by Barry » Mon May 08, 2017 1:55 pm
Am just sat in a hotel in Bologna waiting for a car back to the airport, trying to make sense of the last week. So we wrapped on twirlywoos - 100 episodes in the equivalent of three years, and it has been a joy. I'm going to be lost not getting up for work, not fretting the night before about the shots, and not running round the studio trying to schedule and reschedule, and not having creative problems to solve. What next, I'm not sure. nothing at the moment, but as soon as I left the studios, I was on the way to Bologna for the Future Film Festival. And this has been pretty amazing, and I have to say that they have worked me hard. A long workshop about storytelling, a possibly awkward workshop with children (raffia, and coloured card and plasticine had been purchased but I veered away from that.), and a big workshop about puppets, and then I was on the jury trying to award a main prize out of the 110 films we had watched. This eventually went to a French film called Garden Party, which blended two very different stories together beautifully. A tremendous film. And then I had a late night retrospective, and oh lordie, the response to that was incredible. Genuine film critics for national papers and magazines were gushing with their praise for the films, and Rigoletto, which I always feel uncomfortable about screening in Italy, were down a real storm, loving the visual concept of it. Oddly that is what I would change most. And on top of all this was the European premiere of Alien covenant, which was bloody and noisy, and just juggled familiar tropes into a different order, and threw in more blood and much mythology. And all the meals here, and the chat, and the autographs and the people. A sensory overload, that being back in Manchester this week, and out of work, will seem very unreal, especially as I took no photographs ergo did it ever happen.