So here it is...

My video from Pyrenees is ready and you can watch it here:

GR11 - Journey through the Pyrenees from Tomas Wotan Suski on Vimeo.

It is my farewell to Spain video... I had brilliant times there and I learned a lot of new things, met some lovely people. All those memories will remain with me forever. The final long walk through the mountains was both very physically and mentally exhausting, but at the same time, every day of my journey I was just one step away from an amazing beauty.
I know it changed me. It will probably take me some time to figure out where I'm heading now but one thing is for sure, that I'm not the same anymore.
Even now, weeks after, among many daily routine/money/reality/human relationships/ problems I am able to close my eyes and instantly go far away, to the quiet place in the forest, where I sat down for a break, or a mountain ridge overlooking one of many valleys I climbed through. I can be there and feel the wind in my hair, the sun rays touching my face... I feel like I've never completed GR11. Whenever I close my eyes I'm still walking.

Pirineos Adventure

The long walk - GR11 in spanish Pyrenees has been completed, and I got some amazing footage. As soon as the video is done I will post a link here.

Unfortunately that will be the last blog entry, as Filming in Spain is over and I'm creating another blog soon, called Filming in Poland. Online very soon!

Things I'm gonna miss from Madrid

lovely flat at Lola Membrives with my best flatmates - Sami, Flora y Tomas
Chinese shop from downstairs
Beer or whiskey at the terraza, looking at the cityscape
Boats in el Retiro
Teleferico ride to Casa de Campo
Eating bocadillo de calamares at Plaza Mayor
Tapas at Malaspina
Botellones and the night life
The best metro ever
Going to Sierra de Guadarrama and my favorite train to Cotos
Seeing Cuatro Torres from miles outside the city
Sun sun sun

and probably a lot more things...

I will miss Madrid a lot.

filming in Spain finaly

Yes! I am going to be filming something. In a little bit different way than I expected, but still I'm looking forward to it. Before I get to that a little update of what happened in the last few weeks, organized chronologically in bullet points!

1) (ok they are not points but numbers)
After Edinburgh Film Festival I came back to Spain and I did what I usually do there, which is totally nothing. Really unproductive week full of eating tapas and drinking cañas, but still some ideas for my new movie have emerged in my head. Time passed fast to the number:

2)
Another job in Scotland - T in the Park music festival, which as all jobs in Scotland I'm getting - was absolutely amazing. It was good to come back, especially with brilliant weather for this part of the world. The festival itself was fine - I filmed some pretty good bands. From my stage the best ones this year were: Pendulum and Katy Perry with her tartan dress - amazing (to see, not only hear!). Apart from that the main attraction of this year's T for the Tech team was a game of spoons introduced to us by Mike Guest (one of the camera guys). The rules were simple - take a wooden spoon (or a big metal one) and hit somebody with it when they least expecting it. I know, sounds a bit childish, but everybody was playing it. I really enjoyed this work, great times (even sleeping on porta-cabin floor was alright).
I left Edinburgh again (for the 5th time I think) and of course there was a small leaving party drinks.

3)
Back to Spain - same old - doing nada, but this time I could be a tour guide cause some friends were visiting me. So I went again through the nicest parts of the city, and also surrounding towns like Toledo (were we got lost 100 times, without a map) and Segovia and beautiful mountains of Guadarrama.

4)
After this it was time to say goodbye to Madrid. I will have all great memories about it, although professionally it was a complete failure. I discovered that independent film networks, and local filmmaking don't exist in Spain, and there is simply no work in my profession there. I tried my best and it didn't happen, sometimes you just have to accept it and move on. And so I did. I was only worried of how the hell I'm gonna ship 60kg of my film equipment back to Varsovia...

Ok, enough numbers. At this moment I'm back to Poland, repacking all day, because I'm about to set on a journey, which can be described only as the most amazing and hardest hike of my life. I'm about to walk from the shore of Atlantic the shore of Mediterranean all the time through the Pyrenees. I plan to film something there, maybe not a documentary but rather something simple, like a memory from every day of the journey. Wish me luck everyone! I won't be back before end of September so I won't be updating the blog (not many hot spots in Pirineos). Once I come back I will do some serious film work, I had enough holidays for a while. All the best to people reading this (and also to all other people in the world and extraterrestrial species out there in the universe).

A touch of cine-world

Hello world,

I've neglected this little place of cyberspace, I know, but for the first time this year I've been really busy, so I have a good excuse. Let's get on to it then.

After a lovely Burgman scooter trip around south of rainy Poland I came back to España, to do... completely nothing. Madrid works for me like a charger for my inner solar panels. I go somewhere to do stuff, I come here and nada I stay in my bed for long hours, watch tons of TV series, drink some cañas, enjoy the sun. What a life. I could do this without an end if I had ongoing work somewhere else. Maybe it´s a good model and I´m sure I will come back to it one day. So apart from starting playing endless campaigns in Heroes of Might and Magic with my flatmate, nothing really happened.

Until 13th of June, when I yet again went to Scotland. I got a job at the Film Festival again and it turned out to be an amazing fun. I can't share here all of the stories from the festival unfortunately, but I will share a few.

As always I saw Sir Sean Connery, 3 times! It's so surreal, when you see old James Bond on the street. Very cool. He is a patron of the festival and he comes down there every time.

My job was - to set a stage, lights and cameras for the interviews with invited guests. The interviews were recorded and broadcasted live on the big cinema screen for the audience. Unfortunately I don't remember the names of all the guests invited this year, but the most interesting ones were: Sam Mendes, Darren Aronofsky and Antony Dod Mandle, plus of course Joe Dante (director of the cult movie: Gremlins). Most of those interviews was really interesting.

Another guest was Ted from RED, showing us his prototype of a new RED Scarlet Camera, I had a chance to touch it as well. I'm looking forward to see them in action, it will be a true digital revolution. Nice one Mister Ted RED.

Apart from that there was a lot of parties (and free bars) which is nice when you are a poor DOP and you don't wanna spend a fortune on drinks. I have some great stories from all of those parties, but I don't really want to share them at this public space. After all this is a blog about filmmaking.

Speaking of which I made contact with a few nice people and who knows, maybe we will be working in the future. At the moment I'm still working on my new movie treatment and the idea is gaining more and more solid ground. I want to have it done by the end of the month, so I can send it away to other writers for consultation.

I watched only two movies, sadly, because as always I didn't really have time to see anything. So I saw "The Hurt Locker" - not bad film full of tension about a bomb diffusion expert in Iraq, and a new Lars von Trier film Antichrist which I truly detest. It was really evil... I don't know what is going on in Lars's head but it's nothing good. If I ever meet him I will say - cheer up man, have an Irn Bru, which he wouldn't probably understand. So a word to anyone, especially couples, or potential couples - do NOT go see that film with your girlfriend... oh no... I don't know if Lars knows how many potential dates he has ruined, because people didn't know what to expect from the film and went to see it anyway. Shame on you Lars, for ruining peoples dates... and the economy (cause once you see it you won't go to the cinema for a while cause of the trauma). For me Lars is over. I will never see his film again.

So with this optimistic news I shall finish and also I want to say that I had a brilliant time in Scotland with the wonderful tech team to work with. It is a shame it's over. Good times!

Now I'm chilling out (well not really cause it's hot like hell) in Madrid, and in the week time I will be back to Scotland for T in the Park music festival, three days filming on the stage, live gig, 80 thousand people, amazing. I look forward to it.

Road tripping at last, no plans, no maps.

Hello world,

Do not make any plans, why bother. Sometimes it's best just to let it go, see what day will bring. I wanted to go to Spain on my scooter Suzuki Burgman 400, but it was damn risky thing to do. I was on a bus to Opole (city south west of Poland, close to Wroclaw) when it occurred to me - I'm driving to Spain, cool, but how on earth I'm gonna come back? Since I'm not staying in Spain for good, I will have to bring the bike back to Warsaw... damn it.
Drive back the same way ? In September after trip in Pyrenees ? Not such a good idea. So I decided to abandon my plans again. Seems like this year is no good for anything cause none of the things I planned really worked.

But I was there in Opole, the bike was fixed, I had some free time. So here it is a very very tiny motorcycle diary, hopefully it is a good beginning and it will lead to more trips in the future.

Day 1
I drove to Wroclaw from Opole through some nice little towns like Brzeg. When I arrived to the city it was like - where the hell am I going, where is the city centre? Wroclaw is beautiful, but unfortunately it's shit to drive there. Total chaos with trams trying to run you over everywhere. Especially for a newbie like me it was a challenge to find my way around. I called the office of the Film Festival KAN to see if anyone is there. It was funny. I went there and said - hi I won the main prize, can I have it? I had a 30 minutes chat with festival artistic director, and it was all good. I will keep in touch with them.
Then motorway all the way back to Opole...
I phoned my friend - a photographer and a cameraman, because I remember him saying months ago, when we first met, that he had a house in Bieszczady Mountains, so I phoned and ask, can I come over on a bike, and he said yes. There we go - my plan was clear now.
Day 2
Hurricane and rain outside in Opole, so I phoned my friend and told him I will go next day. In the afternoon it was sunny again so I just drove around the local villages.
Day 3
Cloudy, but no rain. So let's go. Motorway to Katowice, then to Cracow it was a toll road, a rubbish one, because you pay to be stuck in a traffic jam, cause of the roadworks every 10 km, a total nonsense, but Poland is a total nonsense kind of place. Good that my Burgman could easily go through traffic jams in between cars. Then the landscape slowly started to change after I left Cracow (more hills and mountains). And finally I reached Bieszczady and my friend waiting for me near his house around 4pm. We went for a walk to the forest. It was good to be there. I havent been to Bieszczady for years.
Day 4
Rain again - shit weather in this country comparing to Spain. But we decided to go for a little trip anyway. First stop - abandoned house in the forest and a railway tunnel. Both nice film locations and both scary. I wonder how these places would look at night. The house is supposed to be haunted, we went inside and I made a little video and some pictures. It was empty, a bit scary, but I didn't feel anything unusual about it. Then the tunnel - we walked to the other side. It was long. It took us good few minutes to walk through and I forgot a torch so I didn't really see where I'm going. The train passes through the tunnel twice a day, so it's unlikely you come across one, and still the tunnel is wide, so it is possible to dodge the incoming train :-) Interesting experience.
At the other side it was Slovakia - another country. We looked around and came back to the bikes. Driving the Burgman in rain is not a great experience. But before coming back home we decided to go to Slovakia to Tesco and get some beer. Not some long time ago polish people were going to Slovakia because it was cheaper. Now they have Euro and Slovakian people are coming to Poland for shopping.
Day 4
I decided to go, cause the weather was getting better. Time to visit some family in another beautiful region of Poland called Roztocze. I left Bieszczady and drove to Przemysl, and then through some little villages to Tomaszow Lubelski. I visited all the cousins and grandparents. I haven't seen them for ages so it was nice to be there. Kunki is a little farm village where I spent every summer when I was a kid. This place brought back some memories as always.
Day 5
It was time to come back to Warsaw. My grandmother wanted to give me lots of food... but I didn't have space in the bike at all... Weather as always in Poland - shit. Rain and wind half of my day made driving difficult and not so pleasant. But my new tires did a good job. Nothing much to report from that day - I was driving all day and I reached Warsaw. During those 5 days I made about 1100km on my Burgman. I didn't go to Spain but I guess it wasn't a right time to do this. Maybe next year.

It's time to leave this town... without driving license (Ouch!)

Bad luck part II, it's never easy. But often things turn out to be good at the end. I went back to Poland, taking easyjet through Berlin and then a train to Warsaw. It was a bit of a pain in the ass journey, but it was cheaper and I originally planned to do it without luggage. When I was booking these tickets I didnt know I'm gonna be leaving Spain with all my film equipment. Oh well...

In Berlin I wanted to buy ADAC membership, it's like a motor club that works in the whole EU, for about 60 euros I have free assistance everywhere in case of accident on the road. Google told me that ADAC is near the airport... but it wasn't and nobody knew where it was. I had about an hour an a half to get to Ostbanhof train station so I could run around Berlin looking for it with big heavy bags on me. So another fail of the day. Oh well...

The next day in Warsaw I realized something terrible - I've left my driving license in Madrid, I was 100% sure I did not take it to Spain in the first place. I was wrong. Oh well...

My flatmate kindly posted the license to me, but it will be a few days before it arrives so I just have to wait. He mentioned when he went to Correos (post office) there was some kind of fuck up with all the computers in whole Madrid, and they couldn't post it for two hours. Oh well...

Good things are - I got a short camerawork at the big book festival in Warsaw. In Poland I get work straight away every time I'm here, without looking. In Spain nothing seems to be going on... and which is even nicer during this book festival I had an opportunity to meet Jacek Dukaj, well established sci-fi writer, based upon whom work I wrote script for All Secrets movie. Nice one! It was pretty good to chat and meet in person.

Now I'm leaving to Opole, where my scooter is. I'm waiting for the license and taking it for a ride to see if everything is fine.