Leonardo Live - Tuesday 8th November 2011

I am not sure whether to breathe a sigh of relief or become more nervous...as tickets are now on sale for our big autumn arts project - LEONARDO LIVE. I came up with the idea almost two years ago to bring the big London exhibitions to a wider, even worldwide, audience - a mix of live Tim Marlow show to both Sky Arts and cinemas but LIVE on the eve of the exhibition's opening. I choose the huge November show at the National Gallery - Leonardo da Vinci. Like all these things, I severely underestimated the complexities in ramping up from a pre-recorded show to a live one and I'd say it's been a project that has needed my attention and input every single day! But I won't bore you with the horrors of negotiating contracts, access, budgets, etc. - what I will say is that there will be ten Leonardo paintings remarkably brought to the exhibition - unique and unlikely to ever be repeated. Plus dozens of other artworks that are relevant to the core show too. Tim Marlow and Mariella Frostrup will present an 85' show at 7pm on the 8th November and you can watch it on Sky Arts in the UK or at selected Picturehouse Cinemas. We'll have background mini-docs and expert guests and hopefully no-one will fall over or slip up. It is scary doing live stuff but if I can get through Afghanistan I can get through this! More to the point, it will bring Leonardo to a wider audience in, I hope, a wonderful way - and I always want to encourage people to look and admire the work of creative genius - whether a Beethoven or a Bruegel. TV broadcasters doubt there is an audience for art and stick any shows they do make on the smaller 4th channels (BBC4/More4 in the UK - or NOT AT ALL in the USA!) but you and I KNOW they are wrong, don't we?

Tickets for Leonardo Live are available to purhcase here.

23 July 2011

That's scary - the 23rd July already. We're only three weeks off the US premiere of THE BOY MIR - TEN YEARS IN AFGHANISTAN and there remains so much to do. New York on the 12th and then LA the 19th and Chicago the 21st.I've enjoyed not being stuck in airports and airplanes for a while but that's sound about to change! Leigh, Christina and everyone in the office are working hard to get the word out but the demands upon any individual's time these days are enormous - you simply never know if the cinema will be full or empty. That's why my intention is simply to always feel we have done our best and then let the dice fall as they will. At very least we have done well to secure a two week run in both LA and NY - which, incidentally, means the film will be considered by the Oscar committee...(Hey, you never know! Mind you, a colleague in LA who works closely with the Oscars folk said he thought the film was stunning and stood no chance of being nominated - 'they simply don't nominate those kind of international social docs...' - though Born into Brothels was nominated I remember).
Anyway, more importantly, will the press give us any coverage? That's the key - and maybe it being summer won't help. It's also Ramadan so some of our Muslim audience will stay away too. Oh well, as I said, we do the best we can. The film launches in Holland soon and that will be interesting as a guide to what folk think.

I've been doing a fair bit of reading about Afghanistan recently - and the book I'd most recommend is Cables from Kabul by Sherard Cowper-Coles, the former Ambassador in Kabul. Fascinating, erudite, funny and, for me anyway, on the nail. I met him briefly last year at a conference on Afghanistan and he was all those things in person too. It's a shame I didn't get anywhere with the book idea for Mir but I'd have struggled to write anything as relevant as Sherard's insights. I must also mention in passing an excellent film made by that excellent journalist Lyse Doucet - it was on the BBC recently (and was the best of their short 'Afghanistan after 10 years' series - if you've access to I-Player, have a look. There really is no shortage of material about Afghanistan these days - quite what the public's attitude is I find hard to gauge. Certainly, when I hear the public talk on, for example, Question Time, they are extremely poorly informed - mind you, some of the panellists talk absolute rot too. And THAT'S why they have to watch my film....

Bafta - Documentary Award - At Last!

At last! BAFTA sees sense. For over 20 years, BAFTA has been embarrassingly short of a Documentary Award in its Film Awards. The OSCARS have one, so do the CESARS..and now finally – after a lot of lobbying – does the BAFTAS. It has been absurdly slow in doing this and one can only breathe a sigh of relief and say ‘about time too!’.

In Search of Haydn - the Endellion String Quartet - St. George's Bristol

These are the days I like best: today I filmed the Endellion String Quartet playing Haydn extracts / complete movements for IN SEARCH OF HAYDN. We decided that the best location for acoustic reasons was St George’s in Bristol. Chris (the sound recordist) and I travelled up late the night before to make sure we were bright & breezy for the day ahead… The day actually started with a fascinating and very useful interview with David Wyn Jones – an acknowledged expert on Haydn’s life. These are the guys that make me look good! Really all I have to do is point the camera in his direction and ask sensible, interested questions. He was an articulate, treasure trove of information and, while I need to guard against too many British historians dotted throughout the film, I know I’ll use him. It’s always more exciting to do the interviews late in the process too as (1) your questions are more focussed but (2) you can immediately see where parts of answers will slot straight into the film. Phil Reynolds (the genius editor) and I have been editing the film for three weeks, mainly working on the musical moments, but now we can start laying in the narrative moments. All very exciting. My only concerns are that I’ll run out of time before examining every avenue but that’s always the case with any film. It’s also the downside of the struggle to raise funds – I can’t afford a full-time researcher for instance (which we always used to have on projects).
Anyway, after the interview, we set up for the recording of the music. The Endellion had wisely suggested we use a company called Classic Sound to help on this one – as the sound of a quartet has to be very carefully recorded. I have to say that Classic Sound were fantastic and we let them sort out the mics (only 4 are used, hanging above the quartet). By 1pm we were ready to start filming and for five hours I had the absolute pleasure of filming 10 different pieces – all of them gorgeous to listen to and gorgeous (I think anyway) to look at. The Endellion are not only at the top of the field musically but are great to film too – expressive, active, emotive. For those of you interested, the pieces (in extracts of maybe three minutes) we chose to film were Opus 20/4 (3rd movement), Opus 20/6 (2nd and 4th), Opus 33 /2 (finale), Opus 54/2 (slow movement), Opus 64/5 (1st movement), Opus 74/3 (finale), Opus 76/1 (first – all for the DVD extras !), Opus 76/3 (slow – the German National Anthem tune), Opus 77/2 (3rd). We finished bang on 7pm and went for a well-deserved meal…and I clung tight to my rushes knowing I had struck gold. More good news: the Endellion will ‘open’ for the world premiere of IN SEARCH OF HAYDN at the Barbican in January. They will play 76/1 and then the film will run. That’s brilliant – what a night it could be. See you there….

Hay Festival 2011

I'm at the Hay Festival in Wales and it is absolutely fantastic. It has helped, of course, to have been doing a couple of talks but whether a punter or performer, this festival is certainly one of the best. For me as a film-maker, it is without doubt more useful than any film festival. I think I learnt more about a certain area of South America yesterday a one-hour talk by an author than in any number of documentary films. Indeed, it makes you wonder (once again) what are documentary films best at? So many these days are slight, poorly crafted and without depth or thesis. Radio and books are where its at...and that is so well reflected at Hay. There are dozens of tents, there must be 2000 performers over the 9 or 10 days and the setting (especially in the sun) is outstanding. We went up to Capel-y-ffin (near Hay) and a more beautiful drive is hard to imagine. My son and I chatted to a shepherd who was rounding up (with his 5 Border Collies) 800 sheep. He was working in a tradition that was centuties old and it was as fascinating to watch as any movie. Back at the Festival, I shared the Green Room with Jo Brand, Paul Merton, Arthur Smith and Dara O'Briain and couldn't help but wonder who was the funniest! Michael Morpurgo was here too and did two wonderful readings...I said hi and gave him the latest film on Mir (he based his recent book Shadow a bit on Mir). Michael and his wife are wonderful folk. Naturally we bought a stack more books and made all sorts of plans to do way more events at literary festivals and far less as film festivals...we'll see. But we'll certainly come back to Hay next year!

The Boy Mir - Ten Years in Afghanistan - President Barack Obama's U.K state visit.

In the words of one famous American: 'I have a dream'. I accept that my dream is not comparable to Martin Luther King's in any way but I too have a dream: it is that President Obama one day calls in Michelle and the kids into the TV room in the White House...There they settle back with tubs of popcorn to watch a movie called THE BOY MIR - TEN YEARS IN AFGHANISTAN. I don't care about festivals or awards but I would love Presidents and Prime Ministers to see this film and let Mir's story in some small way influence how they behave not only in Afghanistan but everywhere. I believe we should praise the Coalition forces for their courage and sacrifice as well as acknowledge the progress that has been made. At the same time we should criticise them, their governments and their NGOs for the huge amount of progress that should have been made but hasn't. Let us not forget the terrible bloodshed on all sides; primarily the fault of the Taliban of course but not always. This film is unique and if there is only one film the President watches (and frankly he should watch any and every film on this country) then let it be this one. He and Cameron will talk at length this week but frankly if they don't understand families like Mir's then they will be wasting their time and billions more dollars and thousands more lives...

Afghanistan

Every day Afghanistan seems to bring bad news….this from the LA Times:

Insurgents massacred 36 workers at a road-construction encampment in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, provincial and company officials said, marking one of the most lethal assaults of its kind in recent years. The Talban and other insurgents sometimes target work crews on infrastructure projects, regarding the building companies as collaborators with the central government and foreign forces. But most such projects have substantial security contingents, and it is unusual for militants to be able to kill so many in a single strike. The construction company's owner, Noorullah Bidar, one of 20 people injured in the attack, said from his hospital bed that all those slain in the predawn attack in Paktia province were Afghans. Rohullah Samon, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said the dead included laborers, technical personnel and security guards. Eight assailants died in the attack as well, he said. By Laura King, Los Angeles Times, May 20 2011

It’s so awful…yet on the other hand I did hear the female Head of the Health Ministry yesterday and, as she said, ten years ago she wouldn’t have been allowed in the ministry never mind being allowed to run it…so there is some progress to hold on to. But it is such a fine line between going forwards and backwards….