Having an entry in a short film festival wasn’t part of my plan for this year, but yet here we are. On Saturday, we showed the music video for Il-Ballata tax-Xagħri to the public for the first time at the Kinemastik International Short Film Festival, and it was great to see it projected in the magical surroundings of the Garden of Rest in Floriana.

It also appears that this was the last time the festival would be held there, so having this work shown in a site I associate with summers of artistic and literary discovery (Inizjamed’s Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival also used to be held there) was all the more special for me.

This particular song always felt like a soundtrack without an image, and this video makes up for that deficiency. Also making up for my deficiencies were Evan Demicoli, who shot and edited it, and Luke Bugeja Gauci, who did a whole dance routine three or four times under the Maltese summer midday sun, in a full suit, and lived to tell the tale.

While setting up the shoot on this June it occurred to me that it’s all well and good to go to certain extremes for your art, but asking others to do the same could be considered sadism. Don’t let our suffering be in vain.