Films News and a Thank You

We received a postcard the other day, from Alonissos. I just wanted to say thank you to Anschi for sending it, and for your good wishes. Keep reading the blog and the books!

As for the film news, if you haven’t already seen the news, ‘The 13^th‘ has won ‘Best Feature Film of the Year’ at the Lake View Film Festival in South Africa, and the award has arrived with the director/producer at 1066 Productions. Bravo to everyone involved, backers, actors, crew and local Symi children (and adults) included. Let’s hope that this award helps the company find a distributor and the money needed to get the film released to the public. Here’s a photo of the award. (Other photos today are random, as per.)

Also, if anyone is in London on 31^st October and fancies seeing the film at the Hen & Chickens Theatre, Islington, where the Unrestricted View Horror Film Festival is taking place, 1066 have five free tickets for backers or interested parties. The tickets include 20% off all drinks at the bar all day/evening. If you do want to go, you won’t have to make a speech or anything, it would just be good to have an audience and someone there who has a connection with the film even if you haven’t – if you see what I mean. (The connection would be that you’re a Symi Dreamer, that’s good enough for anyone.) Contact me if you are interested. (Email address at the bottom of this site.)

That’s the news and thanks done, now back to the writing but I will say it again, if you’ve seen the film and want the full story, or if you’ve not yet read the book, ‘The Judas Inheritance’, you can find it on Kindle and in print right here. Symi isn’t named as the island in the book, but it’s pretty obvious where it is set, at least, it will be to anyone who reads the book, knows the island and the village in particular.

Also, a quick note: at the moment, if you order a print copy of ‘The Saddling’ (my currently best selling mystery/thriller) you get a Kindle version copy for free. Sounds like a Christmas present for a friend, with a bonus for you kind of deal to me.

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Definitely autumn

Delightful weather, all rather peaceful, quiet in the village in the afternoons and yet busier in the evenings. There are several homeowners here at the moment, coming for an end of season holiday and to check their properties before preparing them for the winter months. Checking the weather-proofing, tidying up, putting things away and making sure everything is in place so that their houses are looked after during the coming months.

There are also several long-stayer preparing to head home after a summer on Symi. That must be a very difficult thing to do, to say goodbye to your second home for a few months. But, as I always say, you have to leave in order to come back.

As for us, we’re falling into the pre-winter routine: up early still (a huge array of stars from the balcony at 5.30 this morning), work in the morning, and afternoon actually, a pause for lunch, Neil still guarding the bar for a couple of hours, a drink or two there before home for a film, or friends for a dinner, that kind of thing. The shorts have gone back into the wardrobe unless we’re out in the sun in the mornings, but we’re not yet in full winter garb. That will come later. The courtyard is tidy, the flat roof cleaned ready for a coat of waterproof paint, the barbeque still needs to come inside to go into hibernation in the spare shower room, but other than that… Oh, the chilli plant has now decided to flower, so we’re hoping it stays warm enough for those buds to turn into chillies. Seems a bit late, but then, what do I know?

The day boats are still coming in, though numbers of day visitors may be falling. A couple of tavernas have closed for the season, but I still see taxi boats heading out. The Poseidon is finishing its trips this week unless the weather holds, the licence runs on, and there are enough takers for a trip. So, you can safely say, it’s definitely autumn here on Symi.

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Symi Scenery & Screenings

As well as some photos taken from the balcony yesterday (and the bonfire at the new jetty site from a few days before – it was a controlled fire), I have some updates on films. One of the organisers of the Symi International Film Festival sent me the list of award winners and I’ve copied it below.

Before we get there, the news from ‘The 13^th‘, the film shot entirely on Symi, is that it has been entered in 74 festivals to date – it may not be entered into any more. It has been selected for ten so far, and in those it has won about 20 laurels/awards and been seen by several hundred people. More publicity for Symi there. It had been rejected by 34 so far, but there are still 30 in the pipeline. Now you know, and now the Symi International Film festival awards list:

Award for Best Feature Film              Mousse

Award for Best Short Film                  White House

Award for Best Animated Film          Cuerdas

Award for Best Greek Film                Ο Λέων της Πεντέλης (The Lion of Penteli)

Award for Best Direction                   John Hellberg – Mousse

Award for Best Actor                         Stéphane Bertola – Mousse

Award for Best Actress                      Huichi Chiu – Huidas (Escapes)

Award for Best Cinematography        White House

Award for Originality                         A Mirror

Award for Best Music                         Antonis Zacharakis – Ta gemista (Salted)

 

Highly Commended- Short Film        Zero mm

Highly Commended- Short Film        The Shoe Maker Pages

Highly Commended- Short Film        Initiation

Highly Commended- Feature Film     Life is Lovely

Highly Commended- Animated Film Shame

Highly Commended- Greek Film       ΓΕΝΕΘΛΙΑ (Birthday)

Highly Commended- Actor                Gunnar Ernblad – Mousse

Highly Commended- Actor                Roberto Gonzalez- Mousse

Highly Commended- Actress             Julia Campanelli – 116

Βραβείο Καλύτερης Ταινίας Μεγάλου Μήκους

Βραβείο Καλύτερης Ταινίας Μικρού Μήκους

Βραβείο Καλύτερης Ταινίας Κινουμένων Σχεδίων

Βραβείο Καλύτερης Ελληνικής Ταινίας

Βραβείο Καλύτερης Σκηνοθεσίας

Βραβείο Καλύτερου Αντρα Ηθοποιού

Βραβείο Καλύτερης Γυναίκας Ηθοποιού

Βραβείο Καλύτερης Φωτογρφίας

Βραβείο Πρωτοτυπου Σεναρίου

Βραβείο Καλύτερης Μουσικής

 

Ειδική Μνεία – Ταινίς Μικρού Μήκους

Ειδική Μνεία – Ταινία Μικρού Μήκους

Ειδική Μνεία – Κινουμένων Σχεδίων

Ειδική Μνεία – Ελληνική Ταινία

Ειδική Μνεία – Αντράς Ηθοποιός

Ειδική Μνεία – Γυναίκα Ηθοποιός

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A post about post

Morning! Just a quick post today. I was rather uninspired on Sunday, so didn’t get around to writing anything in advance. In fact, I had a whole day off; no work of any sort, just some online shopping and some pottering around at home. Talking of shopping…

The other day I sent a package to the UK; some old camera equipment for one of our nephews. I packaged everything up and wrapped it well, put the pieces (camera, lenses etc.) into an old camera bag and into an old water box. Found some brown paper, covered the box and wrote the addresses to and from, and then wondered how much it would cost to post. I took it to the post office where it was weighed, 4.2 kilos, and was told how much it would be to send it ‘snail mail’. €35.00 approx. And off it went. That was on the Friday morning.

It arrived in the UK, at its destination, on the Wednesday morning, which I thought was pretty good going, particularly as it wasn’t going with a courier. This is unlike a hard drive with a film on it that a friend of mine sent as an entry to the Cape Town Film Festival the other week. This was sent by post, from the UK, and the post office told him it would take three to four days as some kind of priority mail. What they didn’t say was that South Africa was having a huge problem with the post and there was a month’s worth of backlog. This meant the file had still not arrived with two days to go before the film was due to be shown. My friend got onto the post office and, somehow, the CEO of… whatever it’s called. A couple of emails later and the package was found (in the backlog, in Cape Town), and finally delivered just in time. I think the fact that he got a national South Africa newspaper interested in the story over there helped.

Anyway… Random postal thought on a Monday morning, early, so not fascinating news, but good news. The Greek/British postal service did me proud without me having to get the press on board.

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Saturday Photos

As usual for a weekend, here are a few random photos to keep you going. These are drawn from my files and were all taken this year. It’s very random today. Have a good weekend.

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