Day 69-77: Eternal memory or ..?

Eternal memory or who has advice on how to remember it all?

This blog will be a good reminder of what I was doing while living in Berlin and traveling, but how can I make my brain remember every single minute of this journey ? I’ve met some great people, I’ve done some cool stuff, experienced some awesome things, hung out in some mindblowing places, barhopped like crazy every once in a while and had a good time overall. And how can I guarantee that I remember every single interesting conversation that I had or every interesting thing that I saw? I sort of don’t want to let go of anything I’ve done so far.

Nan Goldin, whose exhibition I visited recently at the Berlinische Galerie says she was taking so many pictures of people and events because she was obsessed with remembering everything and not losing people (funnily enough, she also adds that these photos now remind her how

much she lost...). If I want to remember every precious moment of the good times in my life, I have to carry a notepad for writing things down, voice recorder for some pleasant conversations, camera for all the beautiful things, have a Google Calendar to track all the meet-ups and events (actually I do/have all that, except for the recorder), but if I devote so much time to tracking my experiences, there will be no actual experiences.

Berlin Special: Berlinale Palast!

The Berlin Film Festival is officially over as I write this. It's been a fine week with 7 films overall for myself. The two I saw today Ausente and Un Mundo Misterioso both had full houses and unfortunately no Q&A's as the people involved with the films have already departed.

Ausente deals with issues of breaking the law (namely having a relationship with an underage student), not giving in to feelings or emotions and finally blaming oneself for a bad outcome in a tragic situation. Nicely shot and not too tiring to watch, the public seemed to love it.

Un Mundo Misterioso, on the other hand, wasn't as popular as some people even walked out. It runs almost a full 2 hours and there's little plot development after premise has been set - the girlfriend thinks her boyfriend and her need some time apart. The dependent guy is thrown out of his comfort zone and the film shows his ministrations as he tries to lead his life on his own.

The good thing about the movie was that it was shown in the Berlinale Palast - La Citadelle de Berlinale. I arrived 20 minutes in advance hoping to score a really good seat and found myself queuing up after at least two hundred people, out in the cold of course. We were allowed to enter only 5 minutes after the showing was supposed to start and eventually started 10 minutes later. Somebody relaxed too early, me thinks. But anyway, here is a pictures galore from the inside of this beautiful building.

Berlin Special: Berlinale, the winners!

And so the cat is out of the bag, the Bears have been awarded and the full list of the Berlin Film Festival winners is to be found here.

Out of the entire winners list (incl. special mentions) I saw Apflickorna, Stadt Land Fluss and tomorrow I'll be watching Ausente. The one movie I wanted to see and didn't was Tomboy (it went on to receive the Teddy Jury Award), it immediately sprang to my eye as I held the festival program in my hands, but it didn't work out with the showtimes for me.

As the winners were being announced next door, I was watching the Korean Ashamed (Chang-Pi-Hae). I must admit that I always have a hard time with Asian movies and that's exactly why I watch so few of them, but I once again decided to give oriental film industry a chance and try to expand my horizons.

As of a couple of days I have a flu, so maybe that would explain why I thought the film was supposed to start at 7.30pm instead of 7.00pm... [With all my vast movie-going experience, this has never happened to me before.] Of course I only realized that once I was on the bus and wanted to check if I still had the ticket (OCD) It was 6.50pm. Each ticket specifically says there's no late admittance, so I debated leaving the bus and going home, but that would mean I'd miss the Berlinale Nighttalk, so I continued the trip to Potsdamer Platz. At 7.15pm I was there and the two sweet guys at the entrance let me in. Surprisingly enough, I had the entire second row to myself. On a Saturday night, in a Berlinale film showing.

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update 2!

Just half a day is left till the closing the Berlin Film Festival ceremony starts and all the bears are awarded to respective winners.

It has been fun. I saw Stadt Land Fluss and Apflickorna the other day, tomorrow I shall be seeing Un Mundo Misterioso and hopefully I'll get tickets for something tonight as well. Tonight Berlinale Nighttalk will the winners over, so I'm looking forward to this show.

Last night the charming Juliane Köhler (Aimee & Jaguar, Der Untergang) stopped by for an interview and proved to be not only a solid actress, but also an insightful person. This year she's part of the Amnesty Jury. She and Nina Hoss, member of the Competition Jury, starred together in Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin, so I'll be watching that one of these days.

Looking forward to the final two days of the grandness that is Berlinale!

Further information on the Berlin Film Festival:

Berlin Special: Berlinale!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update 2!

Berlin Special: Berlinale, the winners!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Palast!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update!

I saw Miranda July's The Future at FriedrichstadtPalast yesterday and it was quite good. Facebook and Internet addicts will find something in common with the two protagonists. The Palast itself is actually a theater with great interior and disgustingly uncomfortable seats, I was reminded of that one drama theater in my hometown...

Later Miranda July (You and Me and Everyone We Know) was present at the night talk with Knut Elstermann and had a few things to say about this feature film where she also played the female protagonist. Turns out she's a performance artist and has a nice looking website, so I'm going to be seeing what else she does when she's not busy making films.

Nadja Uhl was the independent critic for an hour last night, too. I know her from Die Stille nach dem Schuss and turns out she won a Silver Bear for her performance and at the moment is not unpopular with the German film-going crowds, which means it was pretty full in the cafe on Potsdamer Platz, but only until she left. And the "fans" missed interviews with directors of The Forgiveness of Blood (the lovely-geeky globe-trotter Joshua Martson, known for Maria Full of Grace), A Separation, Our Grand Despair; Bombay Beach; Romeos.

It was amazing in the sense that it breaks the walls between Celebrity and the simple folk. Most of directors were sitting in the common area conversing with their friends and colleagues, the atmosphere was relaxed, also no fanatical behavior from anyone. Good times.

The one odd thing that happened was that... beer turned out to be expensive. Expensive for Berlin, anyway. I ordered a bottle for 3.5EUR having come from somewhere where I had it for 0.99EUR. But... I'll live with that.

Further information on the Berlin Film Festival:

Berlin Special: Berlinale!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update 2!

Berlin Special: Berlinale, the winners!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Palast!

Berlin Special: Berlinale!

It’s hardly a secret to anyone who knows me even a little bit that I am a film buff. I do love movies, screenplays, cinematography, good dialogue, the film-watching experience, the way I anticipate a release I think might be good, reading Roger Ebert’s reviews, the credits rolling. I can go on about movies forever and have a thing for actors and actresses (although that might change soon due to my red carpet experience described below - shock, horror!).

As my plan about coming to Berlin was set in stone, I immediately realized I’ll be around for Berlinale as well and the thought of that made me all warm and fuzzy inside. Now that it is ongoing, I realize it’s different than I expected, in both good and not so good ways. However, it still is a pleasure to witness all of it.

It all started with the Red Carpet. I’d only been once to a festival opening before and that was in Sochi, Russia. I traveled there specifically to see Catherine Deneuve. I saw her. And sat in a row right behind her. Trust me, it was worth the two sleepless nights, the fight with my mother and the 35C-heat dehydration. The red carpet itself was alright if you are interested in Russian celebrities (cross me out). Now, you would think Berlinale would by far surpass Faces of Love (that’s the corny name of the film festival in Sochi), however I can’t say I was delighted. Far from it, in fact.

Berlin Film Festival opened in the evening of February 10 this year. Earlier the same day I was reading an interview with the project manager who is in charge of the Red Carpet at Berlinale, apparently he has been doing this job for 20 years and he’s never had any faux pas or bad experiences in his position. Maybe it was his first time, I don’t know, but I was mightily disappointed with the organization: my biggest complaint was the long pauses between arriving celebrities (and “celebrities”), sometimes breaks reached almost 10 minutes. And if you think that the Red Carpet ceremony normally spans 60-90 minutes, it’s already too much. It was a bit boring, too. There’s nothing interesting in watching people in evening dresses strike poses for 15 minutes to a crowd of photographers, really. I wouldn’t have thought it, but now that I saw it and it just happens so that it made me want to yawn.

Why it is okay to change your travel plans

Here’s the story. For my Christmas/New Year trip this year I had a plan in my mind: I would go to Italy, then spend 5 full days in Switzerland and then go to Germany for a week. Now, I’ve never been to Switzerland and I’d obviously heard some very nice things about it, so the idea of going to this fascinating country was very tempting.

I applied for a visa, was given one and then let the topic rest a bit, as it was a bit too early to decide what and where I wanted to do (early October, 3 months in advance) – the important thing was plane tickets and I’d already purchased them at a good price.

I had several locations I wanted to visit in Switzerland: Geneva, Lausanne, Montreux/Vevey, Lucerne, Interlaken, Bern, Zurich, maybe Basel. Initially, I wanted to cram all of that into 5 days. Which was quite unreasonable as I later realized - I did not want to visit all those cities just to cross them out on my list and several hours/half a day is just not enough for me to fully enjoy the experience of visiting a new town.

So I talked to several friends who’d been there and started playing around with locations that I wanted to visit (keep in mind I don’t ski). Geneva and Lausanne? Lausanne and Lucerne? Geneva and Lucerne? Lausanne and Interlaken? Geneva and Zurich? I was looking at affordable hostels here and there, but in the end nothing felt right. Nothing at all. I spent at least two weeks stressing out about my itinerary and then for some reason I thought of Cologne and some other German cities and then, within a day, I booked all flights/trains for my prolonged stay in Germany. It took me only two hours to come up with a updated travel plan (Cologne, Munich and a day trip to Brussels) and I’m very satisfied with it. You know why? Because it feels right! And I want to be there asap. With Switzerland, I was lost and felt discontented and there was quite a risk of me not being happy about my trip in general. And that's so not what I want to remember about the great trip that I was supposed to have.

So what conclusions I can make for myself (and hopefully others) based on this example?

• it’s okay to change your travel plans
• if a destination doesn’t feel right at the moment, then switch over to something else because… why risk being unhappy with a trip?
• try booking hotels and hostels via booking sites that foresee cancellation free of charge (booking.com, hrs.com) in order to avoid losing money in case you change your mind or there’s an emergency
• at the same time, if you for instance booked a hostel via hostelworld.com (and they normally charge you 10%, it most definitely is non-refundable) and now hesitate about going to your selected destination, it’s best to lose the 10% (which is normally not much.. 3-5 euro, but of course that depends on your choice of accommodation) than end up hating your trip, right? It’s important to be wary about money, but at the same time there’s no need to be overtly fanatic about it

In other words, travel and be happy!