Peter

Abu Dhabi Film Festival, Emirates Palace, November 1st, 2013



In addition to this, I am also comfortable sharing the following item(s):

[X] The city of residence of the recipient of this letter/phone call
[X] The recorded audio of my 5 minutes of questions
[X] Incidental recorded audio (conversations had, questions asked, enthusiasm expressed outside of the official 5 minutes
[X] The transcribed text of my 5 minutes of questions





[the piano plays incessantly, first the moonlight sonata and then more emotional anachronisms]

[…]
00:00:00-0
Yannick: Um, first question, who did you write to?

Peter: Uh my boyfriend. Nate [ _______ ]

Yannick: And why?

Peter: He was just the first person .. I thought about him, my sister—and then in fact those are the only addresses that I know. Um, yes, but he was—actually I feel I'd be a little bit of a traitor if I didn't write to him. Yeah—because I know my sister would love to get a letter. And in fact my—I have two sisters—my other sister who I didn't think about writing to would really love to get a letter, probably more than anyone else. But um, I didn't think about writing to her.
00:00:34-1
Yannick: Uh .. would you mind telling me a little bit about him?

Peter: Um yeah sure. Uh, he's a lovely boy (laugh). Uh, I met him—I met him on Valentine's day this year, at the Berlin (Hall?) in Berlin. He's um .. American, he was born in Minnesota, spent a lot of his life in Colorado and—considers himself to be Californian, but I think that's more about his construction of who he wants to be. But he's lived all over the States, and he's lived in Berlin for the last five years, and his family still live in Minnesota. On a very beautiful um, piece of land on a lake. And he's a hairdresser, but uh, he loves film—I think he's a reader more than anything else, he just he loves reading books. And he loves film—and one of the things that really um, endeared him to me and made me fall in love with him, I went back to his house the night we met, and um .. he had these film journals of every single film he's watched since like 1998 I think. Or, he had like 5 or 6—5 years of them, and I mean I just thought that was so .. sweet, and I mean and (artistful? ( 00:01:50-5 ) ). Um. And another thing that really made me fall for him, um, was that he said "I—I want to look after you." And he said that probably after we had known each other for 3-3 hours. And, if most people had said that to me like I would have found it very disturbing, and it would have freaked me out. But there's something about Nate that actually makes me want to be looked after by him. Um. And normally I find that I look after other people—and I look after him to some extent, but he really looks after me. yeah. Um, I have um,.. I'm kind of well adjusted and stable but every now—I have a kind of—I get chemical build-ups in my brain and I can get freaked out quite easily, especially in large crowds and stuff. And he really like—when he sees me like getting freaked out he just kind of picks me up and steers me right, and .. makes sure I'm okay, which is lovely. And I've been kind of, um .. I mean I'm—I would get a lot of love from the world, but I've also .. I've been very alone and kind of lonely for most of my life, so. So it's really lovely to meet this boy, Nate [ _______ ]. Yeah.
00:03:01-9

Yannick: Um, how did you end up apart?

Peter: How did—?

Yannick: How did you end up apart?

Peter: Um, well .. I__ live__ .. I'm .. I met him—I mean I live in Durban. So I met him in Berlin and then .. was supposed to move—go to London a few days later. In fact I went to the airport but I missed my flight. And then came back and spent another week with him before I went back to-to South Africa. So then I—I still had to go via London but I just—I went back to London a week later and then flew back to South Africa. And then .. I went to the Cannes Film Festival in May—May of this year—so I went to see him for a few days before that. And then he came to see me in June. And .. then I had to run—I'm the director of [ _______ ] in Durban, so I had to run our [ _______ ] I couldn't just_ move to Berlin. And then at the end of the August after I kind of wound things down I moved to Berlin. But after going—after—I'm actually, I get paid by like um, I get—I have a service, I have to go to the office every now and then. So I go back to the office for a month. So I'm moving back and forth. So I'm going back to Durban for a month and then I'm going back to Berlin for 3 months, then we're both going back to Durban for a month, and then he's coming back, and then I'll be back in Berlin in August. And I'll see him a few times along the way. So it's a little frustrating, but I really uh—it's worth—we're worth waiting for. Each other. Yeah.
00:04:29-1
Yannick: I—I want to go back to something you said, about "I'd feel like a traitor if I didn't"—'cause something I always ask people is "how did you choose that person?" I mean "who didn't you write to?" And you already actually touched on that. So can you speak a little bit about that? Because that's—I get it, but at the same time it's so confusing to me.

Peter: Like, who I didn't write? Who I didn't—/

Yannick: /yeah/

Peter: And do you mean confusing to you generally, in terms of // —or, or me specifically//

Yannick: //yeah but also, what you said about // "I'd feel like a traitor"//, because I feel that same thing, but it's such a strange … so tell me about who you didn't write to.
00:04:59-3
Peter: So I would have felt like a traitor if I hadn't written to him./

Yannick: /Yeah. What do you mean by that?/

Peter: /um… um, because he's my boyfriend and he's like a—I feel I should write to him, it's like a kind of moral imperative. But perhaps I should feel the same thing about my mother or my father. Um, I sure my mother would love a letter. But my mother would love anything I'd do. (laugh) I'd phone her and she'd be so happy you know like I could send her a postcard I could send her nothing I could send her an SMS—and all of those things would almost have a kind of equal economic weight. Um … and my sister Kara she would have .. loved a letter, because I haven't seen her for two months, but also I'm gonna—I'll be seeing her tomorrow. I mean that's-that's the other thing. And my other sister who lives in Johannesburg I'll be seeing her next friday, and I'll be seeing my mom on Saturday. I think if I really could I would—another—I would have loved to have written to my cats .. [yannick (laughing) ] who I-I discuss—I did mention in the letter, I told him how much I was looking forward to seeing .. my cats. Um, and in fact um … oh—I-I—kind of—you don't mind—it doesn't mind how tangential I get? //Uh//

Yannick: //No I mean// you're —you're free to go, I'd love it if you'd stay. But I just say that that way it's a finite thing, because some people maybe don't want to talk so much. And so like, 5 minutes then if 5 minutes they don't want—no please please, this all very helpful actually.
00:06:31-5
Peter: Um, so I've always—I really—I have a very very deep relationship with my one cat, and my—and b-both my cats, I love them both, I mean, in-in different ways. Uh but my one cat is like—my soulmate. Which might seem strange. I met her on a rooftop, [ ________ ] like 10-12 years ago. And we just immediately like struck off um .. uh—we just yeah we hit it off with each other, and I just love—I love Rocket, like so much. And my-my criteria for a relationship would always be finding somebody who I was as happy or happier to wake up with than when I wake up with—when I wake up and my cats are next to me. So there's a bit to just kind of—"by the way" thing in terms of .. you know whatever's clo—who-who is close to me and, who is close to my heart. Um. And then there's some of the other people I didn't write to. Uh … yes, I mean I have like 3 .. people who would be my best friends or very close friends, um … and they would all have loved to get-get a letter. I know my friend Jill in Johannesburg is really missing me, and um, I'd have to say that she would love a letter. My friend Sean in London would also love a letter. And my friend Lindsey in Capetown would actually be fucking overwhelmed if I wrote a letter, but I have no idea what her email address is. Um, she would be so happy. Um, and she's a friend that I've kind of lost contact with but uh our relationship has cooled down. But we were best friends for a very long time. But um .. yes.
00:08:07-5
Yannick: Wow . This is fantastic. Uh, you said missing. Actually I want to talk about that. Uh .. what does it feel like, for you when you miss someone, or something, or a place. What does that feel like.

Peter: It's kind of.. that network between a neurological and a body feeling. I kind of feel it kind of in this channel of my .. my heart, my stomach, my head, my throat a little bit. You know when you start getting sick and your immune system starts going down there? I feel it a bit over there. Um, and in my eyes. Um … …. yeah, it's a longing. A yearning. Um .. wanting to physically .. yeah I mean you've got me thinking what missing is. … Such a thing of being aware of absence I suppose—but it's not quite that. It's .. when we miss people, I .. it's a kind of act of remembering in a way. A kind of Melancholic remembering. … … yeah and a yearning, a longing, of course, but that's kind of … yeah, and I think .. I think in a way there's a kind of desire to be whole which may .. almost have nothing to do with the person who's being missed.
00:09:36-4
Yannick: What do you mean by that?

Peter: I'm not sure it just came out of my mouth. Um, yeah a desire for wholeness. Um … because when we miss people or things or .. places, whatever .. there's a kind of implicit like absence in us, or .. we must feel a little bit incomplete, otherwise we wouldn't be missing that person. Um … so I'm missing—I'm just trying to think of other—use of the word missing. Um, a missing, a missing letter, a missing piece of the puzzle. Yeah I think it's got a lot to do with completeness. Which is also maybe illusory I mean I don't know if you can ever .. be complete, but I think .. we want to be. And I mean I've been getting very kind of .. tangential/Fruedian-psychological but I think these things are also related to life and death. To longing, for death is also a completeness. The story is finished. And I think of—I think of when we are small as human beings. You know before we develop neurosis and uh .. (tsk) self-consciousness in a way. Um, we feel complete. I think the last time I felt completely complete, I was —probably just-just before I was 5 years old. 4 and a half years old, before starting to be aware of .. all of the crap of adult life started encroaching—which I think comes even when you're small, this thing that is coming. Um, … ['fur elise' begins on the piano] yeah, feeling um … undamaged, also. .. Yeah. Something that's been central to my life, as an adult, and-and-and-and I've come across it quite a few times in the last few days in Internet Forums and-and Facebook and—Lou Reed died recently. As I'm sure you know. Um .. so, strange notions of grief have been arising, and I've seen quite a few people write about this thing about .. feeling loss feeling complete and whole and undamaged, when they were 4 or 5. So I—so all of that I think has something to do with missing things, and people, and .. and also by the way I really really miss my home. And the pla—and Durban is a really beautiful place. Um, it's kind of wild and free and really beautiful and incredibly lush and green. And that—place is very much a part of me too. So. And then the Boer—the Boer community that I live in, I think I also miss. (inhale) heh. [the song ends]
00:12:34-7
Yannick: Um, this question comes a bit late, but uh—/

Peter: /do you mind if I have another cigarette?/

Yannick: /yeah, go—please. [package opens] Um, who are you?

Peter: Who am I?

Yannick: Yeah, I sort of never got to ask that?

Peter: What do you mean? (laugh) //Who am I?//

Yannick: //I mean// in the —not in the existential sense—unless you want it to be// just

Peter: //just like what I do,// and ..why am I here? (laugh) //

Yannick: //yeah, whichever. //

Peter: What do you think you mean, //when you say "who are you?" //

Yannick: // I-I-I // there's this very nasty thing our professor always says to us, which is, "whatever you think I said, that's what I meant."
00:13:07-2
Peter: (laugh) Yes, well. My curse or blessing is that I will always get multiple and often dialectical meanings or interpretations of whatever anyone says, so um … um, when I-when I was a child, growing up in Apartheid South Africa—I don't know how much this has got to do with growing up in that very strange fucked up society, but I was .. and I'm sure psychologists would call this schizophrenia but I really don't think it is. But I was … convinced that the authorities—whoever they might be—could read my mind, and I had to .. be careful about what I thought. …. So um, thank god I don't have that as an adult or otherwise I probably would be in a mental hospital. (inhale) But um … but so-so when … people say things, or when I'm asked things, that is actually kind of—it's never that far from my consciousness. So, when people say things, I can imagine the multiple things they've said. At the same time I'm quite intuitive and I kind of know what they mean, but I imagine you know multiple possibilities of what they might mean. [rapid] any case(laughing), Um my name's Peter [ _______ ] :, I-I-I'm a writer, I'm actually currently the director —or the manager of [ _______ ] which is why I'm in Abu Dhabi. I've been invited to be on the documentary jury. Um, I'm not sure why. Or how, or who actually was the person who said "bring that guy." (inhale) Um, … yeah, I have um, for about the last 20 years or so I've been working as an arts writer in South Africa. I write about Arts and Film and Music um, and occasionally but not for a very long time actually, um .. because arts journalism pays so badly nowadays—in fact it pays pretty much the same rate as when I started 20 years ago—I work as a graphic designer and editor and communications consultant. But now I started working the festival full time since April, so that's pretty much a full time job. Um .. yeah, I live in Durban South Africa, I was born in Johannesburg, I'm of German-Danish descent but I consider myself African, and I .. I really—Africa's a huge pull on me. I miss it the moment I leave. Well maybe I—well maybe just about a week after I leave, I start to—feeling this longing. I love art and culture, I think culture's the most important thing in the world. In a way I think it's the only thing — .. outside of love and compassion, and I think outside of our individual souls, I think culture is the most important thing in the world. Um … I think love and compassion are really really important things. And .. being intelligent, or behaving intelligently no matter what your intellect, just optimizing your self or potential .. um .. yeah. Love animals (laugh). Yeah, I like growing things. .. that constitutes an answer?
00:16:22-6
Yannick: A thousand percent. So that's it for the extended 5 minutes of questions. What I'd love to do now …

[…]

Peter: Okay. It's funny because I kind of write about missing in the letter. And I say, um—are you still recording this? —Out of interest— I don't mind either way.
00:16:41-0
Yannick: Yeah yeah definitely/

Peter: /Just I think it has relevance, to the/

Yannick: /yeah it's the incidental stuff/

Peter:/ and I just-I just say that I uh—when I—what I've been—I—I know that when—already when I was in Durban I missed not only Nate but I really missed Berlin, just because it was an amazing place—even though it was a few weeks, and now I've been there for longer. But .. so when I'm Durban I miss Berlin and when I'm in Berlin I really miss Durban. And in fact, whenever I'm somewhere I'm always missing somewhere else. Always—always wan—always actually just wanting to be somewhere else, is also part of it. … yeah. I'm not sure that I will miss Abu Dhabi. But that's not really fair I think, because Abu Dhabi has just been for me the Marina Mall, and the hotel, and just back and forth.

Yannick: Yeah.

Peter: It's—this is—this will be a strange place to miss.

Yannick: (laughing) //The absence of gold//

Peter: //yes (laughing) // I'll feel relieved like (laughing)

Yannick: (laughing)
00:17:38-1
[…]

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