Ode To June #14

5 more days and June is over! Can’t believe it … so fast … I’m filming every day and I started to develop the first film cassettes and getting them digitized …
A mixture of Hamburg and Mama and Berlin and country and sheep and sneakers and flowers flowers flowers …

Trip to Bavaria

Did I tell you? That I got a nice film funding for my current film project called “Khanis Reise”?
It has started. The journey has begun: in Bavaria, close to Augsburg and München. I dreamed about a place and I went there.

The name is “Zusamaltheim” and I like it; it contains “together”, “old” and “home”, and somehow also “cohesion” …
There’s no accommodation in Zusamaltheim, so I’ve booked a room at the “Hotel zum Hirsch” in Wertingen, 6 km away, for 6 days. I’ve rented a mountain bike.

I cycle a lot around the area every day and am building up fantastic leg muscles.

I’m exploring Zusamaltheim: I don’t think there’s a more dreary or boring village … like so many villages here, there’s no public life left (or am I wrong?): no grocery, no shop, no café, no kiosk, no one on the streets … OK, it’s very hot, everything’s covered in concrete (that used to be a sign of wealth: clean streets, pavements that are easy to sweep, great motorway access, tarmac driveways and the ever-manicured green lawns…)… well, one exception: in Zusamaltheim there’s Josef the organic farmer, who runs a farm shop with his wife Annemarie, and you can buy coffee and tea and cake and eco stuff and sit in the shade under the chestnut tree – lovely!

What can I take from this for my research on coincidence and this special film? A longing for water. Cold, clear water. And Melusine.
Melusine is featured on the village coat of arms. A siren, a mermaid, with two tails. But they only grew on her on Saturdays, and they shimmered beautifully … She married a man who had to promise to leave her in peace on Saturdays and not to control her … but of course he couldn’t help himself and peered through the bathroom keyhole. Oh my goodness, what a fuss that caused! So she moved out – bye-bye, control freak.

What does she have to do with my film? I don’t know exactly yet, but I’ve found that films always take on a life of their own… and this one is doing just that!
I’ll keep you updated!

Rotterdam Workshop Day 1

Yesterday it started to storm really heavily and today it was all fresh and cold and we had an amazing light outside, very melodramatic. Perfect for the first day of Wabi-Sabi-Filming!

My students are cool, the place is great, the weather plays with us, the first black+white processing made the first group film a masterpiece! More to follow. Tomorrow we will have some outdoor experiments, challenge coincidence to take us on a trip through Rotterdam. I’ll be back!!!