An idiot wind over the island | Jimmy Grima

FROM THEATRE TO FILM

For me all this is a natural progression. I have been doing mostly performance for the past 10 years and I have been thinking about film for at least five years or so. I decided to run these two in parallel. This is what I hope will be my first step into the realm of film. I will be directing a number of performance works later this year and during the beginning of next year. I think both mediums work very nicely in parallel.

CHALLENGES AND OBSTACLES

Throughout this whole process, I learnt a lot about the craft of filmmaking and although there are plenty of parallels with the art of making performance, making film is different. Like any other art form on the island, I found it difficult to source the professionals required for the medium. Luckily, in the end I found the collaborators I needed to create my first short and I was also fortunate to have support from the few people in the industry that believed in me. 

Despite Malta's obvious limitations in this field, I am very satisfied with the people I had around me for this first step in the medium. However, this sector really needs to be professionalised in the right way, and I think it would be very difficult if there had to be multiple feature film projects going on at the same time on the island as they resources are very limited (the pool is limited to one or two people, for certain jobs). Since I am based here and I have been working in this context over the past ten years, I think that I have this issue at the back of my mind each time I create something: be a it a visual art exhibition, a performance or a film. I think that the way forward in the creative field is international collaboration.

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT, THEN?

One fine day, a cyclist is jogging on a beach when a weary voice in the air attracts his attention. He spots a beautiful blind woman accompanied by her guard dog. An instant attraction between the two slowly turns into an obsession after a weird encounter in an alley in which the girl lives. The cyclist goes as far as to create a special gift declaring his love to the girl. He sits by her door for hours, waiting for her to sing and longing to get inside the house. One day, as he is cycling by, he notices the guardian is outside in the alley. He stops, but the door opens and the dog goes on. The cyclist follows the dog inside the house... where his love becomes his peril. 

The look and feel of the film reflects what I find most striking about the Maltese islands - mainly, the visceral experience: the light, the nature and the colour and how things uniquely unfold in their own way on the island.

THE INSTALLATION

The installation is a participatory experience. During my stay in Egypt, I had discovered that traditionally, before a concert, a musician would first play the prologue so as to set the mood for the rest of the concert. The installation could be described as a similar 'mood setter' for the short film.

L-Iblah and its accompanying installation can be seen at the Upper Galleries of St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, Valletta until August 12. Opening hours are from morning until 13:00, as per the Centre's summer schedule.