closer productions filmlab

Dear filmlabbers

We are in Stuttgart and I am in the bar of our hotel drinking ok coffee with shite uht milk.  Last night I got online in a rare spare moment looking for a filmlab fix…what are you all doing? is there a new choir? a dance troupe? a cooking comp? …but no, no one is blogging, not even the ever diligent Andrada.  What’s the go folks? is this a closed workshop? are you all so busy writing those “little films” you’ve been thinking about? Has Cleary got you writing a 200 year history of the characters families? Has Rebecca managed to get you all drunk?
What’s with this rumour about Vesley and Sarah? How did The Kiss screening go? Is Stephen over his jet-lag? Is Eddie still hanging out with that giant violin wielding bear? and who the hell is helping Cormack drive to the SAFC? Batto? He can’t drive.
How about us? we are full to the brim here with travel, filming, hanging with audrey, showing her new things, listening to her funny questions and her frustrations with her parents, interviewing people, riding the underground, trying to communicate (badly) in German or confusing people with our garbled Aussie slang, watching dance, walking, eating too much cheese, Audrey has ridden around berlin on the front of her babysitter Anika’s bike and become increasingly obsessed with Star Wars (there’s now a belt and storm trouper key ring dangling from her pants to add to the darth vader t-shirt).  She is Luke Skywalker, her panda bear is wicket.  Princess leia is always with us (but Audrey has to do everything for her because she is just a baby).  Bryan is begrudgingly Darth vadar (or anikan when audrey’s feeling nice, though I think bryan likes this less) and I am queen Amadala.
The dancers we are following have been signing autographs in the foyer.  The Tanja Liedkte Stiffung (gift fund) is a strong presence and we got to see the showing of Antony Hamilton’s work which he created in Berlin from the first Tanja Liedkte fellowship.  Bryan has built up a buff bod from all the hand held filming and also built up “squiggy skin” as Audrey puts it – the source of all love in her mind.  Sol and I have sat in the theatre bar drinking schnapps and making the bar staff laugh talking about love (and maybe sex and maybe getting older).  Sol and bryan have filmed on the train, on the streets, in the theatres, in the lifts, in hotel rooms and down corridors – sol is used to the ever present camera. Tanja’s mum took us to the place Tan was born at the top of the hills that surround Stuttgart  – a hospital that has it’s own wine grown on the hill beside it.  i crouched/lounged on the back seat (if you can call it that) of a sports car and then later asked a mother about the moment she heard of her daughters sudden death.  Devastating.
We are spending a lot of time talking about grief and death but mostly life and finding real relief and joy in making the end of this film about Tanja Liedtke.  The people we have met here have been open and generous.
We are reminded of Tanja all the time and yet things have shifted .  There is laughter and gratitude in the change rooms.  Funny moments and a movement in the performance – the dancers are older, in a good way – and more playful again.  There is an acknowledgement about the gift.  I am in awe of all this and feel incredibly lucky.
And Matt is there with you, writing/thinking/talking/agonising (!?) .  this morning on a skype chat he convinced me about something I had dismissed too quickly, so I know he is finding confidence and clarity in the process.  If our film is about a daughter who doesn’t want to loose her mother it is something close to my heart and that I see reflected every day, especially here. One thing about change and loss and love, is that it makes your heart ache because it is crucial and we can’t stop it.
I hope you are all being brave and funny, bold and challenging too.  I hear you are writing a film together.  I can’t wait to hear/see/read it.
Give each other a little cuddle from me.
Love sophxx