Memory of a Film Festival*

the happiest memories are hidden in us as in the deepest well

they tend to scream throughout our lives

every time it’s bad and times are hard

so that we can get on with each of our ordinary days

as a rule, all the first events are the best

because only then we can draw from the greats

I had this once at my first film festival

I was lucky enough to dive deep into them

among them was Cassavetes, an American director

while each of us sat on creaking red chairs

the smell of putrefaction penetrated

all the corners of the theatre where it all began

with a woman wholly free from conventions

I perceived the world intensely with the sense of sight

letting my inner eye put a magnifying lens on the cinema screen

where “Requiem for a Dream” was heard in “Songs from the Second Floor”

where happened to die one of the best human souls

the first meeting with Jim influenced me for the following years

for the longest time I could not find better alternatives

although I always went to the dentist alone

without asking Steven Wright’s permission

my sense of touch perished on “Lost Highway”

“Eraserhead” played a key role in this

industrial levitation and daydream metamorphosis

of an individual with a frozen face, haunted eyes, and bristling hair

the father of a gruesome infant

every time I recall those less than two weeks

it occurs to me a strange sense of sentiment

me, over twenty years younger

zero experience, head in the clouds, and yet

a great sense of taste forged and guarded to the last blood

there was no way to take it away from me

it stays with me like the toughest tree that resists the strongest wind

even when mum tried to snatch

previous catalogues collected from each of them

as there were few festivals following the first one where

I spoke to the press about my getters

that I did not inherit any skills or tastes from them

I just built a new life for myself

where the Coen brothers were mottling the scene

with a slightly sinister feeling

harnessing the macabre into writing and so

Barton Fink has become a quintessence

of a writer I still yet to be

trying to find “Blue Velvet” to wrap myself in

and keep writing “The Straight Story”

for future generations to be duly discovered

---

*In my poem, I described my first meeting with the New Horizons Film Festival, then still called Era New Horizons, in 2001. It happened in Sanok, a remote place in my home country, where I arrived alone by train. I also participated in subsequent editions of this festival in Cieszyn, before it settled in Wrocław for good, becoming international and one of the most recognisable not only in Poland, but also on the international arena. I stopped attending it in 2008, shortly before immigrating to the UK, but I kept buying DVDs of the filmmakers I had learned to appreciate there.

I will always fondly remember the unique aura surrounding it and the films that paved the way for me as a viewer and directors as creators. The two festival weeks were always filled with films that could be watched non-stop, up to five a day, and that was just one selection from five different options shown simultaneously in five different cinemas.

I remember audience reciting commercials word for word before each movie as they always screened the same ones over and over again. I felt that sense of community then that I couldn't find anywhere else in the world for all these years and I always miss those times so much and often have a tear in my eye.

I want to add that I recently visited my home country and that's part of the reason why I didn't have enough time to edit this poem for Sensational Challenge. I went to the New Horizons Cinema for one screening with a lesson and a talk and I was stunned by the full cinema room (I bought the last ticket:) and the unchanged reactions of the audience. Same energy, same sense of community, same me. A lover of niche cinema to the bone. But is it still a niche if the room is full?

---

Thank you for reading!

If you liked this poem, you can add your Insights, leave a Heart, Tip, Pledge, or Subscribe. I will appreciate any support you have shown for my work.

You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Mescaline Brisset on my Vocal profile. The art of creation never ends.