Saturday evening, and enthusiasm is not exactly running high. Partly it’s the general sleep deprivation of hostel living (no matter how long you sleep, it’s never quite enough…), and partly it’s the general stresses and strains of trying to fit watching as many films as possible into as short a space, along with doing all the work I’m doing on the interviews. The first one has been transcribed and roughly thrown together, which’ll make tomorrow much easier- but I’ve got another to do tomorrow, and ideally they’re all due in on Monday.

Between all this, I haven’t had many opportunities to truly enjoy the bit I like of film festivals- sitting in a screening room watching lots of movies. I’m averaging two a day at a moment (but will hopefully increase once I get past Monday), and yesterday was TIRIMASU, a heartwarming and very charming Dutch drama about an ageing actress, and BANANAZ, a behind-the-scenes documentary on cartoon band Gorillaz which was thinly made, far too shambolic and at least half an hour too long. Tonight I’ve got two hours of a documentary about the Abu Girab photography scandal (it’ll be depressing, but at least I’ll be paid for it), and hopefully the evening will get a lot more fun with creepy-looking Spanish time travel murder mystery TIMECRIMES.

I also went to a party last night- but film related parties are very rarely the kind of environments where I can have fun. The free booze was nice and the place was fairly roomy, but I didn’t truly enjoy myself, and it generally ended up with me feeling that I need to throw a lot more energy into my writing. I’m never going to feel like I completely belong here, so it’d be far more sensible to head in a direction where I have a chance…

The one advantage is that with my decision to not do the whole festival, I’m not too far from my departure date. Next Thursday is my exit, and if I can keep myself busy, I really don’t think it’ll take too long to come around.

Tick tock tick tock…