Friday 18 November 2011.
3am, Koln. Can’t sleep. My body clock is upside down. I’m listening for the millionth time to my CD of Haydn’s Keyboard Concerto in F Major played by Ronald Brautigam. I almost can’t believe I am almost through this long-planned series of screenings of The Boy Mir. It began almost two weeks ago with a screening at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. That was at the invitation of a South Asian event (Annual South Asian Literary and Theatre Arts festival) which was very impressive and comprised two days of performance – beginning with a screening of The Boy Mir. The Natural History Museum (of Night at the Museum fame) was the venue. In their excellent cinema, we had a sparely attended but well received showing. It was a real whistle-stop as, after only 30 minutes of Q&A, I had to run for a plane home. I had been flown in on Delta who I have to say were great but they weren’t going to wait for me so it was all at double-quick speed to get on board and home – for the Leonardo Live shoot. I’ve talked about this in another blog so suffice to say once that was done (phew!) it was farewell to my patient and supportive family and back to Heathrow and onto a plane to Washington again. I had asked an excellent PR company (PlanetPix) in New York to organise some BOY MIR screenings for political purposes – to get the film seen by those who make the decisions about billions of dollars and thousands of lives. On a beautiful Autumnal day in DC, we held our first screening at the fancy new building housing the United States Institute of Peace.
In their own words, USIP is our country's global conflict management center. Created by Congress to be independent and nonpartisan, we work to prevent, mitigate and resolve international conflict without resorting to violence. An ideal place to show the film. It is indeed a beautiful new building just near the Lincoln Memorial. The screening was well-attended by aid workers and grant-funders…and USIP ‘experts’ of various types. They seemed to enjoy the film and the subsequent Q&A. Then Planetpix took me downtown to the National Press Club. In their own words: The National Press Club, a private club for journalists and communications professionals, has been a Washington institution for more than a century. It is also a world-class conference and meeting facility that hosts thousands of events each year for sophisticated clients from around the globe. And while these are the Club’s functions, its mission is to be The World’s Leading Professional Organization for Journalists. It is a social and business organization dedicated to supporting the ongoing improvement of the profession of journalism. It’s a great place, actually – with some wonderful, iconographic photos on the walls. Along the corridor are also many world flags and I was very proud that the occasion of my visit was used to present (from the Afghanistan Embassy) an Afghan flag to stand among them. I think Afghan journalists are supremely brave and deserve every recognition. As for my own press conference, it was a bit quiet but I did do a couple of TV interviews – who knows?… It was the eve of a three-day weekend so not the best time, in hindsight, to be asking journalists in. That night, I had a wonderful dinner with the inspiring and, frankly, brilliant head of the Afghanistan section of VOA (Voice of America).
Friday – another lovely day outside but I simply couldn’t break away from trying to whittle down the 200+ emails I had to deal with. I’d like to say I’m a victim of my own success but I’m not sure it’s really that…. I also had to work on the Leonardo Live re-edit. I did make time to walk down with a good buddy of mine to the war memorials including the recently restored First World War memorial. Today was Veterans Day so there was quite a crowd. I was wearing my poppy (as we do in the UK – commemorating the poppy fields in France in which so many men died) and I suddenly burst out laughing: all of yesterday, talking about Mir and Afghanistan, I’d been wearing a poppy ! Most folk here don’t know about our UK tradition so what were they thinking?? That I was an advert for Afghanistan’s no 1 crop?!
That evening, I went to Symphony Hall to see cellist Gautier Capucon. He was fabulous and I stopped by backstage to say hi. His cello piece in IN SEARCH OF HAYDN will, I’m sure, be among many people’s favourites.
Saturday: I worked all morning and then took a lunch break to go to a local cinema to watch The Drive. I don’t know why I do it to myself – it was crass, violent & pointless. If they had given the budget to schoolkids in Afghanistan they’d have done so much more good. In the evening, Planetpix had again done an excellent job of organising a big screening of MIR – this time in a fine cinema at the George Washington University. It was noteworthy for so many Afghans that turned up. Well dressed, handsome, affluent – just as their brothers & sisters in Afghanistan could and should be. For me, a particular treat was sharing the stage with Christina Lamb, one of the best journalists around. If you haven’t read SEWING CIRCLES OF HERAT, you should. Luckily for me, she liked the film. Phew! A lot of positive reaction…but, as so often, very few donations. Website-based donation simply doesn’t work. I keep expecting at least one wealthy person to send in a few thousands dollars but it simply hasn’t happened in all the screenings I have had over the past year…
Sunday – train to NY – had an important meeting with the distributors of LEONARDO LIVE and then made my way to a lovely building overlooking Central Park where I was the guest speaker at a fundraiser for Afghan women. Showed 20 minutes of clips and talked for an hour. Went down very well. Best of all though was the delicious Afghan food – people always laugh when I say one of the reasons I go back is for the food – especially the kebabs … but it’s true.
Monday – Pittsburgh. Oh dear. 11 hours to get there to do a Q&A at a cinema. Travelled up to the cinema and was surprised to arrive at the door and see a poster for me to do the Q&A three days earlier: they got my day wrong! Audience who turned up today – 0! Well, two old dears finally waddled in , hesitated until I told them what a great film it was (they didn’t know I was the director) and they sat all alone in a 300-seater and watched the film. My sense of professionalism did not extend to me sticking around to do a Q&A. I’ll be looking for compensation for that cock-up.
Tuesday and almost at the end of my trek now. As wet and miserable a day as yesterday was gloriously sunny. I gave a talk & screening at the University of Pittsburgh. Some very nice folk who are at their Institute for Human Security. Then a mad dash for the plane home.
Weds- into Sky for the start of the Haydn post production – luckily I have a star post-production editor who can get on with it all alone at the early stage so I could go home. Only to leave 4.30 am next day to Berlin.
Berlin holds such a special place in my heart that I am always so happy to be here. The city always has the same central European air that I remember from my visits as a child. Such a grand, sad, energetic, beautiful city. I’m here because the Franco-German channel ARTE are holding a press screening of MIR. Of all the braodcasters to whom I pre-sold the film, ARTE is actually the biggest coup – and then to get picked for their number one doc slot too is brilliant. And then the fact that they are pushing it makes me even happier. They have hired a wonderful cinema called the Babylon (where, funnily enough, I once came to show ESCAPE FROM LUANDA). I met my ARTE commissioning editor and we hug in relief that we actually managed to win the many fights along the way to get the film through. I won’t bore you with it but, trust me, it was like walking through a field of thorns at times. She has become one of my favourite all-time TV folk – because she believes in the programmes and programme-makers. And, trust me, many don’t. A decent crowd gathers inside – there must be thirty or so people in attendance – a very good turn-out, including the former German ambassador to Pakistan. It’s so easy to put on these events and for them to be ill-attended (well, like the National Press Club in Washington which only saw a handful turn up). The film kicks off on the big screen and it looks great. I make a run for a meeting to do with a classical music project (but that’s another story, folks) and then get back in time for the end of the film and the Q&A. Everyone stays and are very keen to ask questions and listen to the answers. The proof will be in what they eventually write but they seem really approving of the film. I have to add that this is a special moment for me as my sister and her lovely friend who both live in Berlin have come too. I manage to woof down half a bagel before my commissioning editor and I dash to the airport for a 3pm flight to Koln. There I give a talk to a class of film students interested in making political films…’Don’t’ I tell them. ‘make “political films” but tell great stories and let your politics come through the way you tell them, the choices you make, the questions you ask, the shots you frame, the characters you choose”. I find I talk non-stop for 45 minutes – either I’m good at this or have become a bore who likes the sound of my own voice….a bit of both probably! After this we head to the Forum Ludwig – a nice cinema next to the staggeringly impressive cathedral. Their first film ever (five or so years ago) was IN SEARCH OF MOZART (can you believe?!) and so it’s nice to finally visit them. This is a somewhat unofficial screening for WDR (the German channel that is showing the film six months after ARTE) . Again, it is decently attended and well-received. What I learnt from this screening is that the only way to extricate donations towards my desire of paying for a new, well-educated, teacher for Mir’s school is to actually have buckets held out by the doors on the way out of the cinema. Asking folk to visit the website fails. Handing out flyers fails. Two students jumped up after this screening and made paper hats from newspaper and held them out to everyone leaving – and raised 150 euros in one go. I am delighted..and somewhat peeved as I have had so many screenings that I could have done that at – and didn’t. I should have learnt from the Church – they know how to raise cash. Pass the tray round or hold a bucket out and get the cash from people before they leave the building. Oh well… Live & Learn.
Fri – Back to Britain…and it’s not quite over yet. In the afternoon, I give a talk about documentary film-making to some young kids at Brighton College (rapidly becoming accepted as one of the top schools in the UK) and then, after dinner and general fun & games at home, I drive off for my last Mir event: a conference on Afghanistan to be held at Marlborough College, an hour or two west of London.
The event on Saturday turns out to be fascinating (and well-run). I attend excellent presentations today from Bijan Omrani, Rob Johnson and Frank Ledwidge. Mostly concerned with history and contemporary military failures. The event is very well attended and the screening of MIR at the end of the afternoon goes very well. I hang around for a pleasant dinner and then head home, arriving about 1am.
Sun – I’m with my family now and I’m so delighted this mini-Mir-madness is over….It’s time to ease back a little and hope the films take on a life of its own….My golf swing has become way too rusty…
Oh shame…just heard we were not shortlisted for an Oscar. Lots of other omissions too such as (amazingly) Senna and The Interrupters. The selection committee like old-school simple emotional narratives it seems. I’d been told MIR stood no chance but I’d lived in hope for the past few months – it would have been great publicity. Well, we tried….and, on that, one has to say we’ve tried our best for the last year. We said we’d push it for this twelve months (at our own expense) and that time has now ended….Let’s see what happens…Maybe in 6 or so months from now we’ll be able to judge what impact, if any, the film had had….
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