Final Movie Meetings in Florence, On Vacation Now in Sesimbra

Calm. You may wonder how I could write an interesting blog about a soothing, calm experience? Sesimbra is so mellow and normal after the fancy-pants Italian culture. Though, right now I can hear a marching band performing on the oceanfront promenade around the corner. When I went for my speed walk this morning I watched them dragging old fishing boats onto the sand at the base of the fortress. A few people were in costume, so I guessed an event would follow… I was right. We’re going to head out and see what’s up.

It turns out that it’s Fisherman’s Day in Sesimbra. Every year on May 31^st, they re-enact the culture in Sesimbra during the mid 1900’s. A lady explained it all to me as we stood watching the activities on the beach with her Portuguese family interrupting her constantly to share some other tidbit with me. There were several groups represented; The fishermen, the widows, the wives, the girls who worked in the canneries, and the tourists. Even the donkey, an ever-present pet of a local, was present. It was actually pretty amazing to be here for such an important day.

I promised I’d recount the meetings on the day before we left Florence. We took the train to Prato and were picked up by one of the film-studio execs. He whisked us down every back road to the studio. This is not so much a filming studio but more a film preparation and post-production place. We were shown into the room with the artists creating costumes, then a room displaying some of their more famous costumes from the series; Medici.

We sat at a long table and discussed the production of The Tattered Book. The head of it all turned his laser eyes on me and asked me to tell him about the story, but don’t take too long. Hmmm… I’m still working on my pitch and I felt like it came off okay—not good, but okay. They expressed an interest in being hired for production. They asked for a copy of the book. Mark and their team discussed tax credits and rebates and other mysterious stuff. Finally we were whisked back to the train station and almost got hit by an SUV. Trotting through the tunnel (because we were late as usual) we got stopped by the police and were told to produce our passports. We don’t travel with our passports. Thankfully they accepted our driver’s licenses.

Back in Florence, we hoofed it to the next meeting using the app on my phone. This time was with a young woman who right away asked me to describe the story. I was still panting and sweating, but I did it. This time I finally found my rhythm. Instead of telling her the story, I said, “Imagine a magical book where the main character fell in love with the reader. What if it was about you—what you need, desire, yearn for. For everyone who reads it, the story is different. In this case, Cassi, a shy introverted woman, reads about a handsome detective in Florence. She dreams about him and Marco begins to fall in love with her during the dreams. When she reads the book, she sees herself in the story. Naturally, this makes her question her sanity, but her elderly friend encourages her to not take it so seriously… just enjoy the book while she can. Cassi gives him her email in a dream, and voila! They have a real connection… if only they could meet in the real world.”

Anyway, she liked it and was interested in producing it. She also asked for a copy of the book. I’m finding most of them are interested in getting paid to produce it. I don’t mean that in a cynical way, but it is their business. They make movies. However, they seem to want to make sure it’s something they want to be associated with. So far, it looks like I’m going to have to change the location to either Lucca, Pistoia, or Prato.

We said goodbye to Mark Holmes on Wed morning and we went our separate ways—us to Portugal and him off to Greece. Now we’re in a cute little house next to the beach in a fishing village. Part of the charm of Sesimbra is the difficulty in getting here. It keeps it slightly off the beaten tourist-path. We took an Uber from the Lisbon Airport for fifty bucks. Otherwise you have to take a train, a bus, and a walk. As it was, our Uber driver had a hard time getting us close to our place without scraping the side of his car on the narrow streets.

Sadly the air-conditioner is broken. The fan they brought over rescued us at night, and the mornings are fresh. We open all the windows like our neighbors and I sit on our step with a cup of coffee. As the locals walk past on their way to pastries I greet them with, “Bom dia.” Now I’ve wormed my way into their lives and they greet me, even if it’s somewhere else. The lady who cleans our street was stunned when I greeted her the other day. She just stared at me. Now she greets me first. She’s also on intimate terms with every dog in the neighborhood. They get so excited when they see her with her electric trike and bucket.

Joe goes to the beach gym and I go for my walk, then we pack up our backpack and head to the beach for the day. It’s absolutely lazy. The ocean street is one-way and can get busy. What amazes me is how patient people are. A van will stop in front of a restaurant to offload its product and the cars behind it just sit there… no beeping horns, nothing. It’s rare to hear a car horn, but there’re plenty of situations that would elicit that in the States. If someone walks by with a boombox, I can guarantee you it’s not a Portuguese. The only time you hear them being noisy is when they’re talking. It sounds like a fight, but it’s not… also when a Portuguese soccer game is on. Then it’s really loud.

Meat and Scouting Scenes

This may come as a shock to you, but I’m not a big fan of traditional Italian food. I don’t normally eat food made from grains, so pasta, bread, pizza, etc.. aren’t my favorite. I’ve learned to either get a charcuterie board or order from the ‘second plate’ part of the menu. This has been such a great discovery for me. I’ve heard of this Florentine Steak served here, but they are super expensive. It looks like it’s a thick cut of a ribeye steak leaving in the big center bone, which drives up the cost because it is sold by weight. It would be cheaper to order the famous meat raised near here as a ribeye instead of getting the Florentine cut. We ordered one just for the experience for 75 euros. It was delicious for the meat and fed the three of us, but, as I said, I’d just get a steak next time.

The restaurant we went to has the stereotypical Italian men working there. The good looking younger brother stands in the doorway flirting with every female that passes by and complimenting the men. He told Mark, “I’ve been to Alabama! I had a girlfriend there.” His brother was the waiter and an old guy who was probably the cook wandered around the tiny restaurant asking if they remembered the actor who played the priest on Saturday Night Live. The implication was that it was himself. He’d come back every couple of minutes to ask us again. We finally asked the server and he whispered it to Joe. Next time the old guy interrogated us we made a show of recalling the character’s name. It was comical how gratified he was.

We’ve been busily walking the routes of the characters from the screenplay. We went to the police station, down Via Santa Monaca (which I’m going to change to a more attractive street), Ponte Vecchio, the Duomo, and up and down every side street and alley we were drawn into. We even ate at Grom Gelato because that was in a scene—the sacrifices we make to create a film!

We also took the train to Lucca. This time we let Mark do his own thing while Joe and I wandered and sat watching the world go by. I think Lucca has everything we need to film The Tattered Book. Lots of narrow streets, towers, piazzas, and churches. The giant earthen wall outside the actual city walls is gorgeous and has plenty of romantic vistas. The tunnel from the police station outside the wall into the old city would be awesome on film.

The next day Mark and I took the train to Prato and Pistoia. Joe stayed home… which was a good thing because he discovered a rooftop bar to take me to. Mark and I hoofed it around Prato for several hours. It’s a nice, tidy city. It has a really cool castle right in the middle. Everything was good, but the vibe wasn’t quite right. Not that that’s important because the vibe is from the movie, but still… it kinda fell flat.

Pistoia was a similar city but had more elegant piazzas and churches. It’s famous for its flowers and nurseries. We came across several outdoor plant markets. I like Pistoia better than Prato. It’s more like Florence, but no crowds. We can’t decide which would be better; Pistoia or Lucca. On our way back we purchased our train tickets and went to the track along with fifty other people and climbed on board. Both of us immediately became immersed in our phones until a dude stopped by us and said, “They canceled this train. It’s not going. You need to get off.” That’s when we noticed we were the only ones on the train. We got off to chaos. Everyone was standing around wondering what to do. I went over to a young Italian woman and asked her what was happening. She shrugged and said she didn’t know. This kind of thing happens all the time. She was staring at the monitor watching for the changed platform to show up since our train was still sitting there on track 2. About one minute before the next train came in (supposedly to track 2) the sign changed to track 4. Everyone started running for the stairs down to the tunnel to get to the other side to track 4. It was crazy. We all clambered aboard and sat there for five minutes. All-in-all, we were an hour late getting home.

Mark went to Rome for more meetings. One was at a well known producer’s home. He invited Mark for dinner and had several people there whom he works with regularly. It lasted so far into the evening that Mark didn’t bother finding a hotel and just stayed awake until his 6:00 am train. Today was more meetings that I’ll tell you about in the next blog.

Gypsies, Antiques, and Movies

We flew from Lisbon to Florence on Sunday and the adventure began. I got a glass of wine and Joe got a beer on the flight. If I’d known I’d be charged for it I would’ve had water, which is probably why Joe didn’t tell me until it was too late. When we left the airport we hooked a hard left and went to the tramvia. As we approached the tracks we encountered a tall lanky dude racing around trying to convince people that he would buy their tickets for them from the little kiosk. We weren’t born yesterday. After we got our tickets without ‘help’ and climbed on board we had a couple of young gypsy gals sitting by us. One asked with concern, “Did you get tickets for your luggage too? Each bag has to have a ticket.” Like I said, we weren’t born yesterday. I told her we’d deal with the consequences. They got off at the next stop.

The Airbnb hostess was waiting for us out front when we arrived on foot. Probably because I texted her and said we were lost. She proudly showed us into her grandparents’ home. It’s like a beautiful time-capsule… even with photos of great grandma and grandpa on the wall. The bed was heavenly. We hunted down a pizza place after walking alongside the Arno for a block or two. This brings me to a pet peeve. It just rubs me wrong to be charged for a placemat and a napkin (2-3 Euros) when I know it cost them 20 cents. It’s highway robbery ;)

The next day Mark Holmes, the producer, arrived. We walked down to the tramvia stop and walked him home. He’s a very nice guy and completely normal. Because the movie industry is a mystery to me, I expected him to be a little uppity. Not so. We went out to dinner at a local place and had a good meal and expensive paper placemats. The next morning we were up early and hoofing it to the bus stop. We stood for about fifteen minutes at the wrong one and then decided to follow the advice on our apps and go to the correct one. Our destination was a small town in Siena called Poggibonsi. We arrived in a rainstorm.

By the time we arrived at the office of the Film company we were soaked. Joe had planned on wandering around during this meeting, but he stayed dry with us. It was kinda cool to have him be present for the meeting. These guys are skilled at pulling everything together in Italy. They seemed very interested, and when we left, they even gave us each a little gift bag of chocolates. We took a group photo and went back into the little town to meet our second guy.

He’s an Italian-American full of energy. He’d actually driven all the way from Florence, about 30 minutes, to pick us up! He wasn’t expecting three of us, so he had to put the baby-seat in the trunk to make room for us. Then he kept up a stream of chatter as he swerved around corners and drove us to a gorgeous restaurant overlooking a little tree lined stream. We shared a giant meat and cheese board and wine… well not Mark. He doesn’t drink wine or beer. Maybe he can’t be trusted. Hmmm. This guy we met with has worked multiple jobs in the movie industry, so he was a wealth of information. It was interesting to talk to him from an American viewpoint. He started off with saying he has finally learned the most important person in the industry is the screenwriter. Nice stroke to my ego. Obviously movies wouldn’t exist without screenplays, but screenplays would just be weirdly formatted books without the production team. Anyway, he apparently liked what Mark had to say, so we’ve been referred to another film guy in Rome.

One thing I’m learning is how this exchange works. I thought it was purely us pitching the screenplay to them, but a larger element is them selling their services to us once they’re convinced we have a valid product. It’s very interesting to me.

Today we are headed to Lucca and possibly Pisa. This is definitely not how we usually travel and it’s taking a lot out of us. Mark has a huge amount of energy and seems to be able to walk endlessly. He’s run his phone dead a couple of times from taking so many pictures. Yesterday Joe and I were straggling along trying to get all the way up to the David plaza lookout while Mark trotted around snapping shots. Suddenly he stops and says he’s run out of juice or energy or something like that. Hope soared. Maybe we could sit somewhere and rest our feet… nope. He was referring to his phone battery.

On our way home we found the cutest curio shop. Mark and I went inside while Joe stood in the alley. It was wall to wall stuff. Everything from salt and pepper shakers to olive wood cutting boards. The elderly man insisted that we have some of the cured meats and sliced cheese on one of the boards. It was such a treat after all the other souvenir shops.

Rogue Waves and Screenplays

We’re wrong about a lot of things… the list is actually pretty long. Partly because we bring all our cultural history and life experiences with us, and partly because of the language barriers. I think this is a normal part of traveling and actually an enjoyable part. The unexpected. The surprising.

A not so favorite language barrier for me is the French fries. Back home I always ask for the fries extra crispy. I have succeeded in being understood once while in Portugal and it was because the owner speaks perfect English. I still didn’t get crispy fries, but he tried. Usually it results in a double order, for which Joe is thankful because he doesn’t have to share them with me. Not sure why, but the Portuguese French fry is a wimpy soft thing like at a fast-food place. When a place has good fries, we go back often.

The shoreline has changed due to a heavy winter. We used to be able to walk in front of the fortress, but now it’s only doable during low tide. We (Joe) decided to go in front of it (instead of climbing up to the road and walking past it) which meant getting our feet wet, but since we were in swimsuits, that didn’t seem terrible. Cold, but not terrible. So with backpack and travel purse we timed it to dash past the wall. We timed it wrong. As soon as we were at the most critical point a wave swept past our feet, up the wall above our heads, and doused us. I’m pretty sure the wave was laughing as we stood on the other side covered in sand and salt water. Everything in the backpack and my purse had to be set out to dry at the restaurant.

This has been a difficult trip for us to predict what to do and what to wear. The weather is absolutely impossible to predict. Even my app is confused. It predicts sunny days for the next week and it rains every day. One time it showed that lovely round yellow sun for the whole day. I held the phone up to show it that it was pouring down rain… seriously, a torrential downpour. The whole day it rained on and off, but the app never changed its prediction.

We brought our swim gear, as usual, to swim laps. The pool is freezing. It’s a love/hate thing. We force ourselves to do it and then we’re cold for a couple of hours in spite of the hot shower. However, we can eat more French fried, hamburgers, and pizza. I hope Florence is warmer next week.

Well, we’re all packed up and ready to go to Lisbon for the night. I had to lay on my suitcase to get it closed. I just checked in for our Flight to Florence for tomorrow, and now I’m sitting here waiting to walk up to the bus stop. We’re going to miss Armação de Pêra but looking forward to spending some time in Sesimbra. I’m excited about my workation in Florence. My producer is a busy guy. Right now he’s in Lisbon at a couple of meetings with Portuguese movie-makers. Why? you ask… because he wants to produce all sequels to first Tattered Book. The second book/screenplay takes place in Portugal.

The first night he arrives in Florence—Monday, we have a meeting with a someone from a film company. Then we will start mapping out the scene locations. We will need to film in front of the police station, across the plaza of the Duomo, in the alley where Grom Gelato is, the Ponte Vecchio, and some back streets on the other side of the Arno River in Oltrarno. We’ll also check out Pistoia and Lucca. On one day we will take the high-speed train to Rome to meet with a producer who’s interested in the film.

Last, but definitely not least, The Tattered Book screenplay has been nominated for best screenplay in the European International Film Festival. This is a new festival and I’m excited to be part of its debut. Their trajectory is somewhat like the Olympics. Every year they will have it in a different European city. Next year it will be held in Rome, but this year it’s in Madrid on May 29-31. I was so tempted to fly to Madrid for the blessed event! Keeping my fingers crossed for winning the Best Screenplay, hopefully not being present won’t prevent me winning. There’s only one other screenplay besides mine nominated, so there’s a pretty good chance.

The 'It Made Me Laugh' Edition

So, this may rub some of you the wrong way, but I can’t resist. Some times things happen that make me laugh, mainly because I can picture it happening to me. I remember, years ago in L.A., we were hanging out at the hotel pool courtyard. Along came a guy. Seemingly very important based on his expensive suit, shoes, sunglasses, and his cell phone glued to his ear. He appeared to be having a power discussion as he arrogantly strutted past us. The pool saw him but he didn’t see the pool… he walked right into the deep end—fancy suit and all. Everyone rose to their feet to rescue him, if needed, but he dog-paddled to the ladder and got out. That was memorable.

The other day, sitting out front of Pedro’s, a group of maybe ten millennials sat around a couple of tables pushed together. They were a good looking group. The best looking one was a raven-haired beauty in a tank-top and loose linen shorts. A seagull flying overhead indiscriminately went pooh on her. Stunned silence was followed by hysterical laughter. Sounds mean, huh? But she was the comedian. When she showed them that it had gone into her shorts pocket, the group was gasping for air, they were laughing so hard.

There’re a lot of pedestrian streets in Armação de Pêra. Can you guess where I’m going with this? A car went creeping down the narrow, steep street the other day. I could tell they didn’t want to be there, but couldn’t figure out how to escape. Literally everyone watched them until they got down to the bottom where a one-way road goes by at a sharp angle. This is when it got worse. They turned down the wrong way, realized their mistake and tried to back up onto the pedestrian street. You know that at this point they were probably completely stressed out (I would’ve have been). Anyway, in their first attempt to back up they hit a garbage can. Then they drove forward to within a couple of feet of a table with people eating lunch—they promptly vacated their seats. Then it backed up over a curb as Joe and I scurried out of danger. They did eventually get going the right way. We laughed only because we’ve all been there to some degree or another.

Have you seen those round window shades for car windows? I have one and they take awhile to figure out how to make them collapse. Apparently there’s a beach pup-tent based on the same principle. The other day we watched a dad attempt to reduce this wind block structure to a little round thing meant to fit inside a bag the size of a grocery bag. It was hysterical to watch this battle. He would almost get it to the right size and it would spring open to its preferred shape. It was so entertaining to his buddies, they pulled out their cell phones and recorded the contest. It appeared that the tent was going to win, but after twenty minutes of sweating and covered in sand, he finally squeezed it into its bag.

Children are basically left to wander where they want. No one is going to hurt them. The other day at a café, a little toddler was wandering around with a couple of giant strawberries clutched in his hands. He saw something else he wanted to pick up. Faced with a dilemma he came over to our table and set a gooey strawberry on the seat next to me, then went back to fetch the seashell and carried to his parent’s table. I picked up the strawberry and wiped the seat off just in time for him to return for it. He stood staring at the clean seat in confusion. He looked up at me with absolute conviction that I was the thief. Mom came to my rescue.

Freedom Day was a couple of weeks ago on April 25^th. It’s a super important day here and Armação de Pêra was packed. This holiday celebrates the day the citizens calmly went out en-mass to place red carnations in the barrels of the militia’s guns. They’d decided they would rather be a republic than a have a socialist government. They succeeded. The next holiday was May-day, or Labor Day. This is a day off from work if you work at a grocery store. It least that’s the way it seemed to us. We needed groceries so we innocently headed out with our little rolling grocery cart. It blew me away that our big store was closed. So we tried the next one, and the next, until we’d tried all five grocery stores. We stopped at our favorite café to have a cup of coffee and rest our feet. The waitress claimed everyone had the day off except the restaurant industry.

Last but not least, I have to poke a little fun at the Brazilians. They are so different from their Portuguese cousins. This sturdy little group of Portuguese are seemingly in awe of the loud, flamboyant Brazilians. They play music on the beach, which is taboo here. They wear the craziest stuff too. Kinda hard to describe really. But the other day Joe and I watched with open mouths as an exotic woman poured an entire one liter bottle of Coke all over her body on the beach and rubbed it in! What? I bet the sand ants loved that feast!

Regarding my screenplay, I’m still scouting places we can film if Florence won’t cooperate. I was leaning toward Pistoia and then I heard about Prato. It’s a beautiful city right by Florence. As I researched its personality, I discovered it is struggling with gang activity right now because of the Chinese textile factories. Their people are controlled by the Chinese syndicates and the Italian mafia doesn’t like that, so occasional skirmishes occur. As pretty as it is and the wonderful history it has, I’m not really interested in placing a film there. This week, I’ve been looking at Lucca. Lucca is one of my favorite cities in Italy. We will make it a day trip to go explore it for the scenes to see if I can adapt it for that city. It doesn't hurt that this will be the week of Lucca's History Festival with all kinds of medieval reenactments.