Film Star for a Day

My vanity was basking in the corrupting glory of that 15 minutes of fame that Andy Warhol talked about on Tuesday night as I had the rather gratifying experience of being a film star for an evening. Here above with Elisabet Gustavson, the Director of the feature length film about the final days of Hotel Djenne Djenno; about being me and being her. ‘A philosophical, rather than political film’, said the  first reviewer, who seemed to be a little disappointed that it was a film about us, about changing one’s life; about personal challenges rather than anything to do with race, which she probably expected from a film set in Mali...

However it was noisily and well received at the Premiere, held at the ZITA, a small independent cinema in Central Stockholm, which was packed out mainly with people who had had something to do with the film, who were friends or relatives, so their enthusiasm was perhaps no real indication of how the film will be received by the real, paying  public on Friday night...The composer of the film’s music had arrived from London; the sound technician from Paris; the first Swedish ambassador I knew in Mali, Carin Wall was there, as well as many other people who had Malian connections, and who had visited the hotel, such as the Dutch Jay, 

                                

with me above, who features in a very small part in the film- he was one of the last visitors and is seen in a scene on a happy starlit night when we dine in the hotel garden, laugh and smoke big cigars...Jay came to Stockholm for the Premiere!

Earlier a large contingent of my cousins congregated and the head of the clan, Pelle, invited us all to a lovely Japanese early dinner treat before the show.

Afterwards the producers, the composer, Jay and a couple of others ended up at Sturehov, a venerable old restaurant around the corner which doesn’t close- the party ended about three I think...