A confrontation with the Mayor of Malmo?

Having enjoyed meeting many film makers and educational types at various functions at the Malmo BUFF Festival, I was looking forwards to the awards ceremony on the Saturday. My mum, riling away for some sort of juicy confrontation, commanded that I must go find the Mayor at the ceremony which was being held in the Malmo Townhall. Supposedly, my grandfather Wredenfors argued with the father of the current Mayor and had some sort of big falling out. As there are only a few Wredenfors in the world (the grandfather mentioned before created the name!), my mum was sure the Mayor would recognise it.

In the end, I didnt speak to the Mayor but did have the good fortune to be placed at the Directors' table. But firstly, the food! There was a huge buffet, spangled throughout with gold candlelabras flickering candlelight, presenting a mass of smoked fish and meat. Everything was truly delicious and reassuring Swedish. However, there wasnt a pool of prawns with a huge prawn made out of prawns as is mentioned by Tracy Jordan in the genious program '30 Rock'...no just plain old normal prawns.

Initially I felt a little intimidated by the company, 5 directors and producers from across Europe, and the managing director of the BUFF festival and me just a teacher - what could I contribute to the conversation?! I wasnt too shy for long and to be honest, as soon as you mention working in education, everyone has a point of view and opinion they want to share with you (after all, everyone has gone to school at some point!).

I was sat next to a Dutch director called Ineke Houtman, who was absolutely charming in her warnth and enthusiasm. We shared a few glasses of wine together and talked about her film 'The Indian' (see http://www.buff.se/katalog/visafilm_eng.asp?ID=784&year=2010 . Throughout the evening we were often interupted by admirers who stated her film was beautiful and moving. Not surprisingly Ineke won the Children's Jury prize!

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening; it was everything that it should have been, great food, fantastic company and lively conversation. Never before have I had a conversation about the state and mood of young peoples' films at one table with directors from Berlin, Oslo, Dublin, Amsterdam and Stockholm. So thank you BUFF and thank you Watershed for the great time!