalf of the St Kilians parish team wish them only the very best in their future careers.