Okay, enough about farm animals. More on the festival. The festival was very lovingly curated by Glenn Mitrasing, a Dutch/Nepalese doctor who just loves Himalayan culture and created this film festival
7 years ago, as well as a Himalayan Film Archive which he now stores in two large safe-deposit cubbies in a bank vault. (That's me with him, voiceless but proud, hanging out at the end of the loooong weekend). There was a very enthusiastic crowd and a great mix of films including a film I first loved at Mill Valley, Riding Solo To The Top Of The World. I also really enjoyed Journey of a Red Fridge, and that’s not just cuz we have the same international sales agent. And even though I screwed up and missed Henriette Lavaulx-Vrecourt's A Long Way To Freedom, if it was a spirited and lovely as she is, I'm sure it was great! (Sorry again!) Saturday night boasted a performance by a Dharmasala-based Tibetan rock group JJI Exile Brothers (to be posted on YouTube shortly - I'll keep you posted). And I frequented the momo stand so often, its proprieters exclaimed “Veggie Momo!” whenever I came near.And once again, to my delight and gratitude, we had a sold-out show of 300 filmgoers, followed by a lively half hour question-and-answer session that only ended in deference to the next screening. Being the European premiere, with my first non-English speaking audience, I had been concerned about the film’s ‘translation’, more specifically how well they would make it through the delicate balance between getting absorbed in the viewing, and furiously reading subtitles in a foreign language (as good as the Dutch are at English, even Americans have a tough go of it). But clearly it went off well, and there were laughs and gasps in their respectively proper places.
Interestingly, there was one audience member who took me aside afterwards to ask if I didn’t suspect that Lama Norlha Rinpoche was only ‘playing to the camera’ a bit in his wish to elevate the status of nuns and grant self-determination. Surely, a Tibetan Lama would never *really* do such a thing, so naturally he must have just been putting on a show for us. And I once again was reminded just how authentic and unprecedented and *radical* a Lama he really is.
And of course, there is another audience member that needs to be mentioned here. At the end of the Q&A, as I was reaching down for my bag, I heard a familiar voice say “I have a question for you…” It was my dear old friend Eric Vansevenant, who had driven up from Antwerp with his girlfriend Nancy for the screening (which he was late for, but who the *@&# cares?!) Eric and I spent two memorable months living in a communal backpacker community in Tel Aviv in the winter of 1987. We met on the ferry from Athens to Haifa. He oozed pseudo-macho bravado, and after four days of cabin fever, putting up with his antics and ego-infused card-playing, I wrote in my journal that I hoped I never saw the jerk again. Fast forward a week, and we were inseparable. Fast forward 20 years, and except for my gaggle of Swedes, he’s the only one from that one-year backpacking expedition with whom I’ve been steadily in touch. Seeing him Saturday, the years melted away – as they always do as soon as I hear his voice – and it was a joyful afternoon. Thanks for answering the signal, Batman (that’s another story). Again, another one of those moments where you just have to figure that the people in your life, that *stay* in your life, are there for a very good reason.
Speaking of which, I’m now sitting in a pub on Earl’s Court Road in London, meters away from my old flat when I was a student here in 1986. It’s my first time back since then, and this is a much more modern a city than it was so many years ago. But at the same time, it’s feeling so familiar already. This is where my own cow first took wing, and it’s good to come back to the pasture.
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