Locarno film festival: "THIRST"

As soon as it was announced that Thirst was to be screened at the Locarno Festival, we immediately decided that we had to go and see it, we just couldn’t miss such a chance... to finally see Gale on the big screen! Unfortunately we had never been able to watch one of his movies in a cinema before...

We hunted down informations about the tickets’ sale, the dates and the place. We even asked Rachel McDonald, wonderful director of this tiny little masterpiece, for her help!

The organizers of the festival were immediately very kind, too. From our first e-mail on... they helped us and gave us all the info we needed...

We want to thank them all and to compliment them for their hard work!

Locarno (Switzerland), August 7th 2014.

On august 7th, Serena arrived to my house at 6.30 in the morning.. we started our GPS and off we went towards the festival! After stopping only once to have breakfast, we finally reached Locarno, a little town near Switzerland’s border. It was by then 10.30 a.m, and we were already hunting for parking. Everything had gone smoothly until we tried to park our car inside the "falconry," the place were turists are taken to be shown the hawks. We had no idea that to re-open the bar and get out of there we would need a particular chip that, obviously, we didn’t have... oh well.. it was impossible for every single thing to go perfectly well, right?

After losing twenty minutes trying to locate someone who could help us out of that situation, we were directed towards the free parking connected to the festival and everything was solved.

Screening for Thirst was scheduled for 2.00 p.m. in a cinema called: "La Sala (The hall)," but tickets for it only started selling one hour before the screening, meaning 1.00 p.m.

So we decided to find a place to eat something and relax from our trip.

At precisely 11.26 a.m. a friend of Serena (name’s Enny), texted us saying that she’d heard that Gale was in Locarno, too.

I confess that for a while I didn’t believe it... I was sure it had to be a joke.. mostly because nowhere Gale’s presence had been announced. Rachel only spoke about coming with Melanie Griffith!

Usually I’m not that lucky, it just never happens to me.. and I still can’t believe it did happen this time, to be honest.. I still can’t wrap my head around it. This day, in my opinion, was better than a thousand conventions.

At that point we obviously became a lot more anxious.. and we weren’t able to finish our lunch.. which consisted in a ham sandwich for Serena and a salami sandwich for me!

I was so out of it that I even started telling our waitress about it.. and she was so sweet to lend me a pen that I brought back to her at the end of the day.

After putting our half-eaten sandwiches in a bag, we walked towards the ticket office and sat in front of it waiting for it to open! All this.. more or less 40 minutes before the selling started..... but we were too anxious to walk around.

We started queueing ten minutes before 1.00 p.m... we didn’t even allow the poor cashier to sit properly!

Finally we had our tickets and we went inside the tent that was in front of the huge hall of the cinema! We were asked to wait in front until 1,30 p.m. so we went back to sit outside and waited again... the beginning of the screenings called " Pardi di domani - Concorso internazionale" was still one hour away!

Our tickets were checked at 1.30 p.m. and we finally were allowed to go inside the movie theatre: we were the first inside and it felt so good!

We tried to decide where to sit choosing seats that, in our opinion, would make us sit the closest to Gale and Rachel.

As it turns out...we couldn’t have picked better!

A few minutes before the screening started, Rachel arrived with her amazing boyfriend, and she was closely followed by Melanie and Gale. We still couldn’t believe our eyes, it’s wasn’t a joke then! It was real..

We looked over at Gale and Rachel.. the two people we most wanted to see; Melanie Griffith had a couple of bodyguards, but they were all very relaxed. Gale was smiling and seemed very at ease, Rachel was glowing and she’s so beautiful... gorgeous!

They sat down and weren’t very far from us.

The lights went down and: Thirst began.

The film is very moving.. wonderful... It’s only 24 minutes long.. but it conveys such strong feelings in such short a time.. it seemed to me similar to what I like to call "office of the lost things.." just like it’s said in an old song by Gino Paoli that I love; people who lost a part of themselves but are trying to get it back, get themselves back.. and they try to find someone who can take pity on them and their broken souls. "Life is short", the main character says.. so don’t waste it.. every single moment of your existence matters.. enjoy it to the fullest.. and learn to ask for help... because it’s something very few people know how to do.

This is what the movie left me.. maybe I’m wrong.. maybe I would benefit from many more viewings .... and then some..:) This movie leaves you with so many different feelings.. and it’s not easy to describe them all!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Rachel... seriously, THANK YOU!

After Thirst, they screened a few more short films.. but frankly I didn’t really understand them all.. The only one I was interested in was the one about the incident that happened in Lampedusa (Italy) last year.. So many people died trying to reach Italian borders and save themselves from war. But we’re not here to talk about the other short films!

When Thirst ended, Melanie Griffith left the theatre with her bodyguards, while Rachel e co. stayed until the end and watched every single short film that was screened with rapt interest. When everything ended, Melanie Griffith came back in and went up on the stage with her collegues to talk a little bit about their own short film. Then everyone else sat back down while Griffith went away again.

The theatre was almost empty when Serena and I decided to be brave and went to speak to Rachel and the others! I was very nervous.. and not just because talking with people I admire is nerve-wracking for me.. but also because I’m always afraid to be a bother to them... I lost many chances in my life because of this, actually I lost count by now.

Anyway.. after a bit of hesitation, we went to talk to Rachel.. we said hello to her, and we told her who we were and that we ran the Italian website dedicated to Gale. I even gave her a letter that I’d brought hoping to be able to give it to her... She was so happy that we thought about her and she was surprised to learn that we drove to Locarno just to see her short movie... and without even knowing that Gale was there at the festival. We told her we did it because it was the first time that we had been able to enjoy Gale on a big screen and in Europe! I told her that I bought ever single dvd of his movies and Serena said that when something is not available for purchase we download it illegaly! (You can’t say that, Sere!!) Rachel asked us how long a drive we had to make to reach the festival and we said it was a three and a half hour drive (actually, it was four hours in the end!) She also asked us if we’d donated for Thirst and we said we had... Rachel was so very impressed about what we did.. the trip we made to see the short film and the fact that we donated money for it.. she even said she was honored to meet us! She wanted us to tell her our names again and at that point she recognized us from twitter because we had tweeted her telling her we’d be there to support Thirst and after that we’d also tweeted her a picture of our tickets! She laughed a lot and so did we!

Serena then called out to Gale, and Rachel did too, taking him away from a conversation he was having with somebody else! "We’re from gale-harold.it" Serena told him, "we met in Bilbao".. and then Gale saw me, recognized me and smiled at me and said hello, all of this while Rachel was telling him that we were there just to see the short film and that we drove for three and a half hour to be there; Serena also told him that we had no idea he would be there. Gale laughed and told us we’d been lucky, and then he asked if we could tell him again the name of our city. We said, "Modena".. he thought about it and said: "Modena.. balsamic vinegar.. I love it!" and started talking about our trademark vinegar! Serena told him that to be there (she’s a doctor) she’d taken a double shift and had worked the night, too, and so Gale thanked her a lot! Everything was thrown out there in good spirit, obviously. We were all laughing like crazy! Rachel told us that even she had no idea Gale was going to be there and that she’d learned of his decision to attend only three days before!

We asked if we could take some pictures with them and they agreed. Rachel even asked us if we could send them to her so she could put them in her Gallery.

My camera was acting up, though.. I don’t know why but pictures came out horrible.. so Rachel’s boyfriend had a look at it.. but immediately said: "ooops.. everything’s in Italian..." Gale also came by to take a peek.. I have no idea what he did in the end (I don’t even think he himself knew!) but suddenly everything worked!

Gale also agreed to take pictures with us. He asked us if we’d donated for the movie and we said we had.. and that we’d also donated for "The lock!" He was incredibly happy about it.. he smiled a lot and was very focused on everything we were telling him. I asked him if he liked my website and he said he does! He also said that when he can he visits it and that he likes the photo galleries.. he said that everything’s so well organized. I told him I’ve had the website since 2006 and he smiled and said that we do a very good job! I can’t tell you how happy I was.. if only he knew how much work we all put in just to post the news!!

Serena told him that it’s her job to translate everything and that she now speaks “Gale-se” (she actually said “Gaelish”) Gale laughed and said that it’s "Gale-ic"!

We took so many pictures!!

Gale asked us if we wanted to stick around for the panel scheduled for 5.00 p.m.... and what could we say? How could one ever tell him no?? He also asked if we planned to stay in Locarno for a while... but Serena told him that she had work the following day and me, well, I am on vacation but I needed to get back home.

We said our goodbyes and we went to find the place where the panel was scheduled to happen later on. We sat down waiting for 5.00 p.m. to arrive, and we met a Scottish man and started chatting with him.

After a while, Rachel, Gale and Melanie arrived and, after posing for pictures, sat down at the table facing journalists and fans.

I won’t say anything about the panel because luckily (LOL!) there’s a video.. and you can also spot us in it!

I just want to write down what Rachel said about THIRST: " without spoiling the story too much, I can say that thirst is about compassion and human connections... without doubt it is about pity in every form... self pity and pity for other people, even if we don’t know them. Compassion and pity, as some form of dependence, are the two fundamental elements of the movie.”

One other thing I’d like to report:

Question: I wanted to ask, how did you reach the budget for the film?

Rachel: we used kickstarter for fundraising! We released a teaser trailer of the film with the actors on kickstarter, I learned a lot about social networks in so little time...and I think I’ll learn how to use  twitter more ...it’s been thanks to the social media and to kickstarter that we were able to raise funds in two different occasions.”

Question: how much money did you raise?

Rachel: I don’t like talking about this, but I need to say that we were overwhelmed by the generosity of the people who donated money and trusted us and our work...SPEAKING OF THIS, THERE ARE TWO WOMEN IN THE AUDIENCE AND THEY DROVE THREE AND A HALF HOURS FROM ITALY AND THEY HELPED US WITH KICKSTARTER, I CAME TO ME AFTER THE SCREENING AND THEY WERE SO SWEET....THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING!”

Rachel and Gale applauded us and the rest of the audience joined in, too.. it was such a wonderful moment for me.. and I... won’t ever forget it!

At the end of the panel a lady came to us and asked what we’d done to deserve such a praise.. so we told her everything and she complimented us. Then we went to say goodbye to Gale.. I gave him a crumpled piece of paper and told him that, even if I already had his autograph, I’d have liked to have another! And he signed for me.

As I already said at the begining.. this day was worth a thousand conventions. It was a day I will NEVER forget..

Thank you from my heart to Rachel.. so sweet and talented.. thank you to her amazingly kind boyfriend..and thank you to Gale!

One thing surprised me and I didn’t understand it: how come there weren’t more Italian fans there to support and watch one of Gale’s projects?

 

Article translated by our staff. All rights are reserved. Any reproduction, even though partial, is forbidden without the admin's authorization and all the credits due to gale-harold.it


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