On Mehdi's arrival, he gathered a small FF team to help him realize a wrap party in the grand tradition of Film Fabrik theme celebrations. This year's choice? Cabaret meets Twin Peaks' One-Eyed Jack's! The small team gathered props, set, lighting, costumes, champagne, and a smoke machine to create a smoky lounge in the smaller room of PH's set, with the larger room decked out to resemble an outdoor scene complete with trees and full moon. The lounge is set with five tables adorned with red tablecloths and casino games, champagne flutes. There is a stage with flowing red curtains and a single spotlight illuminating a retro microphone. Top hats, long lace gloves, formal men's coattails, and a feather boa are available for the FF team upon arrival.
As the remaining crew returns, they're offered a yummy pasta dish courtesy of Mehdi and, for those folks identifying as female, a chance to freshen up with borrowed dresses from Marion and make-up from angela. Soon after, the entire team is escorted into the party room where they receive slips of paper that contain their Slavic names for the night (Anastasia, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, etc.).
Once seated, Erpur takes the stage and greets everyone by reading a monologue from Kafka's Metamorphosis. The text mentions a woman in a fur boa, and soon after Marion and angela appear in black evening dresses with long red beads and 20s-era hairpieces. They lipsync "Big Spender" by way of introducing the night's entertainment-turned-parlour game: each person will take a turn at the microphone (order decided by spinning the roulette wheel), performing whatever mischievous deed she pulls from the top hat. After, Starki takes the stage as the lounge owner, Vaslav, welcoming everyone with a curious speech about not finding true happiness unless a "mammita" is in your life.
The roulette spins Andrea's number first, and she pulls instructions to read a Godard dialogue. She invites Sam to join her, and they're handed a French text that has the audience in giggles. PH is up next, and he pulls, "Choose a victim and the punishment." This is a favourite to be pulled all night, and PH makes the most of it by inviting Diddi onstage for a shoulder massage and spanking.
Next, Audun takes the stage and performs "Jailhouse Rock," with expert microphone antics and wild dancing. Midway through, he invites PH to dance with him but poor PH ends in a heap on the floor when Audun kicks him in the nether region. Still, the show must go on and Audun rocks the hell out of the song.
The order becomes a blur, but memory offers this:
Marion teaches Nick how to dirty dance. Starki pulls back-up singers of Marion, Andrea, and Sam for his wild rendition of "I Put a Spell on You." Erpur tells two true confessions of his near-drowning and of his grandparents' introduction. Armande goes Parisian and buys a sexy kiss from her future husband, Diddi. Florent does a striptease to Prince's "Kiss." Diddi tells a big fat lie by explaining to the team that he really, really hates all of us. Monika gets all the women onstage for her powerful "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Veronika performs a magic trick by having gotten everyone to Prague for Film Fabrik 3. Sam punishes the whole audience by giving a ten-minute speech with a faux-German accent, which proves the night's comedy routine extraordinaire. Marion gets the audience clapping with her lipsync of "These Boots Are Made for Walking." angela and Starki teach the audience a lesson of romance by slow-dancing to "Careless Whisper," though somehow the slow-dance ends in Starki being strangled to death after he snuck off from the dance to fake-kiss Veronika. Petra punishes Matej by making him play the trumpet, sing, dance, and suddenly wear a clown nose. Mehdi attempts to sexually heal us all with Marvin Gaye's anthem.
Rafael offers the group a memory to treasure always when he speaks about his reason for going into film, and for the value and love he feels in working with Film Fabrik. He talks about that which cannot be expressed in words -- that feeling you get in films that lifts you so high you get goosebumps. He talks about the search to find the egg of that feeling, to discover how it is made, to meet the people who make it. He urges the value of our work, as work that is born of love and not of negativity. As his speech winds to a close, with his elegant gestures and his English shifting to Spanish magic, some people cry. All people are touched. A few come up to hug him post-speech.
Overall, there is much butt-slap dancing, toasting, roasting, role-playing, and merry-making.
Success! Thank you, Mehdi!!
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