Tuesday 29 March 2011 - Washington DC. USA.

I arrived in Washington yesterday after a nice easy British Airways flight and came straight to the Austrian Embassy for tonight's screening. I had showed Mozart here a couple of years ago and they very nicely have invited me back for a screening of IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN. The embassies are all next to each-other out here and we're opposite the UAE and the Egyptian - you can imagine how busy these embassies have been over the last few weeks. Maybe that's how Vienna felt back in the late 1700s when Napoleon was charging through Europe - you simply didn't know what was what. Here the Ambassadors of so many embassies, especially the North African and Middle Eastern countries, have been turned upside down and inside out. Fascinating times indeed. But my film concerns an earlier period though no less fascinating and I was delighted to see a full auditorium seated at 7.30pm ready to go. It wasn’t the greatest screen or projector but it didn't seem to matter - the audience loved the film and stayed afterwards for many questions. As so often in US screenings, you meet so many delightful people, albeit briefly. It only serves to frustrate me too as I know there are not 300 but 30,000 people like last night's audience who would enjoy the film in Washington but connecting to them, making them aware of the film and giving them the chance & easy possibility to see it is so difficult - but we'll keep trying. And Social Media - Facebook, blogs, twitter, etc - whatever one thinks of it all is undoubtedly a great tool to help us. Anyway, a good first night of this two week tour...