OCTOBER 21, 05 - TOO MANY QUESTIONS...

1209 days ago

I guess the book I'm reading: The Book of Restlessness (O livro do desassossego), a great existentialist erratic work of the Portuguese Fernando Pessoa doesn't help much. It preaches the only way to keep yourself intact is to withdraw as much as possible from the world and keep on dreaming. I guess I always had escapist tendencies (inherited from my father, maybe?) - ignoring real life and its responsibilities and finding comfort in books, films, thoughts, theatre - paralel illusory lifes. Pessoa's character theory is that everything is a dream anyway, and it's so silly to take anything for real and run after happiness.

Seeing many films at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema - the third movie internation festival in 2 month here! The symbol is a she-wolf - la louve, a black wild silhouette contrasting with a white dog in a leish. Makes me thing about Herman Hesse and his Steppenwolf - living at the border, not agreeing with social rules, and not being able to live outside of it. Had a chance, as a festival volunteer, to peek at the backstage of it.

A bit disorganised, or rather looks like organised in a hurry, with pretty basic means. With two other festivals before, sponsors had too much to choose from. People working at the welcome desk and press room looking very "artistic" - like not quite neat, opposing the images we get from other international film fests. Bon, I'm coming from a country where people spend far too much money on clothes and care about appearance, so I grew habits too

Anyway, saw one great movie: Something like happiness, from Czech Republic, I guess one of the best about the disorientation we're still going through in the East. The others, from Iran, Bulgaria, Lebanon impressed me, but didn't touch the bottom of my heart. But they've been speaking to me about all these different cultures and countries with so many problems, that still manage to maintain a good artistic level, which I find admirable. Haven't seen a Romanian film in quite a while, wondering if some good directors made it. I guess so, as one I cccasionally met a few years ago got the Gold Bear in Berlin for a short last year and Un certain regard in Cannes for his latest film.

I started looking for another job, as this way towards the industrial suburbs and back every day is torturing me. Plus the boring job per se, I'm getting claustrophobic and frustrated. I've been used to open spaces in the Caribbean Anyway, it looks like I am more marketable, now that I have the famous Canadian experience, but only in certain fields. And competition is fierce, I applied for a job with TV5 - the French international community TV channel, and found out they got 500 resumes...forget it.

Losing patience, wasting too much time with chat and e-mails, feeling my energy level goes down...that's no good. I have no solution but keep on trying. Here the best way to find a job is the people you know. And the ones I know are not that well connected...

At least I like the appartment and I can relax home. To be continued...