Films at the Fish Market | Eduardo Teddy Williams

THE POWER OF FILM

The earliest memory I have of my connection to cinema is an episode from my childhood. I was just learning to ride a bicycle, and I fell. I experienced the fall - from the bicycle and onto the trunk of a tree - in slow motion. After that I thought my brain worked like a video camera.

My grandmother also took me to the cinema quite often when I was a child - which was also formative for me. When I left the cinema having seen a film that struck me, my head-space changed completely. Not because I had new thoughts (though I sometimes did), but just the way in which I looked at things and people, the way I heard my voice... I think I experienced the world in another way for some moments, all the way back home.

One of the films that did this to me was Star Wars. This power of cinema in me made me feel close to it, especially when I grew up and found that this possibility of changing the way in which I received the world around me had a lot of power and gave me some hope during difficult times.

Finally, what influenced my decision to become a filmmaker was simply the fact that I Iiked so many subjects in school - biology, literature, chemistry, history and others - but I didn't like the idea of focusing on just the one thing. So I thought that with cinema, I could make use of all types of knowledge and better still, maybe lead disparate subjects to interact with each other.

FULLTIME FILMMAKER

I've officially been a fulltime filmmaker over the past year, as I was fortunate enough to have my short film 'Could See a Puma' win some prizes in festivals.

Sadly however, you can't really earn a living from winning prizes (you never know when they'll come), so even though it makes me very happy to be able to share my experiences, thoughts and feelings with others through cinema, I still can't find a way to make a living solely as a film director.

In Argentina I managed to find work here and there - my favourite gig was working with a plastic artists, but I also did some work online and delivered papers throughout the city - all the while trying to put together some short films with my friends.

The biggest challenge was to finally work up the courage and confidence to trust in what I wanted and believed in, even if this was difficult and sometimes may even have seemed impossible. But, with hard work and good friends, everything became manageable in one way or another.

FILM IN SMALL COUNTRIES

In my humble opinion, the way in which countries can carve out an identifiable cinematic identity is by fomenting film production - mainly through the use of organised governmental aid.

I also think that film schools are important, mainly to create a social environment where people go together to think and 'do' cinema. Festivals are then another important stepping stone, so as to show the work produced in the country and to take to the people some cinema that doesn't reach commercial theaters and which can be difficult to find on the internet.

FILM AT THE FISH MARKET

I'm very excited to see and share my work in Valletta, and in a fish market! I really like the idea of screening films in unconventional places - in this way, you go to the people, you don't just wait for them to come. A great thing that happened related to this original places, is that one of the short films I made was shown in a festival which is organised in scientific bases in Antarctica, it's not possible to go, but imagining my film screened there makes me really happy.

Eduardo Teddy Williams's films will be screened at the Valletta Fish Market ('Pixkerija') on July 24, 21:00 as part of the Kinemastik International Short Film Festival.