Cinema for me is…
Mark in 23 Frames
1. Describe yourself in ten words.
Calm, quiet, competitive, aware, creative, reserved, dynamic, modest, stoic and a big fidget.
2. Your best quality? Your worst habit?
I think I manage my time reasonably well. I unfortunately find myself mumbling quite alarmingly often.
3. Your dream job?
Psychiatrist.
4. What do you like most about your country?
Well, when you’re able to arrange a meetup with virtually anyone on the island and be there within an hour (barring traffic) I guess you should be pretty grateful.
5. Your favorite dish in your country?
Aljotta (fish soup).
6. Which word or phrase in your native language do you like the most and what does it mean?
We have a lot of phrases that are used in multiple ways in conversation and I find that quite unique. The most flexible would probably be ‘mela’ which has so many uses it’s particularly difficult to pinpoint a single translation but I think the most literal would be ‘so’ but also ‘of course’.
7. What European capital have you visited lately?
London, to watch a Hans Zimmer concert last March.
8. Other than your own, which European country would you love to live in?
France.
9. What does Europe mean to you? 3 values.
Connectivity, unity and dignity.
10. What film made you fall in love with cinema?
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980, US).
11. Your favorite film theatre? What do you like about it?
I managed to catch a few films from the Valletta Film Festival this year at Pjazza Teatru Rjal and it was pretty special. The theatre is historic, open-air and at the heart of our capital – you really can’t go wrong here.
12. Who is your movie hero?
This would have to be Tarantino, for all the memorable lines/moments.
13. Which movie director would you like to be?
Probably Christopher Nolan. Experiencing the world from his point of view would likely be as mind-boggling as his films.
14. Briefly describe your favorite scene.
This is tough to narrow down, but I’ll go with the processing scene of The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012, US). It’s an incredibly captivating scene carried by a rapid succession of witty exchanges between two strikingly different characters played by Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Most of all though, it’s the way director Thomas Anderson dances around Phoenix’s haunting facial expressions that made this scene linger in my mind long after my first viewing.
15. What are the 3 best European films you have seen in the last year?
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma, 2019, FR)
Den skyldige (Gustav Möller, 2018, DK)
The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002, EU)
16. Which film character do you most identify with?
The character I identified most with would probably be Kayla from Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018, US). This probably looks odd, but I think director Bo Burnham really hit the nail on the head with his representation of school-life and I found myself fully able to empathize with Kayla and the way she handled some of the hurdles her ever-hectic surroundings presented.
17. Your favorite soundtrack or song?
Vangelis’ score for Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982, US).
18. If you had to live in a movie, which one would you like it to be?
Everything seems to run smoothly in Her (Spike Gonze, 2013, US). If I manage to avoid the operating systems, I should be fine.
19. Your life becomes a bio-pic. Who plays the role of you?
I think Jake Gyllenhaal would own the role.
20. Which talent would you most like to have?
I often find myself wishing I were talented at digital editing. There are so many powerful videos across social media which really click when edited right. Being such an effective way to really send a message home, I feel it’s one of the most useful tools you can have today.
21. What is your most treasured possession?
I don’t really have one, so right now it’s undoubtedly my AC.
22. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
It’s more of a choice than an achievement, but I opted for the medicine course (to ultimately go for psychiatry) after being settled on dentistry from almost as far back as I can remember. Both my parents and my only brother are dentists and so going against something that for a long time I felt was set-in-stone was a big turning point that did not come easy. I am proud of the decision and I aim to remain so.
23. What is your motto?
Mainly it’s just to seize opportunities when they come. In Jim Carrey’s words: “You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance at doing what you love”.