10 vidéos pour #ChanterWagnerDansLaRue

2 Days in Paris – kind of

Two weeks ago, Gunnar and I went to Paris to watch Norwegian films – yeah, I know it still sounds a bit weird to tell such things.

The first evening was nice... but embarrassing.
Let me explain.
We arrive at Reflet Médicis and two Norwegian men wave at us and start to cry out our names. People often wave at me. So I get used to it, Gunnar nevertheless thinks it's remarkable.

So we arrive and the two men waving (and, almost, screaming) was the Norwegian director Knut Erik Jensen and Jan Erik Holst, responsible for the launching of Norwegian films abroad at the Norwegiand Film Institute. Gunnar met Holst for the first time, the same year, the same cinema art et essai and at the same occasion he met me. 
We start talking about VIP grants, Norwegian films abroad and so on. And also about the speech I would give the evening after. When I tell Knut Erik it's about Norwegian comedies, he answers « do they even exist? ». I laugh since we both know Norwegian comedies aren't all funny.

After the screening of Stella Polaris, Gunnar and I drank some wine and talk non-sense with each other. And soon with more people in Swedish, in Svorsk and in French.

Since I am a very nice stalker – meaning that I know when people do PR and don't try to be an attention grabber – I leave Knut Erik with his new fans and I start to chat with a Norwegian woman living in France and the nice man besides. He is looking for what I own, meaning the Stella Polaris DVD. I write some references on my visit card and give it to him.

Then starts the embarrassing part.

  Gunnar and I keep talking about differences between Sweden, Norway and France. The two nice people we just met agree. Then the man starts telling he has worked on an Ibsen play some months ago. Great.

« What do you do?
 _ I'm an actor and a director. »

Ok, that's nothing really exciting when you are in Paris. I have met plenty of actors known for their... feet – socks ads – mouths – coffee ads or hands – jewels ads. And even real actors who spend their evening on stages. So saying that you are an actor when living in Paris is just as exciting as declaring you work on a oil platform when living in Stavanger. We don't recognize our nice actor with whom we still chat.

Then, he takes his iPhone and try to send some messages to his Norwegian friend.
His Norwegian friend being Bent Hamer.
DA Bent Hamer.

He then explains he played in Factotum. We saw Factotum.
It starts to feel a bit awkward. 
I remember the French speaking man in Factotum but just can't place his face.
Well, he is standing in front of me.

Shame, shame, shame. 

We talk about Bent Hamer who prefers spending some time with his 1001 gram script than joining us. The thesp then says that Hamer released Eggs after our actor had directed a "quite popular shortfilm" named La Vis.
It doesn't ring bell. Though I will have realised before the end of the night that I have owned a VHS copy of the film for more than 15 years.

The evening goes on and I finally get to talk to Knut Erik and to Jan Erik. Nice.

Finally when Gunnar and I go back to the hotel, we check our actor on IMDb.

HOLY SH--- 

Our thesp has played in about 170 TV/movie productions.
Among other things:
India Song (Duras)
Der Himmel über Berlin (Wenders)
Code inconnu (Haneke)
Poulet aux prunes (Satrapi/Paronnaud) etc...

We have seen these films so why couldn't we recognize him? Shame on us.
And you know the best part?
His « quite popular short film » won a César for best short film and was Oscar nominated in the same category.

EMBARRASSING, ISN'T IT? 



Thankfully the day after was less... weird.

Our hotel:

 

 Our view:

 

Comédie Française

 

  

Le Louvre et nous:

 

Le Louvre et Gunnar:

 

Plus sombre que l'ombre de tes ailes...

...is the title of a book written by the French journalist and nowadays writer Sébastien Acker, having lived and worked in Berry/Le centre for ten years.
He has always been a bibliophile and as young he read around 4-5 books per week.
When working as a journalist he became fascinated by Swedish and Scandinavian literature and specifically the crime fiction ('polar'), beginning with Sjöwall & Wahlöö.
Later on he continued to interest himself in other authors and more or less incidentally he came to write this book with the above name that - with a rough translation - means: "Much somber/darker than the shadow of your wings".

Acker today (Saturday) visited La Châtre and La Maison de la Presse in order to sign his book. The photo below (published some days later in the newspaper 'La Nouvelle République') shows Acker in the middle - of course - and my wife Aurore to the right, carrying a box of cinnamon buns, something Acker had asked for and through a 'cooperation' between Aurore and me, he was able to enjoy these Swedish delicacies. Part of the deal with the cinnamon buns was that he promised to carry the yellow shirt of the Swedish football team and below you can see that Acker also kept his part of the deal. (The text in French under the photo)

(DÉDICACE. Sébastien Acker était à la Maison de la presse, samedi matin, pour dédicacer son premier ouvrage Plus sombre que l'ombre de tes ailes aux éditions La Bouinotte. Sébastien avait tenu son pari en revêtant le maillot de foot de l'équipe suédoise ; Aurore, une Castraise, mariée à un Suédois, venue faire dédicacer son livre, avait apporté des kanelbullars, brioches suédoises à la cannelle.)

The events in the book take place both in Berry/Le Centre and Stockholm wherefore Aurore contacted Acker through Facebook, in order to talk about Swedish and Scandinavian literature and parenthetically the links between me and the implicit main character in the book - not mentioned by name - Stieg Larsson, among other things.

The book circles around Léonard, a Parisian postman (always ringing twice?) who is a huge fan of Scandinavian crime novels but also a (very) private investigator, working for noone and nothing.
When having finished the reading of a world famous Swedish crime novel (guess which one), he becomes convinced of one thing: To him it's clear that the author of this crime novel, dying before he get to see the success of his books, as a journalist threatened by the extreme right wing groups in Sweden, was murdered!
Léonard plonges into this certitude. How can it be that everyone believes that the author of this blockbuster actually died from a heart attack?
Our postman starts his first own major private investigation, flanked by Léon a disabled colleague.
To the Stockholm of Mysteries from Berry, the two men experience a surprising adventure, taking them from places like The Old Town in Stockholm to the province of George Sand, from The Blue Tower in Stockholm, where August Strindberg lived to Sainte-Sévère and Jacques Tati's 'Jour de Fête'.

Below an interview in French by Bip tv, (Berry Issoudun Première Télévision), where Acker explains a little about himself, his passion for Scandinavia and his own book.

Sebastien ACKER

(Photo cover copied from: http://livreaucentre.fr/files/2011/03/plus-sombre.jpg)
(Photo Acker and Aurore at La Maison de La Press in La Châtre copied from: http://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/indre/LOISIRS/Livres-cd-dvd/D-233-clic19)

Le Printemps de Bourges

Le Printemps de Bourges has become an institution in this part of France, or should I say in the rest of France and many parts of the world too, having become an internationally well known music event.

It started in 1977 and the 'official founders' of this festival was Alain Meilland, singer, comedian, 'metteur en scène'; Maurice Frot, writer and Daniel Colling, entrepreneur.
The festival invites both well known French and international artists as well as 'rising stars' from all over the world.
80 different 'spectacles' with around 200 artists makes this event something very special, not least since there are artists not only on the official stages but all over town, in almost every corner.
In the beginning - as well as know - one also invited (and invites) artists not always being in the absolute spotlight, in spite of being good performers with interesting artistical qualities.
Below some photos from this years festival (sorry for the not so high quality, taken with our iPhone), the first I attend, even though I've been in Bourges before. Aurore visited the festival for the third time this year.
I very much liked the atmosphere, a warm and friendly dito, in spite of thousands of visitors (240 000 during the five days the festival lasted)!

Salon du chocolat, Argenton-sur-Creuse 2010

Last year the Chocolate Festival or 'Salon' was held for the first time in the extremely charming town of Argenton-sur-Creuse and the number of exhibitors and visitors were quite impressive, taking into account that the exhibition hall - 'Espace Jean Frappat' - isn't all to spacious.

We went there last year and continued the short tradition this year.

This year the theme was music and particularly the music of Frédéric Chopin.
This of course because one celebrates the bicentenary of his birth.
Otherwise I can't see the link between chocolate and Chopin more than the fact that both his name and chocolate begins alike and that his music might be both sweet and bitter like chocolat.
On the stage they had erected a small 'altar' for Chopin but also for the author and his patron and maecenas George Sand, a person extremely important for his composing but also for his physical and mental health.
She was not only the 'muse' of Chopin but a great author and playwright among other things.
Below some pictures from the Festival and the third picture displays the collection of chocolat we bouht to ourselves.

Look and yearn!

Berry Movies selection committee 2010

This is the 2010 selection committee of the short film festival in La Châtre called Berry Movies.

Two of the main responsible for this film festival is Florent Choffel and Etienne Sautereau and one representative of MJC in La Châtre.
Aurore and I are both sitting in the back row to the left.
64 films were sent to this years competition and 10 was chosen to compete the 29th of October. May the best film win.

Rencontres Internationales de Luthiers et Maître Sonneurs, Château d'Ars

Welcome to one of the biggest or maybe even THE biggest folk music festival in the world:

Rencontres Internationales de Luthiers et Maître Sonneurs, earlier years held in Saint-Chartier, 8 km from La Châtre where we live (photos below).
Last year this festival moved to Château d'Ars only 3 km from La Châtre and most people earlier visiting Saint-Chartier, seem to have thought this was an even better arrangement.
This was my first visit but Aurore has visited this festival at three occasions when held in Saint-Chartier.
The festival is a possibility for folk musicians all over the world to 'jam' together, listen to artists performing, exchanging experiences and also buying instruments like the vielle, the bagpipe (cornemuse), the accordion (accordéon).
All over the castle park, we could see and listen to musicians, see people dancing different kinds of folk dances but of course there were also food, drink and desserts sold in different booths.
Concerning the food and beverages one applied an ecological and 'nearby cultivated' ideology.

Now to the festival and some pictures.

Below you see some musicians playing together and if they belong to the same group, they come from the same country or not, is unknown to me but music has no barriers, neither geographical nor lingustical.

In these photos (below right and left) we see the group Toad, made up by

Pierre-Vincent Fortunier, 'cornemuse' ('bag pipe'),
Yann Gourdon, 'vielle à roue' ('hurdy gurdy'),

Guilhem Lacroux, guitare.
A lof of people danced along with the music and some knew the specific danses, some didn't.

Below we see a group of dancers performing traditional dances in traditional clothings.

They danced in connection to the performance of Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien.
This could be a group of local dancers from La Châtre but I'm not sure.

Below (left) acccordéons for sale and to the right we see so called 'nyckelharpor' ('nyckelharpa')
The latter is an Scandinavian instrument but in this case the spelling ('nyckelharps') indicates that those displaying these instruments are not from the Scandinavian countries.

A close-up of a 'nyckelharpa'.

Another concert at the same stage as above but unfortunately I don't remember the name of the group.

The tents with food and drink.

This is one of the last groups we listened to, namely Zaragraf:
Mira Mrak (song, accordion), Emmanuel Waffler (song, guitars),
Bruno Manjares (song, guitar, trumpet), Pépé Martinez (song, accordion, cajon, tuba)
They played slavic folk music and among the different pieces of music
we heard the theme song to Emir Kusturica's film 'Time of the Gypsies'.

Below people are dancing a traditional dance called 'bourrée', in french also meaning 'drunk'.

People were dancing everywhere and this is one of the smaller stages, were musicians,
not scheduled for an 'official' concert, could go on stage and perform and then the dance began.
People were not at all shy, even if they couldn't dance properly - whatever that would be.

A group of beautiful harps
(the instrument)

Outside the castle park, on a field, campers from different parts of Europe had gathered.

The photo to the left below is not portraying a musician(?) but a special Berry donkey (I don't use the word 'ass' as you can see):
'The Big Black Donkey' - Âne Grand Noir du Berry'.
In the other photo we see the special 'ear-/hand markings' used even for humans in order to controle us and facilitate at the entrances. We had bought a two day pass for Saturday and Sunday.

The party is over and we got our souvenirs (one cup each),

enabling us to enjoy our drinks in a musical fashion.