26/04/2009 by McAllister.

Wow just been at a wonderfully strange festival in oxford called Oxdox which is run by a wonderful woman called Marie Wright who is as passionate as crazy like me I feel. Maybe we share the same chaotic madness.

Her new venue for the festival was as much an adventure as the amazing films Oxdox shows. A tiny 100 seater indie place where the projectionist is hidden upstairs above the ticket office. The only way up is by some iron ladders on the exterior of the building.

Inside, the projectionist tells me he is also the owner. His wife is helping repair some of the interior seats. They run the place together making next to nothing. A worthy subject of a film itself I feel. I am speechless. This man is amazing.

Outside the queues forms. Clearly more then can be catered for inside. Marie does exactly what I would do in such a situation sending off her volunteers to find chairs in nearby bars and cafes. But here out on the street in front of her queuing audience she he is grappling for cash to pay my travel. Thrusting hundred or so pounds in my hands thinking out load about the Eskimo she has brought over who is the subject of the next film.  She must appear quite mad to many but to me she is quite sobering and sane…

But there is a problem. So successful a screening is the Eskimos film that there is no seat for him inside.

I leave Marie with her problem but I feel happy for her and for Oxdox; a truly unique festival in the hands of a unique person who I think should be celebrated in her own film like the projectionist and owner of this wonderful independent theatre where the festival takes place.

To top it all as I leave I get a call from Nizam a friend from Norway who tells me my Japan film has won the top international documentary prize in Norway. Damn I wish I was there. Of all the films I’ve made this is the one I need to win an award and I wish I was there to accept it.

Oxdox - http://www.oxdox.com/2009festival/

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14/04/2009 by McAllister.

Wasn’t it Philip Larkin the famous poet who lived round the corner from me here in Hull that wrote - ‘hull, hell and halifax’, when writing about the city he loved to hate but never hated enough to leave?  Little like me it feels although today i write, ‘Dubai or Hull.  What a choice, between Larkin’s hell and hell.

What’s the difference between Hull or Dubai? well i know Hull, i love the chips here and the beer. Dubai? I love the Indian food, warm weather (although that becomes hell in summer) and mid-eastern food. The downside is that Dubai is like a large shopping centre in the desert with a mix of hopeless people looking to make ends meet. Hull isn’t so dissimilar these days.

But whats the story… the great British recession… Dubai crashing?

I feel an allegiance to  my city but can’t face the idea of filming here right now, maybe if i found a character quickly… but i always say that and it rarely happens. Besides which, as Dubai crashes it feels symbolic of capitalism as we know it today, and it is that that attracts me to the story. And then there is  the glimmer of hope provided by a charity out there that is helping abandoned Indian construction workers whose employers have gone bust and left them. On $4 a day they find it difficult to buy  a ticket home.

Although filming isn’t going to be easy and it may end up with me being kicked out. “Shrewdly” i hope to follow an Indian construction worker or workers home to India  as a way of filming freely, although my ultimate aim for the best film there is with a local, one of the few 18% (80% of people living in Dubai are ‘immigrants’) - I would love to find someone who can provide a sane voice to what is going on  in Dubai. Quite simple really, now all i have to do is find such a person.

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08/04/2009 by McAllister.

PLAY DOC, TUI. a small documentary film fest in Spain, the “local produce” led me astray for a while… but this was the best fest of the year so far for me. sweet and friendly small enough to still care passionately about films their makers and the audience. it reminded me of what sundance film fest must have once been like. can’t wait to go back!! check the theatre, full at 10.30pm screening before a night of madness. my kind of festival.

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