MYPC’s first short film, HOME MOVIES, has been accepted into the London Independent Film Festival and is screening at the Shortwave Cinema, SE1 on Saturday, 14th April at 4:30 pm.
And I think it’s because we have an office.
We moved into this office last week. It has a view that overlooks tree tops and listed buildings. You can see the London Eye. Chris put up a poster for SIRENS, our first show, and has a shelf for filing.
There is a sofa where I can sit and make stuff up. Then show Chris (nine inches away) after which I’ll make up even better stuff.
It is very exciting.
And it is in Christine’s flat.
We have all the amenities to hand – water, kettle, Christine’s husband to make the tea. We have a chair for our delicious office manager, Nathalie, who can wander down the hall to make her telephone calls to our local council in pursuit of funding if she wants. But she doesn’t have to. She can stay in the office and have us sitting right there. On her lap. Listening.
It doesn’t get better than that.
We think the LIFF knows we have an office. They know we could offer them coffee. They know we have Nathalie to take their calls – in English or French, thank you very much (we’re all bilingual at MYPC)(I want Chris to translate my plays into Croatian but she’s dragging her heels). They recognise how serious we are about our work. They recognise how serious we are as people. And that is why they must never, ever come to our office just on the off chance they heard an exchange like the following:
Very warm spring afternoon. NATHALIE, dark haired, petite, French, sits at the computer finding prices for the books Chris has to sell so we can fit files on the shelves of what used to be her son’s bedroom.
CHRIS, on the floor, is surrounded by receipts, folders and memos.
SY is on the sofa. Making stuff up.
Nat: Forty-five pounds.
CM: What??
Nat: Forty-five pounds for this book. (she holds it up)
CM: No! No way!! For that piece of crap??
Chris leaps up and grabs the book – Damien Hirst Live at the Tate - a new respect on her face. A glint appears in her eye.
CM: Do you think they’d buy this?
Nat: No, Christine.
CM: Come on, hardly used.
Nat: Chris, put Stephanie down.
CM: A little worn at the edges –
Nat: But you can get £30 for this.
CM: (dropping SY) No!
CM examines another hefty tome about modern art, hoping her husband Richard doesn’t come in and see her selling off his library, as a buzzing noise sounds in the room, growing slowly louder. CM looks up.
CM: What’s that?
SY: (face in her laptop, trying to write) I don’t know.
CM: What is it, what is it? It sounds like a dive-bomber.
Nat: It is a bee.
CM: WHAT????
CM drops the book. A phone rings.
Nat: MYPC, Nathalie speaking. Yes. Yes, thank you for calling back. Just – just a moment. (covering the mouth piece) I will go into the other room to take the call.
CM: A bee? Do you know how big a bee would have to be to make that noise? Where the hell is it? I can’t see it and it sounds like the Luftwaffe.
SY: (not looking up) Why would you leave, Nathalie? Don’t you want the local council to know our managing director is lily-livered, spineless weenie-girl and is scaling the wallpaper because there’s a molecule shaped like an insect in the room?
CM: IT’S NOT A MOLECULE. IT COULD EAT MY CHILDREN.
Nat: (on phone) Thank you for waiting. That sound? It is our managing director who is – oh. That sound? (exiting down the hall) We think it is a bee.
CM: Ha! They can hear the molecule in Camden!
SY: (sighing, getting up) All right, all right.
SY stands and sees the bee, roughly the size of a lemur, hovering near the blind.
SY: Hm.
CM: (seeing it) Aggh!
CM charges, backwards, out of the room, clutching the Damien Hirst as, newly, one of her most prized possessions.
CM: What is it doing here? We are seven floors up!
SY: (positioning herself behind the bee) There is life seven floors up. We are not above the tree line.
CM: (pointing) Above THAT tree we are!
SY: (slowly retrieving plastic tub) You’re from Australia. I thought you ate these sorts of things for breakfast.
CM: We have mosquito netting. And vaccines. And guns.
SY: We’re not going to shoot the bee.
CM: See? You know what to do. As a Canadian. You’re brave. You’re informed. You’re – aggh!
The bee moves slowly away from the blind and into the room. SY follows it with the tub, finds it and coaxes it out the open window.
SY: It’s gone. You’re safe. You can – Chris?
SY glances around the empty office.
Voices off:
Nat: (on phone) And we are eligible for – Chris? I’m sorry – just a minute - Chris? Do you need a cold towel? A hot drink? A warm hug?
As we do not plan to answer the door if the representative from the London Independent Film Festival comes to call, I think we are safe.
We will shove his tea through the mail slot.
**
As always, Chris and I are overjoyed with the response and enthusiasm of our friends, followers and supporters, and are proud that a film you helped us make is being shown at such a prestigious festival.
If you live in London, or close enough, please, please join us. HOME MOVIES is in the slot starting 4:30 on Saturday 14th April at the Shortwave Cinema, London Bridge. Tickets are free; first come, first served.
(This is the coolio venue: http://www.shortwavefilms.co.uk/ )
Wonderful. I love the office and the staff!
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