Die Welt

Abdallah works for a pittance in a Tunis video store where he delights in encouraging customers to try less commercial films. Behind his pride in his homeland though he dreams of leaving the country, inspired partly by his father, who had lived in the Netherlands for several years. Abdallah has a one night stand with a Dutch woman and soon after that loses his job, both of which make him more determined to leave the country.

Die Welt explores the dilemmas faced by young Tunisians, treating the subject matter with a light touch, including enjoyably witty dialogue and lots of vivid scenes set in varied locations including marketplaces, a traditional wedding party and a traditional baths.

The background to the film is interesting. The Dutch director (Alex Pitstra) has a Tunisian father (who plays the father in Die Welt) and the film was inspired by his reactions to the Jasmine Spring revolution in Tunisia. The film blends documentary into the fictional story, even including home videos of Pitstra's childhood in the Netherlands. This brings a revealing and insightful personal element into the film.

Die Welt is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:

2050, 28 June and 1910, 29 June both at Cineworld. 

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh international Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film. 

Lilou's Adventure

Lilou, the ten year old daughter of a Guinean father and a Japanese mother, doesn't have friends at her school in Okinawa. She keeps herself pretty much to herself, even not liking to join the groups of children who congregate with her father to play drums and dance. Her classmate Kokuru, meanwhile has stopped dreaming and is upset about this, because she has been keeping a dream dairy so she has something to talk about with her grandfather. The two girls ave a lot in common, both of them have musicians as fathers and both of them are shy and serious. Kokuru had been too shy to speak to Lilou until she stopped dreaming and then felt she needed to reach out.

This marks the beginning of the two girls adventures, in which reality, dreams, myths and video games all start to merge into a beautifully surreal collage. But can Kokuru save her grandfather before time runs out? At times I was wanting to shake the characters and tell them to hurry up! Partly this was because it felt like a very long film (it's almost two hours long) but largely because the viewer gets really sucked into the flow of the film and engaged with the two main characters.

The two young actresses playing the main roles give wonderful performances and the friendship between the two is beautifully developed. The film is a lovely meditation on friendship, belonging and the nature of reality.

Lilou's Adventure is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:

1450, 23 June and 1810, 25 June both at Cineworld

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film. 

From Tehran to London

From Tehran to London is an unfinished film and presented as such as a testament of the censorship that film-making is subjected to in Iran.

Mania Akbari stopped the filming of the film when several Irainian film-makers had been arrested. She fled to London where she finished producing the film, but left the narrative unfinished.

The story centres on a couple, Ashkan, a wealthy business man and Ava, a poet, who is suffering from writer's block. Near the beginning of the film, their maid Maryam disappears while the couple are on a business trip. Later, Ava's sister has moved into the house.

The whole film is made up of claustrophobic dialogue between the characters, long arguments between the couple and gentler discussions between the sisters as they perform their beauty routines together. Ava is angry with her husband for many reasons, but partly because she feels he is blocking the publication of her latest book of poetry, so the issue of censorship was already at the heart of the film before the director was forced to stop filming.

This is a fascinating film for anyone interested in gender relations or artistic self expression in Iran.

From Tehran to London is showing: 2015, 22 June and 1500, 23 June, both at Filmhouse.


Disclaimer, I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.

I'm posting most of my film festival reviews on Crafty Green Poet, you can read them so far here and here.

You are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One!) by Jeff Goins

"Every day, somewhere, a writer is born." So opens this e-book from Jeff Goins.

If you are one of these writers, Goins says, then it is up to you to make sure you put in the time writing. Goins also underlines the importance of writing for yourself, following your passions rather than aiming to please the marketplace.

Sometimes I felt that Goins reiterated his main points too often, but there are certainly some good pointers here:

"Everything is practice. Every word you write .... is a chance to get better."

"If you do anything long enough, it becomes habitual". 

Sometimes the book seems contradictorary, we're told that all we need is to write for the love of it then told that writing for the love of it can never be enough.

If you've been writing for a while, you may feel there isn't enough concrete advice in here. Also on a personal level, I found Goins writing style to be pretty annoying.

The book overall reads like a pep talk, and most writers can probably use one of those once in a while. Basically, believe in yourself and you're a long way to being the writer you want to be.

Thanks Story Cartel for my free e-copy of You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins

As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Through a lace curtain

The curtains in our first hotel in Dumfries and Galloway. You can read more about our holiday on Crafty Green Poet: here, here and here.

For Shadow Shot Sunday

Let's Write A Short Story by Joe Bunting

Let's Write a Short Story is an accessible, chatty guide that is full of good practical advice on writing short stories and finding a publisher for them.

It starts out with considering some of the benefits of writing short stories, outlining how they can be seen as a way of practising for something bigger, or of recycling a failed novel. Also, the author sees rejection as vital to a writer, as it shows that you're trying and so another 'benefit of writing short stories is that they allow you to get rejected sooner.If you write a novel, it could take years for your work to be rejected. With short stories, you could be rejected in weeks.' Which may seem a bit dpressing, but actually means that you can learn quicker by writing short stories than you would if you just concentrate on trying to write the next great novel. Every rejection is a step on the way to success.

The advice on how to write is very practical and to the point, take this on the need for conflict in a short story:

'people only change when they experience pain, and all stories involve transformation. Joy, unfortunately, is a lousy teacher. Don’t be nice to your characters. It won’thelp your story.'

There is an extended analysis of what makes a literary short story, with some in depth critique of style, and underlining the importance for every aspiring writer to read with an eye to both analysising and enjoying. There's an exercise on finding the right balance between showing and telling in your story and advice on how to overcome writers block.

Oh and there are some useful writing prompts in here too, with the author asking the reader to commit to writing a short story within a month of reading the book. 

So, if you want to write short stories, this is a great resource that will inspire you and give you practical help and encouragement. Read it and then write some stories!

Thanks to Story Cartel for my free download of Let's Write a Short Story by Joe Bunting

Shapeshifting Green Style Statement

I don't blog about fashion very much, but I thought that I would post a photo of this wrist cuff which I made from reclaimed fabrics. It's currently in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop, but that may change, as I like it too much and am tempted to wear it myself. (So if you've seen it in the shop and liked it, now is the time to convert the liking into purchasing!).

I'm planning a whole series of fabric wrist cuffs to sell on Etsy, each of them will be unique style statements in a range of reclaimed fabrics, buttons and charms.

Although I often wear jeans and jumpers or even waterproof leggings and anorak as I go about my life as conservation volunteer and leader of guided walks, I actually also really like dressing up.

Fifty Shades of Feminism

I was delighted to win a copy of Fifty Shades of Feminism from Virago in a Twitter competition. It's an intriguing collection of essays about feminism from more than 50 women including lawyers, activists, writers, actors and community workers.

Some of the essays are very personal, some are more formal, though there's only one poem in the book and only Jeanette Winterson offers an essay written in an experimental format. The essays cover topics from pornography to the sexist assumptions behind the construction of five written characters in Mandarin Chinese. Some of the essays make direct reference to 50 Shades of Grey, which was after all the book that prompted the writing of this anthology, most of them are however a more general reaction to that genre of writing or are in fact purely statements of where the authors stand on feminism.

It's a thought provoking anthology, though perhaps with some omissions. As the New Statesman review says, there isn't an essay from a transgendered woman. I would also have been interested to read an essay from a femme lesbian about feminist perspectives on femininity. (If that's something you're interested in, I can definitely recommend Femmes of Power, which I reviewed here).

So for a quick overview of where feminism currently stands, this is a good place to start. 

Fifty Shades of Feminism edited by Lisa Appignanesi published by Virago Press.

As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

The Thread by Victoria Hislop

This is a wonderful love story set against the sweep of Greek history through the 20th century.

Katerina the main character is a very likeable character, and I really felt for her from her separation from her mother, her arrival in Thessalonika where she was taken in by a kindly family to her work as a seamstress and her love for Dimitri. Dimitri and Katerina are separated for many years as he fights with the resistance fighters in the mountains. Will they be reunited?

All set against the turbulent tide of history taking in the Second World War, civil war, fires and earthquakes.


Hislop does a wonderful job of weaving Katerina's story in with the history. She writes beautifully (though sometimes doesn't trust her reader enough, over-explaining some things, which can be annoying!).

This is a timely novel given the current chaos in Greece. it was also a timely read for me personally as the theme of refugees here mirrors that same theme which plays an important part in the novel I'm writing!

As a crafter, I was also struck by the detail of the sewing that Katerina did, the wonderful clothes that she made even during times of hardship.

The Thread by Victoria Hislop published by HeadlineBooks

A Year of Doing Good by Judith O'Reilly

Judith O'Reilly made a New Year's resolution to do a good deed every day and in this book she records the deeds she did, how she felt about them and muses on the meaning of doing good. Along the way she makes friends, meets philosophers, carers, lifeboat volunteers and others who spend their lives 'doing good' or in the case of philosophers thinking about doing good.

Some of the good deeds are small, like letting people in front of her in queues, some are large (and ongoing) like teaching a disabled child how to write stories (I love the fact that one of the stories they worked on was called Bunny's Bad Day!). In addition she set up a fund-raising scheme for her local hospice, the Jam Jar Army which is still raising funds for good causes.Oh and she picks litter too.

This is a very entertaining book, which really gets the reader thinking about doing good deeds and being a good citizen.

A Year of Doing Good by Judith O'Reilly published by Penguin

Disclaimer - I won this copy of this book from Penguin's Readarama project.