What an exciting day this has been! Challenging, exhausting, full of mystery and absorbing all my energy.
Yep, you’ve guessed it, I’ve spend the bigger part of the day reading the Creative Europe Guidelines.
Actually I’ve been thinning them out: I’ve brought them all together in one .pdf file, and that leaves me with 379 pages. Luckily there’s a lot of legal stuff that is often repeated and that once read can be ignored. In the late afternoon I was asked to preside a meeting with the local Creative Europe Media Office representative, the heads of the Slovenian and the Croatian film centre, and producers and directors of the SEE region. For such an exquisite company I could not appear unprepared. It turned out to be a lively but also very positive meeting.
After hours of letter crunching I allowed myself some free time and a touristic walk. I stepped out of the hotel, noticed that it was raining, walked five meters to the left, took a picture of the shop next to the hotel, walked five meters to the right and went back into my room where the Guidelines for the Training Programme were already seductively making eyes at me. Weak man that I am, I indulged and spent another hour of intense study. I think I would have been a happy monk in the middle-ages, copying texts about the life of Saints into a big leather-bound book, oblivious of the temptations of the outside world (but of course only before the Church imposed celibacy!).
So today Zagreb Dox had to do more or less without me. Actually, I did step into the hospitality area to have a pint or two with my friend Svetoslav Draganov, whose LIFE ALMOST WONDERFUL is shown in the festival. Always fun to be with Sveto and listen to his wild plans for his next documentary. It’s so fulfilling and exhilarating to drink with a real artist and a committed film maker.
But so, my dear reader, I find myself back in my hotel room, and it’s not even 10.00 p.m. And while – I’m sure – you’re having a wild night in whatever town you might be terrorising now, I will soon perform the evening rites (no details, sorry!) and slide myself between the cool sheets. Wish me sweet dreams.
Will you be here tomorrow? I will.