Two new film adaptations screening at the 2019 Malta Book Festival promise refreshing and diverse takes on Alfred Sant’s broad literary output
On the evening of Saturday, November 9, the National Book Council will be premiering two of its most recent short-film productions featuring adaptations from the works of writer and MEP Alfred Sant. Ġulina, based on the short-story of the same name from the collection Pupu fil-Baħar - Rakkonti u Divertimenti (SKS, 2009), is being adapted by Maltese-Australian director Peter Sant. The screening will be followed by the premiere of one episode from the new docudrama series Storja ta’ Storja directed by Charlie Cauchi and Martin Bonnici – also focusing on the work of Alfred Sant. The author and directors will be present for a Q&A with the audience following the screenings.
Bringing back together much of the technical and cinematographic team behind last year’s challenging experimental feature Baħar Żmien, Peter Sant’s Ġulina, shot on Super 16mm film, is poised to make the best of the visual elements that made his previous work so remarkable. Baħar Żmien was the product of an original screenplay, co-written with Alex Vella Gera, which did away with any discernible plot, was sparse in dialogue and set in an unrecognisable, atemporal version of the Maltese islands. The film has been most celebrated, however, for how it captures the island’s rural and natural landscapes, the wide blues of sea and sky, rubble walls, garigue country paths, and eroding cliffs. All this augurs well for the adaptation of this particular story from Alfred Sant, set against the backdrop of a Maltese village and following the trials brought upon a village spinster with an unassuming history as she is forced to deal with her mother’s death, the ruin of the family farmhouse and the advent of a young priest determined to shake her out of slumber.
Local production company Sajjetta will be presenting the first out of eight episodes from the docudrama series Storja ta’ Storja. As with the rest of the series, the episode on Alfred Sant features an interview that engages with the person behind the books. The documentary component is in the hands of visual artist and filmmaker Charlie Cauchi, whose previous From Malta to Motor City turned a sympathetic observational eye on the Maltese immigrants in Michigan, US.
Martin Bonnici directs the dramatised sequences, choosing to adapt scenes from Sant’s fifth novel L-Għalqa tal-Iskarjota (SKS, 2009), the university-life satire celebrated for its black humour and horror stunts driving the plot towards a cruel climax. The entire series will feature eight Maltese authors: Alex Vella Gera, Clare Azzopardi, Alfred Sant, Maria Grech Ganado, Immanuel Mifsud, Loranne Vella, Walid Nabhan and Lou Drofenik.
Ġulina and Storja ta’ Storja are produced by the National Book Council as the winning projects of the 2019 NBC Literary Short-Film Contest and the call for the production of a Docudrama Series respectively. With the same objective of further raising the profile of Maltese literary works and writers by supporting the production of filmic adaptation, the NBC has also launched its first feature-film adaptation fund earlier this year, as part of the 2019 plan to produce audiovisual work to promote authors for commercial and public broadcasting. The winning project of the 2019 NBC Feature Film Adaptation Fund will be announced during the same event on Saturday, November 9 during the Malta Book Festival.
The Malta Book Festival 2019 will take place at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta, starting from Wednesday, November 6 until Sunday, November 10. Entrance to the festival and all of its events is free of charge.