I’VE BEEN ASKED FOR AN AUTOGRAPH

You work hard, sometimes you don’t even remember why. It’s a continuous challenge with yourself and the others, and when you feel you’re almost at the end of the tunnel something sudden kicks you back in the game at the last moment and doesn’t allow you to take a breath.
Then there are these occasions, little satisfactions that only you and your stomach can understand.

Today I get out of home and a guy near a van glances at me. He gets close to me:
- Bartolo Ansaldi?
I nod and he takes out a pen and a piece of paper.
- Can you make me an autograph?
- You recognized me, mh?
He looks at me without answering, just with an embarrassed smile.
I give him back the pen and he gives me the package I was waiting for.

P.S.: Yes, yes, he was a courier. I was excited for the package…

FILMS THAT CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Juno is a teenage girl of 16 that gets pregnant and decides to keep the child.

It is a film about the difficulties and choices this little more than a kid has to face: it is a somewhat light and deep film at the same time, with an intense dialogue.

But when it first went to theatres in 2007 provoked a Juno Emergency in UK and the magazines reported that teenagers were so impressed by that character that there were classrooms with up to 6 pregnant girls.

This started to let me think on the power films have on us: how do they influence us, how do they condition us and how do they let us dream.

If it is true that a film with a positive message can positively influence our lives it must be true the opposite, too.

My next question is How much of my personality comes from the films I watched and have been important to me, and how would I be without having watched them?

I am not talking about my favorite films, but the ones that for some reason have changed something in myself after I watched them.

One of the films that most influenced my way to see life is Yes Man, with Jim Carrey: from the moment I watched it I tried my best to accept invitations that in other circumstances I would have dropped or make experiences that I avoided in the past, just for the curiosity to see where they'd take me to.

I can't really say it's always been a good idea, but this way I found more friends and had discovered things that otherwise I wouldn't have ever known, and I'm glad.

Another good example for me is Picture Perfect, with Jennifer Aniston. I hardly remember the title, but it gives one of the advices I mostly followed in my working life: Don't dress for the job you have, but for the job you wish.

I am interested to know: is there a film that for any reasons contributed to change your life too, and why?

WHEN IT'S DESTINY

I'm getting ready to go to a very important business meeting. I wear a suit with a tie, but no overcoat.
The sky is cloudy, but the weather is nice.
When I'm on my way it starts to rain. I arrive a little early and park close to the office. So I'm waiting in my car, the rain is getting nastier and nastier, and I have to decide whether to arrive at my appointment wet or with a violet tiny little umbrella I've just found in the car.

Reluctantly, I chose the girlish umbrella. I get out of the car, walk fast and when I'm in front of the entrance I wait for the right moment to cross the street.
Right then a car passes by and shoots on me a wall of brown water that hits me from the face to the shoes.

So I get to my business meeting all wet and with the ridiculous umbrella.

CRISTINA

I am in a supermarket and a young lady crosses my way. I have a flash: it's been 18 years since we don't see each other, but her blue eyes didn't change.
She's at the yogurt department and I look at her, not sure whether to come by or pretend I didn't see her. The thought of having made one of my usual mistakes that I will soon write in my blog is growing bigger and bigger in my head.

We used to go to the same tennis course, and even if I went there by bike, we used to walk together a piece of our way home.
She is a year older than me, she used to tell me I'm perceptive, and she's been my first crush (excluding Silvia from the nursery school, to whom I never had the courage to say a word).

As an adult, I've been still thinking about her, asking myself how her life could be now.
So I get close:
- Cristina?
She turns in a way I'm not sure it's because I called her using her name or it's just because I'm close.
She looks at me and no bells ring in her eyes.
- Hi... I'm Bartolo... we used to play tennis together... you had short haircut and the brace [and a blue jumpsuit with thin yellow lines on the hips...].

She looks at me with that cold courtesy a young lady uses when she thinks OMG, a maniac! He's been secretly following me for 18 years and now he has found the courage to come out, right now in this so crowdy place! What can I do now?
She smiles and says:
- Wow, from the tennis times, what a memory!
But I believe she's just climbing the mirrors.
- You don't remember me, is it? Bartolo, how many do you know with this name?!?
- The name is not completely new to me, but I can't associate it to a b... to a f... to nothing.

In my mind since the moment I first saw her to the one I went to the yogurt department I wanted to ask her how was she, what was she doing, how was her life, and if she was happy, I wanted to ask her what happened in her life in the past 18 years and wanted to tell her that it was nice to see her.
Instead, I smile at her and say:
- Well, so it's better to cut short the pleasantry of the repatriation, otherwise it risks to get embarrassing.
- You can say hello when you see me - she says gently. A sentence I could accept if she were Sofia Loren.

Isn't it incredible how a relationship between two people for someone means so much and for the other one nothing?

WHERE IS THE LOVE?

These days I met a girl friend I didn't see in many years, we talk and I ask her:

"So, how's being married?"

She thinks about it, then says:

"He's not the Fairytale Prince. But I've always been a practical person, you know that. He was fine for me and I was fine for him".

That makes me think. Of 10 couples that married in the last years and I know enough to have inside information, 8 got married for convenience or compromise, and just 20% for love alone.

Be careful, I'm not saying they weren't in love when they decided to marry: I'm saying that they did it first of all for a residence permit, better financial conditions for married couples, an unexpected pregnancy, fear of remaining alone or pressures from others, and secondly because they loved each other.

In a couple I know she proposed, and she said more or less "Look, it's been 8 years we're together: either we marry or break up".

Well, maybe I'm too strict, let's say the couples that married first of all because they were in love are more. Say 30 or 40%. But even if they were 50, it seems to me they're still too little.

Songs, novels and films make us dream. They teach us since we're kids to look for our perfect match, our twin soul, the other half of the apple and the butterflies in the stomach.
Beautiful verses touch us so deeply we continue to listen to them forever and write them on our diaries; love stories that last 2 hours on TV make us cry and feel we want to suffer in the same way, one day.

Then the most of us drop their hopes and the will to search, and chose a comfortable solution with no tears, nor passion. They divide a piece of paper in pros and against, and if the pros are at least one more it's a Yes.

They leave the others to burn, and are pleased to watch from a safe place.

Has anybody seen love?

LOS COMENSALES, by DIANE ACOSTA

I'd like to draw your attention to the new project my friend Producer Diane Acosta is working on: Los Comensales (English title: The Duke's Table), that will be shot in Spain.
I like her works very much and I am always impressed by the energy she puts in what she does.
Los Comensales is a metaphor for the corruption that comes with power, and is an original, low budget project.

Here is a synopsis:

At the headquarters of the Viceroyalty of La Nueva Granada, Santa Fe, today known as Bogota, the village rises against the Spanish Crown.
Meanwhile, in the dining room of a colonial mansion, a couple of brothers belonging to the Spanish nobility tries to maintain a dangerous secret that could destroy their lives.
One of the indigenous servants of the Duchess has apparently found a letter which reveals the valuable secret.
The brothers use all their power to make her confess the truth, and protect themselves. That night they will commit one of the most horrific tortures of the time.
Characters will be confronted with their own monsters in search of the absolute right to remain in power, who once more used violence to defend themselves.

You can back Diane and her people by following this link, and if you like to contact her just click here.

Good luck Diane, I'm looking forward to watch it!

HOW TO FINANCE AN INDEPENDENT FILM

Cannes - I just attended a seminar on how independent film Producers can involve professional Financiers to fund their projects.

Moral of the story: first of all you need a strong and complete script that persuades them, but at this point they bump you because you don't have a known Director.

Once you have the Director they refuse you because your budget can't be accurate if you don't have a deal with the Actors and the shooting dates.

When you have all of this they refuse you because they are interested in joining projects that need just the last 20% of the budget.

And when you find also the other 80% you need to talk to them they refuse you the financing because it is your first film.

But if I were them I'd refuse the financing also to an expert Producer, because if he's been able to overcome all this mess and still needs 20% of the budget he's telling a lot of lies.

...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Cannes - Maybe most of you know how hard is to picture an idea for a film project you have been working on for months to some big time producer who turns it down in a few seconds.

I am attending an event with English financiers that explain how they chose the projects to get involved into, what the projects need to have and how to present them.

In the second part of the seminar some big producers get on the stage to present the projects they are working on and are demolished in an embarrassing way.

Among them there is also the CEO of one of the biggest production companies in Italy, who is destroyed by them like an amateur and gets down the stage lowering his head.

I'm a bit ashamed to say it feels SO GOOD...

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

Nightmare on Elm Street is the most representative horror film for my generation, and one of my favorite horror series.

I bought the box set and I am now enjoying the 7 films.

In the 1st one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.
In the 2nd one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.
In the 3rd one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.
In the 4th one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.
In the 5th one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.
In the 6th one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.

I didn't watch the 7th yet, but I'm really curious!

QUITTERS CAN'T WIN

During the time of frustration young Actors face they should know a story about the Hollywood sign.

A urban legend says that at the beginnings of 1900 an enthusiastic young lady moved to her uncle's place in Los Angeles to get in the film industry and become a successful Actress.

But things didnt't go the way she figured: after about a hundred castings she didn't get a single call back, and getting more and more depressed, a night she climbed the H of the famous Hollywood sign and threw herself.

If she just waited a few hours more she would have recived a letter her uncle took instead, saying an important Studio had casted her for a role in a film.

Moral of this story: quitters can't win.

HOW TO REACH ACTORS

Unlike their agents, Actors are usually good people.

I guess this is because in their lives they suffered from failures and lack of opportunities, they felt frustrated, have been poor and close to give up, and the most of them know what means to receive an unexpected Yes that changes your life, or at least gives you the strenght and the optimism to continue.

This is why Actors in general are nice and willing to take part on your project if they like it, even if there is little or no money involved.

But how can you reach them?

On the internet it's plenty of sites with the agent's contact details, but they focus just on money: how can you skip the agents?

You know the theory of the 6 steps that separate us from anyone in the World.

What usually people do is thinking on someone they know, that could know someone, that could know someone that could know an Actor.

This is a quiet easy way to reach an Actor (not the best Actor for the role: just an Actor).

But I suggest to do the opposite.

A while ago I was interested in the most famous Italian Actor, and there was no way I could pay for his usual salary.

So I made a research on his life and found out his family came from a small town.

Then I took the phone and started calling all the people with his family name and the one of his mother.

After a while I reached his aunt.

Well, I'm not sure this is completely legal, but you know, The purpose justifies the action...

NO HOPE FOR WRITERS

A few days ago I had a meeting with a Hollywood Producer for a project that could take off together.

We were reasoning on an idea and how to develop the script.

- What about spreading the news we're looking for a subject, then let the writers contact us? - I say.

- It would just bring problems. People often ask me if I want to read their script. No! Of course not! - he says.

I look at him without understanding, and he continues:

- An accuse of plagiarism is very difficult to demonstrate, and when it happens it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, your name will be damaged. So if you want to live well in this business you always have to demonstrate you didn't take the idea from someone else.

As a former wannabe writer since I was 16, this activates a small bell on the back of my head.

- But say I wrote a good script, how can I bring that to you ? What's the best way to let you read it if I don't know you?
- You can't. American Producers and Publishers contact the agencies and ask them if they have something ready on a certain topic, or they work only with Writers they trust. The right thing to do is find a good agent. But to do that you need to write several successful works first, and the most of the best Agents don't take emerging Writers. This is why it's so difficult to become Writers in the USA.

And we're talking about the place known as The land of opportunities.

Now I guess my face shows my thoughts, because he tries to find some nice words:
- Everybody wants to be a Writer, and even if on the major studios sites there's always written they don't accept unsollicited scripts, you know how much money I spend to send back the scripts people send me, without even opening them?

He says he recieves 1.000 scripts a week (I recieve just 6). All of them are sure they strucked gold and think will win an Oscar for that.

The most of the Writers (or wannabe Writers) lock themselves in their room thinking that the most difficult thing will be writing a nice story.

But the most difficult thing is to let that story leave the room, actually.

Would they continue writing knowing their chances to succeed are almost none?

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