Galicia

New Year, 2024

Posted on by jonjost

January 1, 2024, Oresini, outside Skopje, N. Macedonia

A handful of days ago, in Tirana, Albania, I pressed a key and rendered what may be the final version of Casa do Silencio. The doubt has to do with one sequence, in which Pepe tells some of his stories – I may go to remix the sound if the two stories he tells are not clear enough for Galego speakers to parse. Otherwise it is done. Next step for me is to, when time allows, get some parts translated to English and put in subtitles. Meantime if any of you wish to see without those, let me know and I can send a link. 

In my last note I’d shown the film in A Coruña, and could not really gather from the small audience a sense of how the film worked for its intended audience, people in Galicia. A few nights later it was screened in Santiago de Compostela at the Numax cinema. Here is what I wrote then on Facebook about it:

Nearing midnight. Went for 7:40 screening, set up guitar and mike to sing, which I did as audience entered. Sold out in 70 seat little cinema. My Piloño family showed up, hugs all around. Played a few songs and got introduced, did so myself. Usual casual – I am not a precious fkn artist, just some guy who happens to make films. I advised they not look for a story, or for meaning, and just relax and maybe take it in as a kind of cinematic music – with movements of different kinds, paces, slow/fast, etc. Film started and I sat with Paula, to take some notes about possible changes. There were some minor, one for me major but still I doubt anyone saw it.

Film over, gentle applause. Some people left but most stayed. Up to talk. Usual pulling teeth to get someone to talk. Yack a little, and cajole for some words. Woman raises hand finally and a bit flustered and emotional begins to try to describe what she got. Basically she really liked it, and as a Galician she said it spoke to her intimately, and she was surprised/amazed that an outsider, like me, could come and somehow grasp some essential galego things, and express them as if I were from Galicia. My eyes wet and I had a hard time speaking without crying. Went on a bit like that, and a chorus of others nodded and chipped in that it had been the same for them. Xabier Vázquez raised hand and spoke a bit, about how I’d visited and was curious and spent time, shooting in their family’s place, and that I was now family. More wet eyes.

For me the most valuable words I can hear about one of my films is not if it was wonderful camera, or this or that cinematic, but that I somehow caught something essential about the place I worked in, about its people, culture, landscape. A handful of people and more confirmed that as others nodded consent, young and old.

No one left during the film, and no one left during Q&A.

I could not have imagined a better response, and after the meh of A Coruña I guess was a bit surprised and taken aback. My eyes are still wet. Or is it the beers we had on going out with a handful of people after?

A day later I left to go to Madrid to fly to Tirana, Albania, where I would be for two months, for screenings, perhaps to make a film, or simply catch up with the long list of self-appointed matters: paint, organize another book of poems &/or write some more. Presently for four days in Skopje, come to grab a suitcase of things left here before, including 4K Panasonic camera and watercolor paints, left with Ivica on last stay. Ivica and I are in midst of doing a long – 28 hours so far! – interview with a book he has in mind to do on yours truly. We are up to film # 15, of now 46 long ones! In another day a night bus back to Tirana. 

Tirana

Again, moitas grazas to everyone who helped in the making of this film, on screen and off. I’m glad it was able to get made, and that it seems to work for the most important viewers, people in Galicia. I trust it will work for others once I can get it subtitled. Paula, Mauro and Ramon are looking for other places in Galicia for it to show in the coming year, and once subtitled in Spanish and English, I’ll look for possible festival or other screenings for it. One thing at a time!

Here is a little “making of” piece Sonia Garcia did; and here is an impromptu recording one of the people who helped produce it of me singing one of my very early songs. (A better version here.)

May the world take a turn for the better in the coming year, and hopes for a happy and positive New Year to you all.






FELIZ ANINOVO !!





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Santiago de Compostela, Adeus
		

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June 12, 2023. 






Last day for now in Santiago and Galicia.  The days before leaving Piloño managed to get some shooting in with Francisco (Quico) Cadaval.  In one case a walk through Pepe’s house, done a handful of times with iPhone (tried Panasonic but it was far more awkward.)  I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with it, but dropping it on the editing-line of computer, and finding some “problems” which I’d already noted while shooting, I found a solution, one I think was lurking in the back of my mind before I shot it.  It seems to have come out quite nicely.







































Here is preliminary edit, no mix, subject to change.





The next day we shot a handful of green-screen monologues, Quico improvising around a few “stories” drawn from reality, but then mangled, and done as if in a delirium of forgetfulness. In this case I had a somewhat clear idea as to what I might do with them.  This past week, tossing them on the time-line, seemed to confirm the idea I had in mind.





















































Here is a tentative edit of this sequence.





Back in Santiago, staying at their invitation with Sonia and Alvaro on the edge of town, I settled in, hacking away and feeling a bit badly to be a potential carrier of whatever it is I have – probably just a seasonal flu.  So far no one seems to have contracted it from me.  As I write now it seems to be going away, though still makes for dry coughs and little waves of spaciness.  Not really gone yet.





Did manage to get a few things done here, editing a bit and trying to sort out what I have in my head and what is on the time-line.  At present, very crudely ordered (can’t really call it an edit at this juncture), there seems about an hour of sorted, probably to-be-used material, which doesn’t include a lot of material already shot, and there’s a lot more to still do if possible.  So I am feeling confident there is some kind of film lurking in there – now just to tease it out.





Meantime have had some little adventures.  Went the other night on 80km drive to Pontevedra, to go to a gala for regional, Galician, musicians – an awards ceremony.  Here’s my comments written on Facebook:







Last night I went the 50 miles or so drive to Pontevedra, with Alvaro and Sonia to attend a big to-do, the prize ceremony for the cream of Galicia’s music world, ranging all over the place. It was done in a modern theater space, was full of what seemed all the musicians of Galicia, the hall packed. The spectrum ranged from groups dressed in trad garb to pierced and tatted, and the music awarded spanned everything you could imagine. As often is the case these kinds of things, like the Oscars on down, are orchestrated to celebrate Show Biz, but often lack any showbiz savvy about how to do it. So what should have been 90 minutes max stretched on to 3 hours, way too many prizes were awarded, with way too many thank you thank you’s spoken, interspersed with a man and woman comic team who started out with a skit too long, and then between presenter shifts, prizes (a phalanx of 30 or more adorned the stage, rather odd individually carved somewhat primitive human figures painted in different manners), reappeared a handful of times to really wear out the welcome mat. As it happened, my host, Alvaro, who has a music practice room (with sound dampening materials on the walls) next to where I am sleeping, won one of the prizes. I forget which of the myriad of categories,(turns out it was blues/funk something category) many of which from the snippets played, wandered suspiciously into other categories.









The long evening then shifted to the adjacent bar, where hob-nobbing carried on another hour or was it two? We headed back to Santiago around 1:30 though it was said a private party was to go on further into the night.









Not speaking the Galego used – very pointedly this was a Galego/Galician event – I couldn’t follow most of the talk, just little slivers here and there. So my mind wandered to observations on how societies and cultures work and behave, how minority groups must coalesce to defend themselves, and provincialism becomes a virtue. The evening (almost) closed off with an awkward life-time award to an actress, perhaps Galicia’s most famous figure, in Almodovar’s films in the 1980’s, Luz Casal. Wrapping up this evening of Galego pride Luz admitted to not speaking Galego, and apparently many there found it offensive that she was being awarded. Um…. Fame has its ways…..







Here’s a video of the post-ceremony natter party.





Yesterday went back out to visit Piloño with Sonia and Alvaro and have lunch with Pepe and his family.  If things work out I’ll be coming back in latter August to mid-September, and would want to shoot a 15 or so minute quasi-narrative scene in the house, so feeling the obligation to ask, even though I was pretty sure of the answer, Xabier looked a bit quizzical, as if I was nuts to ask, and looking for Pepe’s assent which was instant, I was informed I was family and welcome any time.  My query was rhetorical – I already knew my place.

























































































I came here about two months ago, quite unsure what might or might not happen. Thanks to a sequence of seemingly almost random connections which started some years ago when Diego contacted me to ask some questions about filmmaking, on to meeting Angela Solla, at first on the net and then in Lisboa, and she put me in touch with the people she knew in the north of Portugal, one thing leading to another, I met Almuinha and Mauro, of aCentral Folque here in Santiago, who in turn decided to take a chance with my most unbusiness-like way of doing things, and here we are.  They have applied for a Xunta de Galicia cultural grant of some kind, which they seem confident of getting.  If so, I will return in the middle of August, and spend another month here getting done whatever I need to do to make this a creditable film with which I’ll be happy.  And if that happens, included will be a return in late November-December for screenings at the Filmoteca de Galicia in A Coruña – a handful of my prior ones and the premiere of Casa do Silencio.  And might also have a little music concert as well, and a workshop here in Santiago and in A Coruña.  Find out about this sometime in July.  Will try to line up a few other Iberian peninsula screenings for same time if it all happens.





All things considered then, it has been a good time here in Galicia – getting things done, shooting what I think is the core of a film, having some little adventures, and meeting a gaggle of nice people.  I am a happy camper, and most importantly, it has all been fun!  Even with the damned bug.



























































And a poem or two even managed to slip out, despite the distractions of getting things done for this film:













he had a way with words
or was it the other way around
and words had a way with him?





they snuck between the crevices of his mind
slippery as eels
danced their own tune
and asked him to translate





if fast, he’d snatch them,
nail them down to paper
if not, they evanesce in an instant
gone like a trout in the shadows













Next note surely coming up from Derry, N. Ireland, where I’ll spend the next 5 weeks staying with Marcella, dog-sitting 10 days, and editing Casa, sifting through what I already have and pondering what it wants and figuring out how to get it.  After that we will both go to Edinburgh for 3 weeks, me to act in a film titled Kill Jon Jost.   Not joking.  Of it more later once I know more.  Perhaps it will be a documentary –  information on it that I have is very slim.  And then either return to Galicia or….












































Grazas to everyone in Santiago and Piloño for your help and collaboration; I hope it all proves to be worth your time and energies.  And thanks to those who contributed to get me here and help cover the costs so far.  Wouldn’t have rolled the dice without your help.






























An Introduction





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Santiago de Compostela





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Time Zips





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Step at a Time





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Adeus Santiago de Compostela
		

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May 21, 2023.  Tomorrow leave Santiago, after nearly a month, for Piloño, and the country house I spent 3 weeks in last year, and the seed of this film was planted.  While here in Santiago met a handful of actors, poets, singers, and recorded with some of them, and surely have made some new friends.  







































While here went to a concert, and then same people, in A Coruña.  Very good music, and nice people.  On my side my relative rustiness in shooting with new camera turned into some technical problems, ones I can solve with little creative moves, but doesn’t make me happy with myself.  On the other hand I haven’t really shot anything since doing Walkerville, in Butte, back in 2020, three years ago.  So I won’t be too hard on myself.





Speaking of that, I have sent the film, Walkerville: A State of Mind, to a handful of festivals, and await word next month on some of them. Should any be invited it will play havoc with my travel schedule, but that seems normal for me.  Also sent, variously, Tourists, Yellowstone Canyon, DeadEndz and Berkeley Pit to some festivals: Locarno, Yamagata, and Venice. And maybe some others which I have forgotten in the mental smear of travels.































Almuinha and Ariel’s non-profit, aCentral Folque, is applying for a grant to help with Casa do Silencio, though to do so they’ve added a few other things, in which case I need to make little short films of 3 poets reading their poems, and three singers singing traditional Galego songs.  I may or may not include them within the film, depending on whether they seem to fit.  But I’ll be making them.  Here’s some tentative images from a few of them:


































Anton Lopos















Ismael Ramos, poem translated by Neil Anderson










These are only tentative explorations for the moment.  We see where they lead. 





Meantime shortly I’ll be in Piloño, where I hope the nebulous fog of my thoughts find some form, and turn into a film.  Which, all things considered, is rather nebulous in itself:  photons and sound frequencies cast by a machine to last as long life itself – to say in fleeting nano-seconds, and actually indivisible.














































































Last note, finally finished the book of poems written in Port Angeles and Boston, and will shortly have it available on-line.  Waiting for some feedback, nice or not.










For earlier posts see links below.















An Introduction





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Santiago de Compostela





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Time Zips





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Step at a Time





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Step at a Time
		

						Posted on  by jonjost		

	


	

		

Moving along faster than I’d imagined, this week was busy with working things out with Almuinha and Mauro, shooting some things, getting used to my camera – I have had it now 4 years I think, maybe more – but haven’t used it that much, especially in the last 2 years. All thumbs at the moment.  And meeting new people.












































As seems my habit these days – more like decades – my thoughts form around hard realities: what place can I get into, who are the people who’ll work/play with me, what can I get my hands on or what falls in my lap.  And then, little by little, things begin to form, and whatever vague thought I had begins to materialize before my eyes.  So I had imagined none of these people, least of all “characters” nor had I any clear conception of a structure for this film, but now it begins to jiggle into place.





Here, shot a few days ago, is a regionally well-known singer, Ugía Pedreira, who has been instrumental, so I am told, in bringing back traditional Galician songs and music.  This is a love-song, shot in the cloister of the Convent of San Domingos de Bonaval, in Santiago.










Click to see video



















Ugía Pedreira reading poem





Take a walk to center most days, to do some chore or another, to see and feel the city, and just to take a walk. The cathedral it is about 2.4 kilometers away, though I tend to wander a bit and make it a longer jaunt.







































































Santiago de Compostela is famed, for now many centuries, as a pilgrimage vortex, once for devout Christians to genuflect at the grave of Saint James, who was deemed in a manner second in line to Christ.  And like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it is surely false, encrusted with now several millennia of myth.  His body was said to have been sent on a stone boat to the shores of Galicia and….  Oh, dem bones.  Which curiously is a bit what Casa do Silencio is “about” – the veils of memory, the tendency for stories, especially those which have been subject to a kind of suppression, to take on their own life, and however false in origins and to become “real.”  Myths.







































I doubt that in these days many of the peregrini who make the trek from France, or Porto, are animated by the thought of placing themselves near the bones of a saint, rather I suspect most are people who like to hike, walk, and be outdoors, and perhaps wish a time of solitude as a kind of New Age-y self-therapy.  Though they may find the solitude supplanted by a communal “we’re on the camino” comradery, as the numbers now allow little room for being alone.



















Sedia-m’eu na ermida de San Simion, part of medieval troubador song by Mendinho, his one surviving song.










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Non ei i barqueiro, nen remador:
e morrerei fremosa no mar maior,
eu atendendo meu amigo.





Non ei i barqueiro, nen sei remar:
e morrerei eu fremosa no alto mar,
eu atendendo meu amigo.





/





I have no boatman, nor anyone to row:
And I’ll die, beautiful me, in the vast sea,
Me waiting for my dear friend. 





I have no boatman and don’t know how to row,
And I’ll die, beautiful me, in the sea so vast,
Me waiting for my dear friend.

                                       ………………..    ………………..  Mendinho




































And a version by Amalia Rodriguez  here.





So things move along, little clusters of possibilities, ideas, immersing myself in things local, trying to get a sense of place and culture.  Meantime I wander the area nearby my B&B here in Conxo.  Vague hints of an Antonioni world.



























































In another 10 days likely move to Piloño, where we’ll be in countryside, and perhaps the bulk of the film will be done?  All unclear, which is as it should be for this kind of thing.  Meantime on the mundane side of things, this past week finally jumped the hoops needed and my Washington State Drivers license is headed my way, so I can drive again.  





While it seems I’ve raised enough to not dip into my savings for making this, any help still appreciated.  Check earlier posts on that.

























For earlier posts see links below.





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Santiago de Compostela





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Time Zips





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Santiago de Compostela
		

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After a journey from New York City, via a brief airport stop-over in London, and a traveler’s glitch of having errantly booked a ticket for the day before – requiring buying another far more costly one, I managed to arrive in Madrid a bit later, and after staying a night with Diego, moved along on train for Santiago de Compostela, “home” for the coming three weeks and more. After a somewhat intense bit of travel over the previous month and a bit – Cuba, Chicago, Boston, NYC – seeing lots of people, I needed a little rest and took it when I got here. For 24 hours, and then began to explore here, with long walks of 8 to 12 KM (5-8 miles) a day, nosing around, taking photos and a lot of back-of-the-head thinking.






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This morning, after a small communications snafu (I think courtesy of a slightly scrambled brain owing to travels) I walked to center of town and met two men, Almuinha and Ariel, in the Literary Cafe on the side of the square behind the cathedral. They have an association, aCentral Folque, which does a mix of things, mostly music shows, and books, about a variety of things. And, things working out, they’ll have a part in making Casa do Silencio, which in turn may bring me back to Santiago and A Coruña in the coming autumn/winter to do some screenings/workshops or other things. We had a nice long discussion about many things, my philosophy of working and living, business (or its absence), being sure to have fun when “working” which as I told them for me means “playing.” We got along well, I think, and it was a pleasurable first step with them. I tried to recall how I got directed to them and thought it was my friend in Lisboa, Angela Solla, who somehow pointed me there way – and has been helpful in many other ways as well.







Ariel





Almuinha













As seems my habit, just talking with them about the film triggered submerged thoughts – or were they new ? – about how to structure it, characters, actors and such. I seem to develop ideas out of interactions with places, people, discussions, where things I am not sure I actually thought about before just pop up. For example this conversation, after a query about actors, had me thinking that perhaps two characters, a woman and her sister, might be compressed into a single actress, but with one flipped left-right. They could then even be on screen together? I hadn’t, to my awareness, actually given that any thought, and then out it came. A good idea? Perhaps!





So for me seems a good start, and I think Almuinha and Ariel seem to have a sympathetic understanding of my most-not-industrial-cinema way of work/playing. I look forward to collaborating with them.






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Meantime trying to arrange going out to Piloño in the coming week, perhaps with Ariel to translate for me, and to get a sense of who and what will be involved. Sooner the better. Eager to see my friends there, Pepe and Maruja and others I met last May with Diego. Fun!






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Pilgrims at the plaza before the Cathedral




So, off to a good start here in Santiago, with things seeming to fall into place almost effortlessly ! Makes if enjoyable and fun. Intend to keep it that way!





Thanks to those who have contributed so far, otherwise I wouldn’t be here, meeting new people, making new friends, and working to make what I hope will be a good film. Many thanks.





Anyone wishing to contribute, just let me know and we can arrange. Thankfully think I can avoid an official crowd-funding platform and just do it this way.  Next report coming up soon !






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An Introduction










Time Zips





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Step at a Time





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Time Zips
		

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April 8, 2023





Since last writing, I have been in Kolkata, Cuba, and now in Chicago.  Next 2 weeks will be Boston and NYC. Life has kept me busy and moving, but, along the way important matters regarding the making of Casa do Silencio have moved along.  We – Diego and I – have pretty much secured the OK to return to Piloño, to shoot in and perhaps to stay in the house there.  And, importantly, I managed so far to raise the minimum I wanted to go ahead and make the film – at present the total is just a touch over the $5,000 I’d set as a floor.  And I have bought my ticket, from New York JFK to London and same day on to Madrid.  I’ll stay a few days there and head up to Santiago where I have booked a B&B for 3-4 weeks, after which Diego will come up and we’ll go to Piloño.


































Doing a bit of research on Galicia, its deep history and more recent.  Poetically I’d like to try to embrace it all, so I imagine a few trips to shoot some ancient sites, megaliths, neolithic fortresses and such, will be in order.  In touch now with a man who is an expert in Galego music, and says he can readily get me connected with some singers and actors.  Though he cautions I will need to pay.  So I will try to raise some more money to do so.  Meantime, almost on purpose I try not to think about it too much, wanting to let the ambience, the reality, be my guide.  I think what I sensed last year was vivid enough, and my thoughts will be be triggered by being there.  





























I’ll try to find some Galego poetry, and music, and perhaps literature, though it has been several lifetimes since I was able to read a novel and I doubt I could now.  But I can try.  





Time short now, just wanted to get this posted to say film is definitely on.  I’ll re-post below my list of offers for those who wish to help me realize this work.  Or see this.





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Support Offers





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$250: Above plus a PDF of a recent book of poetry, either Poems, Perhaps, or Port Angeles: Elegies for the Strait  or  The Corona Verses.   These are poems accompanied by images.  If you wish a physical copy I can offer at cost + postage.





























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$500: Above plus links to four of my past films – you choose which – which can be downloaded.  Here is a new, almost completed, website with information on all of my films: 










https://thefilmsofjonjostcom.wordpress.com/





4.





$1000: All the above plus a signed original painting and print copy of one book of poetry, also signed.










+





Payment can be by PayPal or if preferred I can arrange for you to send directly to my bank.  It would cost me $300 to upgrade my WordPress to allow buttons to use PP directly, but I’d rather not spend that way.   If you wish to contribute, contact me at my email address.  Thank you.  





clarandjon@msn.com





If you would like to support this work, but would prefer to do so, for tax or other reasons, with an on-line funding mechanism, kindly let me know.





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