Καλό Πάσχα!

This is a little showcase of material I have accumulated over the years, some of it during Island Bus filming, some on other occasions.
Sneak a peak at what it’s like to celebrate on Tilos…

Sacred Tilos – religious scenes from Tilos Island, Greece from Sibylle Meder on Vimeo.

Scenes from different religious events on the Greek island of Tilos.

(DEUTSCHE VERSION)

It’s been a while, folks, but don’t think our temporary radio silence means that things aren’t happening. On the contrary: post-production is under way – expect an extra blog about it all soon – and in the mean time we’ve made some Island waves in Germany.

In their 03/2013 issue, German filmmaker’s magazine “zoom” ran a six-pages report about our documentary’s making-off. Even though you might not be able to read it abroad, rest assured as faithful blog readers you should know parts of the story already. And the pics are international, aren’t they? Just like The Island Bus passengers.

Here’s the link to “Wenn der Feta mitfährt” (roughly translates to: “Riding with feta”).

Alles Gute from Germany,

Sibylle

(DEUTSCHE VERSION)

Dear friends and followers,

we will have to take a little break from blogging for a while. Do not despair: THE ISLAND BUS keeps moving on the roads of Tilos, behind the scenes, we keep the documentary moving in the edit suite – oh, and: yes, summer will return one day… Promised!

Your friendly team behind the wheel is eager to take you on more journeys. So keep checking back here – we will return, too! (And much earlier than summer…!)

Love,

Sibylle and the whole ISLAND BUS team

(DEUTSCHE VERSION – AUCH PAUSIERT)

The perks of living the island life: you get plenty of practice in weathering storms. Literally.

While the Beauforts are raging happily around the Southern Dodecanese and the ferry boats are hiding in sheltered harbours, THE ISLAND BUS is waiting patiently for the all-clear.

Don’t tell me you don’t hone your time management skills and resourcefulness on a small island – life on Tilos is a boot camp in both!

Καλό ταξίδι μας!

(DEUTSCHE VERSION – genauso böig)

I’m refining THE ISLAND BUS rough cut, trimming it down from the 3 hours 45 mins director’s indulgence version (I’m exaggerating again slightly) to a more viewable 90 minutes.

If you are in need of chopping a few seconds here and a minute there, it’s advisable to keep all the exiting action and get rid of something less jaw-dropping, like: a sunset. I’m not totally convinced by this rule of thumb which stems from Hollywood storytelling and – while rather well-suited to car chase drama – might need refining if applied to warm-hearted documentary set on a beautiful remote island with a much slower pace. But it’s only a rule of thumb, so we will just go with it for the moment and adjust when needed.

Which is: now. Because here is the thing: what is a sunset? How much of it is exiting action and when does it get boring to you? Hhmm? This is merely a rhetorical question, I will have to feel my way into the appropriate length for the perfect ISLAND BUS sunset alone – and I can promise you, there are a few jaw-dropping nanoseconds involved.

But in defense of all the sunset images possible, I’d like to include a few of my very own personal selection for you to enjoy.

Beige-rose-indigo version with headland

Totally tinted with tiny caique

This one felt like walking through vaporised colour

I sometimes wonder whether the beach does this on purpose to keep me from working

And sometimes it just gets a bit excessive

So – which ones would you cut? Don’t worry, none of them are from the film. These are just the B-roll sunsets I capture when I stretch my legs after a long day. And now I got them out of my system – good for the edit!

Here is to a good night and a lovely weekend!

(DEUTSCHE VERSION – EBENFALLS ROSAROT)

Not too impressed with the blackout that happened just as I was about to turn the paper edit (i.e. the outline of what I was going to change about THE ISLAND BUS rough cut) into the real thing, I went on a bit of disaster tourism instead…

Colourful outing when following the outline won’t work

By its definition, disaster tourism is nosing around where you shouldn’t and this excursion was no different. Those of you who know Tilos probably care less about whether I get my edit edited in time than about the recent collapse of the Lethra footpath. So here is what it looks like:

Path lying down low

To me, the damage in the new spot just outside Livadia seems less scary than what happened now in the spot where the path had already collapsed a few years past.

It’s a long way down

Now, while I was hanging here like Tarzan off some Euphorbia branches to take these photos (I’m exaggerating, but only very slightly), I couldn’t help thinking that – if there wasn’t an earthquake or a landslide or yet another torrential rainfall right now – I got at least a little story for this week’s blog. It might not have been the work I intended that day, but well, life doesn’t always play game.

Walk on the bright side

Those of you who are into film have probably started to wonder whether making a film on an island like Tilos is really advisable. Here is what I think: even with all its blackouts, natural disasters, interrupted internet connections and video file upload marathons which do make it feel like a nightmare sometimes – this is probably the only way I could have made this film. Because after experiencing all the above first hand, I begin to grasp what makes the people we meet on THE ISLAND BUS and their attitude towards life so unique: even if there is no electricity, even if they have no papers, even if the government is collapsing (or a footpath), there is still some beauty to be found somewhere.

Funny that it takes us humans sometimes hanging off a cliff to notice it.

There is a reason why Tilos’s own radio station is called Κυκλάμηνο (Cyclamen) FM

PS: DISCLAIMER – I’d like to say that I strongly discourage anyone walking along the photographed parts of the Lethra path as they ARE UNSTABLE AND LIABLE TO COLLAPSE. It is a very long way down into the sea – and you don’t want to find out how long. DO NOT WALK THERE!

(DEUTSCHE VERSION)

Καλό μήνα σε όλους!

…Had you noticed that included in THE ISLAND BUS blog package is a super-rudimentary course of Greek greetings and smalltalk? Today’s first line reads in super-rudimentary English: Happy month to all of you! – and yes, it means: may you have a splendid February! (To unlock the full version of director’s Greek, you have to buy me a drink. It’s going to be worth it, I promise: yesterday, a very flattering Communication Officer of the Secretary General of Communication and Information congratulated me on my Greek when responding to my email request for a shooting permit. Ever since I’ve been a bit full of myself.)

So, what’s news here? Well, the start of the week saw Sibylle (that’s me, the director with the fantastic Greek) and main ISLAND BUS character and Tilos resident Saeed (soon to learn fantastic English – Anglophone world, beware!) invading the castle in Megalo Chorio for a photo session, as a few portraits of the “boy who came” – who is by now a beard-growing adolescent – were needed.

I think we managed alright…

… until altitude dizziness kicked in…

… then we might have gone a bit over the top…

…literally.

Don’t blame it on us – blame it on Tilos winter landscape in full bloom!
Καλό Σαββατοκύριακο!

(DEUTSCHE VERSION – in fantastic German, of course)

Today, my grandfather would have turned 109.

Neither is he still around to celebrate – he died over two decades ago and I have already paid him a tribute in one of my first short stories – nor did he ever visit Tilos. (Though he did make it to Athens late in life and with his chain-smoking habit and always clad in a three-piece suit he fitted right in with the old-fashioned crowd at the capital’s kafenia.) So why do I start a blog entry with the memory of him?

Thinking of him, I think of “home” – though we never lived in the same city. “Home” to me is a state of mind, a sense of calm and love. And he embodied that.

“Home” and the search for it is also a key topic in THE ISLAND BUS. And there is another connection: As I stumbled recently over a collection of centenarian portraits by a German photographer, the faces looking at me out of those photos made me marvel and wonder what those eyes had seen in their lifetime of over a hundred years. There can be something very comforting about old age. To us younger ones, the message seems to be: look, if we managed to get this far, so can you. It’s not always been an easy ride, but it has certainly been interesting.

It’s the same sense of wonder that I felt when I first met the elderly of Tilos for THE ISLAND BUS. There is currently no one on Tilos over a hundred but with Giorgos and Marta who work for the home-care program we visited many of the island’s eldest like Kyrios Nikolas who lived in his little blue and white house in Megalo Chorio well into his nineties. “Home” for him might have meant something very different than for me or Marta or Saeed, yet for a while all of us got to share his island.

Here’s to life.

It filled me with the same sense of wonder again that I felt as a little girl. I am convinced this sense of wonder is what makes me a filmmaker.

Today’s blog is a tribute to both:
to a home that can be found wherever you are and to old age, to a life lived to the length but also to the full.

I hope to have captured for you my sense of wonder about both in THE ISLAND BUS.

(DEUTSCHE VERSION)

Winter on Tilos is the time for expert discussions of all kind.
The appropriate place for them is, of course, the kafenion. Depending on temperature, they can happen outdoors…

Expert discussion #1: Greek politics in past, present and future

… or indoors…

Expert discussion #2: What makes a good shepherd’s crook?

…and range from the pastoral to the political – and back again.

Do not be intimidated by the range of subjects: an expert in the high art of Greek kafenion chat can easily go from pension payments to water treatment, from farming to fashion in the course of a bus break.

For a real life example, just wait for THE ISLAND BUS.

(DEUTSCHE VERSION)

It’s a quiet time at THE ISLAND BUS central, behind the scenes we are preparing more good things for you and this is a good reason to share some impressions of the bus and its wondrous ways.

The Agios Antonios Island Bus stop in winter

And a bit of trivia:

These blog statistics never fail to fascinate. Today, we’ve got one visitor from Vatican City – which by the way neatly adds yet another state to our quickly expanding list of countries with hopefully at least one cinema screen. Might the Pope himself turn out an Island Bus fan? He’s German after all, living in a foreign country in what could be considered a bit of an island position with plenty of other people from all over the world… Or is that just my imagination running wild? In any case: Happy Weekend!

(Deutsche Version)