Unexpected stop: Bari, Italy

While trying to get from Croatia to Greece, we unexpectedly crossed Bari, Italy. From an online review, we were expecting an industrial town and hoping to stay as short as possible. When we found out that we had an entire day to burn before the next ferry to Greece, we decided to walk into town. We were pleasantly surprised. Bari is not a small place.

First we walked through an “old town” which gave us a sense of small-town Italy. Old stone buildings, cobble-stone streets, laundry wires, old churches, and ancient castle wall remains. Since ancient times, as early as 181 BC, it has been known as a major Mediterranean port, and is still well known as a port city. We quickly realized how important religion is in this part of town. We passed and entered several churches, and lost count of mini shrines/altars set up in the streets, built right into the stone walls. I cannot for the life of me find out what they’re called. It usually consists of a religious painting adorned with curtains, and a shelf for plants, statues, and/or candles. Bikes and scooters are the easiest form of transportation through the narrow old streets, especially when you have to navigate around produce or goods that spill out of shops or are stacked against an alley wall. The front doors of homes were all left open with a lace curtain hanging over the opening for the perfect blend of privacy and fresh air. Would I be weird to implement this genius idea back home?

One of the first things we did was grab breakfast. My eyes went big inside the restaurant. Pizzas, calzones, panzerotti, and paninis were neatly lined up behind glass, waiting to be picked. The coffee list was equally tempting. The names went far beyond my coffee knowledge of lattes and cappuccinos. I had never seen so many names for coffee drinks! This was especially lovely after leaving Croatia, where an espresso machine is rare and the only coffee is overpriced NesCafe, an instant coffee that reminds me of gas station brews. Yuriy and I ordered lattes, grilled panini sandwiches with prosciutto, greens, and thick round slices of milk cheese. We also tried croquettes for the first time—they look like fried mozzarella sticks but have ground potatoes, ham, and cheese inside. Let’s just say it was a good start to the day. 

 

As we continued wandering, we left the “old town” and entered a modern metropolitan city. A big contrast. No more laundry wires. We walked along a major street lined with palm trees and big, well-known designers and stores. We were definitely surprised. We later found out that Bari is the second largest city of Southern Italy, after Naples. I was overjoyed to find several gelaterias. I didn’t get a chance to have any gelato ice cream while in Paris, so I had been craving it ever since. I guess it’s not such a bad thing we waited to get the real thing from Italy. We soon realized we were in the middle of a University town. We sat on the edge of a fountain across the street from the [gorgeous] school, and watched students walking around the park. We strolled through the campus to see more of the fashion the young people were sporting. One thing that puzzled me was these ugly shoes every other person was wearing with the letter “H” on the side. Especially with a nice chic outfit, these outdated looking sneakers ruined the look (in my opinion). Men, women, old people, young people, even babies were wearing them! And they came in every color combination, including glitter varieties. I googled these fad shoes later and found out they were called Hogans. Have you heard of them?

Around mid afternoon, we realized a good part of the city was closed for business. Locked up, lights out, iron gates down over the doors. We began wondering where everyone was and whether it was a holiday. We got to the point of wondering if there was some national crisis going on and we just hadn’t been keeping up with the news. We didn’t want to be clueless tourists, so we found wifi and started scouring for Italy news online. We came to find that shops in Italy are typically open Monday to Saturdays from 9am-1pm and 4:30pm-7:30pm. Lucky people get a 3 and a half hour lunch break! I had heard of Europeans and their luxury naps, but didn’t think this still happened in a big, modern city.

We had time for a tea break, several bakery stops, photos around the city, and a lot of bookstore browsing (mostly photography and art books since we can’t read Italian). Then back onto the ferry in the evening to head for Greece. 

Rough Traveling

Getting from Dubrovnik, Croatia to Greece sounds easy enough, right? They both lie on the coast with just 2 small countries lying in between—Montenegro and Albania. We were wrong. We found out that there are no buses or trains that run that route, and we’re traveling way too cheap to fly. Apparently, the typical route is through Bari, Italy, which doesn’t seem to make much sense when you look at a map. This route involves taking a ferry from Croatia to Italy and from Italy to Greece. We didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into when we headed to the ferry terminal in Dubrovnik at 9pm in the evening. We weren’t expecting several ferry and bus rides that would completely wear us out.

Our first ferry took us across the Adriatic Sea to Italy overnight (9 hours). The ferries have private rooms with beds for normal people, but we got the cheapest “deck seats” which meant scouting for a place to sleep during the voyage. The long benches had armrests between each seat, as if purposely placed there to prevent us from laying across. We luckily snatched the last round booth with a table in the lounge area, and to extend the seat, we pulled up two chairs for our heads. We slept with our feet touching in a semi-circle, towel for a blanket, jacket bunched up for a pillow. I really regret not taking a photo of our sleeping arrangement. My back, neck, and hips were aching too much to think of such things. We got to Italy at 8am and found out that the next ferry to Italy didn’t leave until 8pm. This meant we had an entire day to burn in Italy. Although I wanted to get the travel over with, I was relieved because it meant we could go to town and find some food. I was dying to stay and explore Italy for a month, but we decided we would rather save Italy for another trip in the future when the weather is warmer and we have more money. I felt very lucky to experience a little taste of Italy, because it wasn’t in our plan at all.

We made sure to grab some food to go before we dragged our feet back onto a ferry that evening. Once again deck seats. Brushing our teeth in the public bathroom. Sleeping in jeans. This second ferry boat was much newer and nicer. We even paid a few euros to get some internet, but it turned out to be painfully slow. This ferry had an area with “air seats” which were like oversized rows of airplane seats set in a dimmed room. It was very empty, so we were able to put the arm rests down on a row of seats so we could lay across to get some shut eye overnight. So much better than sleeping in a semicircle all night! The next morning we landed in Patras, Greece where we boarded a bus for 4 hours to Athens, where hundreds of ferries depart to the Greek islands. I expected Athens to be a very nice city, especially having held a couple Olympic games. We were disappointed with the ghetto bus station, the jammed highway, insane drivers, crumbling sidewalks, graffiti. I’m sure there is a nice part of town, but we didn’t stay long enough to discover it. We took another short city bus ride to the ferry terminal in Piraeus, then walked a mile with our luggage, barely making it in time to get on our ferry. This next ferry left in the evening and got us to Santorini, our final destination at 1am. 52 hours, 3 ferries, 2 bus rides later, we anchored in Santorini, Greece, beyond exhausted, sore in all the weird places, in need of a shower, and elated to be there.

Later today or tomorrow (internet is not on our side), we will share a little about our day stay in Italy, with photos, of course. And then, Greece! 

* Julia

"I am interested..."

 
It was an email that read simply:      

"I am interested and I would estimate we can provide through the Manitoba tax credits, and equity programs, approx 40% plus of the budget.  If you like, we can talk early next week and go the details. "

Short and sweet as they say.  Seconds before the email appeared I saw the sender's name and realized it was one of the Canadian producers who might be considering working with us.  My first feeling was that it was good. But my skepticism crept in. 

He's passing.

But something told me different.  Most companies don't bother to tell you they're passing on your project these days, they just stop communicating.  Maybe he was one of the nice ones who still has some class and wanted to tell you in person that he is passing.  I clicked on the email and as it opened I scanned the sentences for one good word, it took all of 2 seconds. 

"I am interested."

 That's all I needed, and I reread it to get the entire message.  Then I read it a third time.  We did it.  Shirley and I did it. 

We have a movie. 

With Manitoba's minimum of 40% and our initial investor's 50% it suddenly became a reality. I waited for awhile before I would tell Shirley, I wanted to be absolutely certain of what he was saying.  I remembered that Rachel the movie channel exec (Eh Channel)  had asked the producer to look at my screenplay.  I sent a package of both the proposal and the screenplay as I have done to at least 50 other people of whom some never responded and some liked it but weren't interested and some just weren't interested.  Now we had someone who was. 

I knew what he would be doing, using tax credits in Manitoba which can be as high as 65% tax credit on labor from Manitoba.  For every crewmember, actor, driver, caterer, virtually everyone  except Shirley and an American actor, we got back 65 cents on the dollar. 

I think I must have read that message a half dozen times, putting different interpretations ton it, stepping away and walking outside my place, then back again. I knew where he would get his equity, it would come from one or more of those various private and government funding agencies that abound in Canada.  I took an early lunch at Carney's, a railroad car where I would celebrate minor victories with a split &  grilled red hot and a side of chili fries, best in the valley. 

Remember one of my rules;  reward yourself often.


This changed everything. We now, in theory, had the budget for Travel Day.  And if the exchange rate favored the U.S., it could conceivably mean our American money would be worth maybe 14 cents more on the dollar.  Which meant that $400,000 US would be worth $464,000, almost half a million if the U.S. dollar doesn't fall anymore.  

If we still had that $400k.

After my excitement died down I began to analyze exactly where we were.  On paper it looked damn good.  But I had emailed my $400k man a few weeks ago and he had not returned our email. My friend who knows him said he sometimes does that.  Privately it worried me.  I never told Shirley or anyone.  I fell into that mode of "better no news than bad news" when it came to the $400k man.   I re-read his email, particularly one phrase;  "I can probably find the rest". 

What did that imply; will he do it? 
Will he consider it? Is he going to DO IT??

You're probably wondering why I so quickly left behind the good news to dwell more on the possibility of bad news.  Well, I'm not one to play with pop psychology and thinking positive or visualizing my goals, I'm a realist mixed in with a dreamer and an eternal optimist, although sometimes I use pessimism as a cover for optimism. Expect the worst and you won't be disappointed.


I majored in Psychology (encouraged by the lovely Crystal, a grad student four years older than me)  at Henry Ford College and was set to transfer to U. of Detroit.  But I dropped out and into the world of television but always joked that I knew enough about psychology to tell everyone else what their problem was.  So while everything sounded spectacular, there was just one hitch...

One word: experience. 

This is almost exactly what happened with my producer on Emperor of Mars after nearly one year of waiting to fund that movie for $5 million.  Since I was writer and director I was not directly involved in the financing of Emperor.  Like Shirley is now, I was the one who waited for the good news that we have our funding.  We had a similar deal, the majority would come from the U.S. and the balance would come from tax incentives in Alberta (Alberta is the only province to call it's credits "incentives" as it's the most American of provinces and refuses to use the word "tax" anything.)

And the funding came close until, and this is something I can only speculate on, the U.S money fell out.  And the previous year Emperor was nearly funded when the financing fell through again. In fact, Emperor had been the victim of 4 attempts;  one with an Academy winning director and three times with me.  And none of those had any involvement in the funding stage from me.  That's one of the reasons why I am producing Travel Day. 

Because I want to know everything that happens on this movie. 

Every detail from the proposal on to the release.  Now I was somewhat in the same position, except this time I was the producer,  I was the one who knew what was going on, hopefully to do what needed to be done and finally, to get this movie made.  Sensing a backup plan, I had already contacted several other potential investors and Hank, the presales producer who could presell to Italy and France, which could make up the difference. 

But at the end of the day, I was going to relax in the comfort of acceptance.  And I would definitely call Manitoba next week.  I called Shirley to tell her rather than email it.  She was totally excited and said she had a feeling we would be doing this in Canada.  And it took us less than 3 months to get here. But I didn't feel we were there yet,  that there is still a lot of work to make everything go right and that there will be bumps ahead. Big ones.

Regardless, it was a good day for us.