MAT BLACK

I know it’s a sin not to tend your blog for some time, but I can at least bring forward a pretty bad attack of food poisoning in my defence. And it’s not as if nothing worth writing about had happened prior to my absence, either. Between September 19 and 21, I was on the jury of “look&roll”, a Swiss film festival that presents short films on the topic of disability. Quite apart from seeing many moving, beautiful and empowering features, sketches and documentaries, I also got to meet Mat Fraser, an actor, activist and comedian whose film “Born Freak” was also in the competition. I’d wanted to meet Mat ever since seeing him interviewed on BBC’s “Hard Talk” a few years back, but I found him to be even more invigorating and sexy than I’d expected from his television and radio appearances. Mat, who just happens to have short arms, will be appearing in two films this autumn: Kung-Fu Flid, his first action feature that will be shown on a pay to-view basis via the Net from November, and “Chemical Wedding”, a horror film penned by Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. Mat is in the satanic orgy scene where he says he had a great time, but he’s not sure that casting Maiden mascot Eddie as The Devil was such a good idea. The films that won prizes at “look&roll”, by the way, were “Rendez-Vous”, a romantic mini-masterpiece by Polish film-maker Marcin Janos Krawczyk, and “Nikita & Nikita” by Russian photographer Maria Vyulyaleva which showcases the Russian efforts at integrating disabled persons in a stark yet sympathetic way. The audience prize went to Karina Epperlein’s “Pheonix Dance” about dancer Homer Avila’s return to ballet after losing one leg to cancer surgery. The jury also made special mention of Arnaud Six totally engrossing performance in Emanuelle Huchet’s beautiful film “Des putes dans les arbres”. You’ll find more information on these films– albeit in German - on the festival Website. It was an honour to see such great work and to meet such kind and interesting people in such a short space of time, so my thanks go out to festival director Gerhard Protschka and the Procap organisation he set “look&roll” up for as well as fellow jury members Fredi Maurer, Elena Wiele, Claudia Frei and Ewan Marshall. If you get a chance to catch “look & roll” next time around, I suggest you make good use of it. You won’t be disappointed.