Comrades, Fear not the Brexit. Fear not the revenge of the European political elite – we can live through the punishment. The peasant and artistic people of Europe still understand and respect our shared humanity allied to our greatest talent for being foreign. This week-end a great honour and privilege was bestowed upon me. In my capacity as the official UK Poet Lorry-Park, I attended the Saint Savinien International “Metier du Cinema” Film Festival. To be honest I could not believe that I was in the presence of such people. Luckily I was accompanied by my partner – the best selling romantic novelist Emma Calin. Many people recognized her and were sufficiently distracted by her beauty, literary presence and sensual allure to allow me to drift into a quiet intellectual anonymity at the back of the cinema. She has also achieved local fame by producing the town’s Facebook page cover photo.
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Now, you have to know that Saint Savinien sur Charente is a long way from nearly everywhere. The concept of the festival was that industry professionals attended the showings and discussed their work with regard to a particular film or director. Over the three days we were able to learn about costumes, logistics, production, screen play writing and music composition. These folk were happy to chat with ignorami like me who love film but have only ever made a few YouTube vids and performed a few audio books. If you click the picture below you can see a videoetry I did with Emma a few years ago. The location is Saint Savinien Sur Charente.
So a big thanks to the organizers and to all the guest speakers. French cinema is very much alive in rural France and equally importantly, in the hearts of the French people.
If I had a favorite film it was “La Tortue Rouge”. I had the great privilege to listen to Laurent Perez Del Mar, the guy who did the music. I mean this is a talented man. We dub all sorts of people with the word genius but people like this are very special. In fact all the creative folk I met were in a different league to regular Joe like me. The film itself was a joint production between Wild Bunch and Studio Ghibli. I recommend this movie if you haven’t seen it. It is a parable of man’s relationship with La Nature but steers clear (mostly) of sentimentality. 
In an effort to appear artistic, cultured and elegantly poetic I dressed in all black with dark glasses which really are a pain at night. No one asked for my autograph but a woman did come and tug my hair. “M’sieur, you ‘ave too many airs on your ‘ead for an old man” she said. I kind of felt validated.
Oscar Sparrow 