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So here we finally are. Another year has passed and let’s face it, it’s been a rough one. When I arrived, I could not assess if, according to my understanding, this year had been very long or extremely short. It indeed felt like not so long ago, we were here watching movies in this exact same spot. It as well felt like it was in another life. So many beloved ones have left. So many friends vanished. Sadly, a friend in need is not necessarily a friend indeed. It almost feels like a miracle that me and my festival buddies are still standing. A bit damaged, not as straight as a year ago, but standing.

But here we are with our little 79 festival bags ready to be used. Though these ones will only start their career next year – as you need to show that you are part of the regular crowd, you dig out your 78 bag (see pic ^) and promenade proudly around the Lido with it. 

COVID has left the Mostra. No more wall in front of the red carpet, the crowds are back, allowed to gather and fight for a picture or an autograph. Weirdly masks are still compulsory in public transports but not in the massive Palabiennale movie hall (it hardly makes sense but it is a relief to all of us).

The opening ceremony is quite the standard one although this year’s Mostra actively claims its support to the Ukrainian people. We are thus addressed by Vladimir Zelensky, reminding us that what is happening in Ukraine will not end in 2 hours as the screening we are going to see (a bit of an easy one, according to me, but criticism does not have its place in this context). We are as well confronted on the screen with a black on white list of the names of all the children who have lost their lives since the beginning of the conflict. I’ve hardly seen the Palabiennale as silent as this. The list seems to be never-ending.

It takes a few minutes to accept the shift to the usual screening routine after this. This year’s opening movie holds all the promises in two names: Noah Baumbach and Adam Driver. As a reminder, a few years ago Noah Baumbach directed « Marriage Story » staring Adam Driver together with Scarlett Johansson as the main cast. 

By now, after 20 years of Mostra, I should have learned my lesson and known that two names should never be considered as a guarantee. But my opening-day-excited-self was rather sure that this combination could only lead to success. 

The published synopsis DID seem strange, if not worrying, to me (apparently the movie is based on a book that I did and – now I know – will not read).

Let me share it with you as this was basically the only thing I knew about what we were about to see: « At once hilarious and horrifying, lyrical and absurd, ordinary and apocalyptic, White Noise dramatises a contemporary American family’s attempts to deal with the mundane conflicts of everyday life while grappling with the universal mysteries of love, death and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world ».

Right, right, right. Let me now rephrase it for you AFTER having seen the movie: « At once not so hilarious and very much horrifying (in many ways), absolutely not lyrical and slightly too absurd, I still don’t know where the ordinary fits in here but apocalyptic it is a bit though eventually not so much but then I am not sure because I did not fully understand, White Noise is about nothing much ». As always #verypersonnalopinionalert.

It definitely gave me a headache that not even the, as usual excellent, Adam Driver could prevent from happening. Too much noise, too many visuals, too many directions. Basically too much of everything and eventually not enough of anything. 

The only thought that constantly came to my mind during the 2 hours of screening was: Good lord, how much could that whole production have cost? I got my answer digging into the daily venetian rumours: it seems that the initial foreseen budget was 80 million EUR. It apparently ended up closer to something between 100 and 150 million EUR.

And that’s when you somehow can’t help thinking that Netflix productions can lead to the best and the worst – some people obviously deal better than others with being granted all the means they could wish for to express their creativity. This was a waste of money according to me. 

But as always with cinema, I am sure it will find its public who will have the exact opposite opinion to mine – people who saw something that I did not see. That’s the beauty of cinema and art in general, after all.     

On my way to Venice as of tomorrow! I’ll be posting here my reviews from this year’s Mostra – starting next Wednesday, 31/08/2022!

It has been a while. And this time it will not be about cinema.

Words are usually spinning in my head with a pressing urge to go down on paper. In the past three months I have however been struck only by silence. I call it the “contemplating the disaster” phase. This one has required quite some contemplation.

Only now that I am stuck at home with COVID do I hear a little voice inside of me telling me “this needs to get out”. So people, get ready for astronomic levels of grief and anger… but as well for an outburst of unlimited love.

I still cannot believe that I am writing this but it seems that during the past three months, I have lost my two besties. My cat and my Godma. My wild, independent, loving and freethinking ladies have left the building… and have left me totally speechless.

Ironically, the cat started letting me down when I was on my last visit to see Godma in Frankfurt. Whilst I was contemplating the disaster of Godma’s senile dementia, I was getting phone calls from the vet telling me how things were not taking a good turn with my kitty.

Ironically as well, we got (and shared) very good news about my papa’s at least “stabilized” health on the day I had to put my cat to sleep. Hence, whilst I was drinking schnapps with colleagues at work in order to get ready to say adieu to my feline bestie, I was getting dozens of e-mails saying “great news!”, “so glad to hear!”, and “so happy for you!” (Accompanied by many cheerful smilies)…

So yeah. My kitty left for good on 24 March 2022. Pancreatic cancer (which is another of my life’s ironies that I will not dwell upon in here).

I do not expect people who are not animal lovers to understand. However, the emptiness that she left had the impact of a huge swallowing black hole on me. Even more so, that it came unexpected. She was there, stealing as usual food from my table on the evening before I left to Frankfurt. Five days later, she did not exist anymore.

For those who are cat lovers, I will just tell you how this one was a very special one to me.

She was an extremely talkative cat (she shouted at me on a regular basis, especially when she disagreed with my injunctions). She was the most sociable cat I ever had. She came to say hi to all invitees that came to visit (with a noticeable preference for men). She was a bighter and a scratcher. The bights were however mostly (slightly too expressive) loving ones. Same for the scratches actually. Let’s say that she was “passionate”. She made my flat a very tidy one. She indeed had a tendency to smash to the floor anything that would resemble a cup, a bottle or a glass. She was famous at work for her Zoom appearances as a special guest. She loved to use me as a ladder to reach out to the summits. The sky was the limit to her. She would first jump. Then think. She had for sure more than nine lives. She lost at least fifteen of them right in front of my eyes. Eventually, she was just the most beautiful loving and cuddling presence in my house. She made my flat a home.

I was just getting the top of my head out of my kitty-triggered black hole, when Godma decided it was time to go for her as well. This, on the contrary, came well expected and almost as a relief. The follow-up however, was a big punch into the middle of my face.

There is so much to say about Godma. It is definitely not an exaggeration to start with the fact that she was the most extraordinary person in my life. She was there for me literally from day one and she greatly contributed to who I am today.

It is impossible to summarize Godma in one page but I will at least try to give you a hint of what this lady meant to me.

Godma was a stubborn perfectionist. Everything she made had to be perfect. The cakes, the knitting, the Christmas cookies. She ironed and piled up the towels in her shelves in the most symmetrical way I have ever seen. Which as well means that whatever was not perfect, went directly to the bin (including deliciously looking cakes that did not look delicious enough to her). Which also means that, though she learned French for almost forty years, she never pronounced more than five words of French in front of anyone (these words being “oui”, “non”, “bonjour”, “au revoir” and “merci”). Indeed, by the time the perfect sentence that she was preparing in her head was ready to be pronounced, the conversation had already moved to a totally different subject. She was very shy but not with me. She was the funniest person I knew. I had to kick her out of my hospital room when I was 9 years old. I had just gotten my appendicitis removed. She made me laugh so much that the stitches were too painful to bear. 30 years later, she still made me laugh in the same way. She made me feel like the queen of the universe. Starting with the gingerbread house that she would bake every Christmas for me. Which resulted in me being the most popular kid at school at least one day per year. Let’s face it, she was as well very sensitive and stubborn. Which lead to some relationship crises. Including that day when she decided to run back to Germany (on her feet) from a tiny Flemish village close to Leuven. The reason being that “I did not love her”. My parents and I had to chase her by car. Because by the time (approximately 5mins) that I needed to alert my parents about the crisis, she had almost reached the next village.

She was there when I was ill. She was there when I was sad. She was there when my parents divorced. She was there when Nicole died. She was there when my grandparents died. She was there when I defended my PhD. She was there at every single exam session of mine.

The one thing she never quite understood were my cats. She was actually quite jealous of them.  

I believe that to her I was perfect. She was perfect to me. I believe I was the love of her life. She was definitely the love of mine.  

I was fully ready for her to go. She was about to turn 98 years old and she was miserable in her care home – not understanding where she was and why she was there. Until the end, she was a free spirit. Though she could not walk anymore, the nurses told us how she would discretely roll on her wheelchair towards the lift and await for the possibility to escape. The last present she made me was to recognize me when I came to visit her back in March.

What I was not ready for, was for the German authorities to spoil her departure for everyone.

I did not mention earlier that, although Godma held my mom as a baby, took care of her for years, and did the same for me, Godma was not officially a family member. I obviously considered her as my closest family. Papers did not.

As, since a few months her senile dementia had taken over, she had an administrator in charge of taking all the decisions for her. We were in touch with this “lady” on a regular basis to get as much updates as possible.

Godma passed away on Sunday on 05 June 2022 at 12:20. This is apparently as much information as we will ever get. We do not know if she was alone, if she was awake or sleeping. I received the information about Godma’s passing away on Wednesday 08 June 2022 at 18:00. Because no one thought it necessary to inform us before that. A day off in Germany on the Monday prevented the “lady” from knowing/informing us. Speechless level 1 reached.

We tried to reach out to the care home in Offenbach through our local contacts, in order to get basic information about the funeral. Answer: no family, no info to be shared. Speechless level 2 reached.

We then called the “lady” to make her understand how important it was to us to know and to be there, if possible. The “lady” answered that it was not “in her hands” anymore, that it was “the responsibility of the city of Offenbach”. Speechless level 3 reached.

Following our expression of dissatisfaction (mom sounded almost scary when angry in German), the “lady” agreed to try to get some information on the topic for us.

On the following Monday, we got informed that Godma had been anonymously cremated (not to mention the fact that we had mentioned to the “lady” several times that Godma did not wish to be cremated). Black anger level 1 reached.

In an ultimate effort to obtain some information on what happened to Godma and her remains, mom got hold of the funeral home’s number. A nice chap in there told her that she was at the wrong place as, as it says in “crema”tion, the “crema”torium would be the right place to contact. Sensing that my mom was by then at the edge of a nervous breakdown (I was already deep into it), he agreed to call his colleagues at the crematorium and find out if we could get hold of the ashes for us at least.

I reached black anger level 1000 when I received the copy of the following e-mail (attached to it, a price offer):

Allow me to summarize: the chap claims that he managed to stop the cremation right on time (a lucky chap he is). He follows up with a price offer for an anonymous grave with only grass on it, no gravestone and no flowers (I suppose that based on his best guess, this is what he thought we would go for).

That is exactly the moment we (mom and I) decided to let Godma go without putting on another fight. She would not have wanted us to throw out thousands into the pockets of such miserable persons. As a good catholic, she would have surely told me to pity them.

I do not believe in god. However, pity is exactly what I feel for the “lady” and all the “chaps” who “took care” of Godma after her death.

To all of them I would like to say that should they have had the chance to meet the real person Godma was when she was still with us, they would have become better persons. For that, I feel sorry for them.

To the chap who sent us the anonymous grave price offer I would like to say that he should have gone for the highest price offer in his catalogue. The gold, the diamonds, the marble statues, I would have paid for all of them had it been my Godma’s wish and had he treated us with at least a bit of humanity and decency.  

What Godma would have wanted would have been a discrete (but well organized and well maintained) little flower patch, maybe under a tree (but not one that would make her little flower patch too untidy) so that birds would come close to her. She loved birds, though she was a terrible whistler. Perhaps a wooden cross with her name written on it as discretely as possible would have been OK with her as well.

She will get none of this. However, people at least deserve to know that there was once an extraordinary person named Karla Kasparkova, born on 09 June 1924 in Czechoslovakia, who was a very dedicated and well appreciated nurse in the Offenbach am Main hospital and who was like a mom to my mom and like a grandma to me. She was my best friend.

She did not really like cats. And the end of the story says that most probably she is now stuck somewhere with a hysterical red-haired kitty climbing on her back. I can almost see them both arguing and looking after me together at the same time.