Balkan Gypsy Evening

Yesterday I went with Khaled to a concert of Taraf de Haidouks, the Romanian Gypsy band.The concert was at Elysees-Montmartre, just two steps from my place.

They play traditional Romanian music and they are really exceptional musicians. Apart from "the wedding and funeral" songs they also played some music from classical composers. I recognised the piece from Bartok (you can see and hear it here) and Khaled recognised Khachaturian's one.
Anyhow, the concert was great and since it was quite early, we went after for a dinner. Being in the Balkan Gypsy mood, we ordered a kilo of meat, we ate it in half hour and we didn't look like French people at all.

J.J.B.

Eicar - new website

I'm receiving through this blog more and more questions about Eicar - International Film School. We have a new webiste, here is a link, check it out.

J.J.B.

The Last Cigarette in the Parisian Bar

Here is how I smoked the last cigarette in the Parisian bar on 31st of December 2007.

J.J.B.

Vavaland

I've just got home from short trip to Amsterdam. I've been there for 4 days and I stayed at Vava's place. Vava is a friend of mine that I met during the workshop in Krsko. He was a great host during my staying and since I'm not in the mood for writing a reportage, here are just some impressions.

It was very cold, even canals were wearing winter clothes.

In China's part of the town the streets names are written in Chinese. I wonder what would happen if in some parts of Paris the streets names would be also written in Arabic.

But London syndrome is also present: cameras are on several streets around Red Lights District.

You can buy bear in the cinema. But you can also drink bear in cinema.

This windmill is still a brewery.

Kaas means cheese, Zatte is a great bear with 8% of alcohol.

Vava's girlfriend Janneke took this picture. She put the camera down before the actual shot. Still, I like the picture a lot:)

On my last evening, Vava and Janneke in action.

J.J.B.

Casablanca

It's been 2 months since we started with classes at Eicar. This year I teach production for bachelor 1st year and master 1st year. Those are mainly theoretical courses 2 hours a week.
"My class", where I teach directing, is 2nd year bachelor program. We have almost 40 students so we divided them into two groups and the other teacher is Adriano Valerio. We alternate classes so that both group can have lectures from both of us.
There are two premises in 2nd year program. First, how to tell a story in realistic way, stressing also the film structure, dramaturgy... Second, it's working with actors.
Last week we started with exercises with actors. The students get the given scene from films and then they have to direct with actors. Each year I choose the scene from Casablanca, where Ingrid Bergman comes to ask for transit letters from Humphrey Bogart, to be the first one because it's very easy to break it down into units and to find objectives and obstacles. In one class three students work with actors on the scene and then we analyse their work together, then the following week one of them shoot the scene.
So here is the picture from shooting, where actors Jon Russo and Heike try to do their best of Bogart-Bergman.

At one moment my student Madison took my photo and made some pictures. After, I found this one that I like a lot. D.O.P. August at work (not to forget, director was Brandon).

J.J.B.

La Cuisine Libanaise

Few days ago Mirella and I invited Vinciane and Guissepe for a dinner. I was very glad because Mirella promised that she will cook Libanese food which I adore.
So, here how it was.
The starter was of course houmus (made from chickpea's, garlic and lemon - at the end, you put olive oil on top of it) and lebanese bread. Of course, you can eat houmus with the main course also, which was specialy marinated chicken with rice, almonds, rasins and pinuts.
And of course salad, tabbule, made from tomato, parsley and onions.
Hera are the happy eaters (I am not among them because I took the picture but I can assure you, I was the most satisfied one:)). Vine was French and for apettizer we drank viliamovka, which is Slovenian brandy made from pears.

Oh, I almost forgot: for dessert, chockolate, that Guissepe and Vinciane brought from Belgia.

After the dinner we were having a good time listening to music, esspecialy Mika, new Libanese star. I said that it reminds me of Walk like an Egyptian, the old hit from 80's. Because the girls are young, we had to demonstrate thew how we danced at the time.

J.J.B.

Reflection

When I came to Paris in October 2003, I had a Russian plan: I will stay in Paris for 5 years no matter what happens and after that period I will draw a line and see if the things are working for me or not. The fifth year have just started and it's still a bit too early for final account, but here are some pluses and minuses in the last 4 years.

- After being in Paris for 2 months, in december 2003 I shot a short film-exercise on super16. I've already written about that here, now I finally uploaded the whole film.

in case of problems, try to open it directly from here

- first year in Paris was very tough for me, I was almost all the time without the money, I didn't understand the word of French and it didn't seem at the time that the things will change. I remember that I was crying out of frustration several times. However, through Balkan connections I got a job at Orly airport (I was "slapping" the luggage as we say in Bosnia) and somehow survived that first year.

- second year started much easier since I got a scholarship from Slovenian Ministry of culture. Suddenly I had a lot of free time since I didn't need to run around like crazy trying to earn few euros. Consequance will be described in next line

- I spoke with at the time my directing professor Ilka Jarvilaturi. I told him how frustrated I'm because I don't speak the language. He told me:"To learn a language you have to either shoot a feature in French or you have to find a french speaking girlfriend.". Just to be sure I did both :)

- third year, partial breakthrough, I got a job as a professor of film directing at the school where I was a student. Great international environment. Big plus.

- that same year passed by working on post-production of paris.love

- fourth year, continuation of teaching. Started a project with Brina Svit, travelled with her to Buenos Aires and spent a summer shooting in Slovenia

- voila, here we are, fifth year, not bad at all. The only big minus that's following me all this years is French breaucracy. Although Slovenia entered the European Union in 2005, the things for me haven't changed much; I still need to wait in queue to get my working papers and the fact that I'm from European Union doesn't make the things really easier

- anyhow, recently I started to work as a camera operator and editor with a swedish journalist shooting the news for swedish TV. Although I started my career back in 94 working the same things, I enjoy a lot rediscovering it now

- so, when I don't work at school or with swedish guy, I edit the documentary about Brina. So, here I'm am, doing my best of Rodin's Thinker.


J.J.B.