lust for blood, lust for life

on the set of the music video,
production 7-8 September, Belgium

It has been a while ago that I wrote something. Since Saturday, in fact earlier, I am very busy. Last weekend I directed (the cinematography) for a music video, expected to be released around New Year. It was maybe my most ambitious project, and it was the first big project of Visual Okapi a gathering of young people from and around Leuven, who are interested in film. At the moment we're working on more projects. It is now more a hobby than work; 

Stories are my blood, and films are my veins. 

Creating work which finds beauty in ugliness, 

breaks stereotypes and taboos, and connects, is my way 

to become immortal, to have a life I love.  

In the meantime I started to work in the communication department of the Filmfestival of Gent. I did a lot of graphic work in the last days, so I am practicing my Photoshop and Indesign skills.
It is really interesting to see how a big filmfestival works, behind the screens. We expect many famous Belgian people, and even Hollywood stars, like Joseph-Gordon Levitt. I hope that one day I will be the special guest on a big film festival, but that will not be for the next months; Visual Okapi, work, and renovations demand all my time. I hope to start writing soon a short film. Every day I bicycle 24kms for my work, and during bicycling, when I work out, I always get great ideas, and "have time" to develop them. I also can be very creative in decorating my house.

After the 7 weeks I'll work for the Filmfestival, I'll leave Belgium, even Europe, for another 3 weeks.
Thailand is the first destination, where I want to visit my cousin, get more advanced in diving, another fear of me, and learn to film underwater, and continue writing the novel "The Baobabs from Madagascar". I started to write pieces of this novel, two years ago in Thailand, and I think I have to go back to get in the mood, in these two weeks in Thailand. Also... almost two years ago I made a promise to return in November to Bangkok. And... oooh, there are so many reasons to go to Thailand. My old roommate from the film school also lives there and expects me. On my way home I'll make another stop in another country, where I haven't been, to visit another friend from my old film school.

Last, I am also about to finish my term as Financial Control Commissioner for West; I have to check the financial report these days. For the same organisation I am also doing skype meetings to apply for a grant to organize a seminar next September about cultural dialogue.

Many things to do... Of course there is also time for my close friends and family. This weekend I will join one of my best friends to a weekend trip. My parents host a language student, since this week, for 4 months, in my old room. He's from Walloon, the French part of Belgium. I met him yesterday, after work.

I felt asleep on the coach of the living room of my mother, while watching "About Schmidt". The first hour I saw, was really moving. Mr Schmidt, played by Jack Nicholson, is a man who seems to have lost his lust for life a long time ago. His dreams just disappeared during his career as insurance worker. I have many dreams...

...

and I achieve them, so only the most difficult stay...  Still... this blood in me, these stories, are my life energy. If I would ever loose the lust to write, I know I am not alive anymore...

So... that is why I work so hard now in the film world. I don't want to end up like Schmidt.
I don't want to end up one day of my retirement party, write a letter to my Tanzanian foster child and wonder where I lost my dreams...