Lost Among The Stars

Tina was excited to go to the Film Festival. As every year she would make sure to have every day of the festival free to enjoy the movies from all around the world and the program full of interviews with directors and film making activities.

Zlin Film Festival is a long-running celebration of both

animated and live-action movies for children and young people. Tina has been

one of the festivals goes since she could remember. Nowadays she was used to

seeing the faces of excited children in the front rows of cinemas and imagined

herself in the same position just a decade before.

As she was walking through the busy streets of Zlin, she noted

all the diverse faces and the way people were able to get excited about

different parts of filmmaking. She felt for the people who came out of screenings

crying because they just watched a groundbreaking movie in which the real world

broke through the screen and touched their emotions in the most realistic way

possible.

Others might spend ages on the town square, mainly parents with their children, engaging with the never-ending array of activities like face-painting, interactional theatre, musical performances or sports activities. Amidst this chaos were the volunteers who gave their time to make this festival the great experience it was every year.

The one group that Tina could never relate to were the faceless people standing in line sliding through the shopping centre, all waiting to get a glance of “celebrities” that might be related to the moving pictures shown on the floors above their heads. Tina never cared for that kind of stuff, and she cared so much less when she imagined herself standing in that queue for hours for one quick snapshot of a strangers face.

As she was contemplating all of this, she was heading to her final destination – the university theatre at the top of the festival park. The park was getting more and more involved in the festival activities each year. There was a small café and a lot of other moving café scattered throughout it. Tina was drawn by the smell of freshly brewed coffee and… pancakes!

The crisp smell of pancake batter mixing with hot butter and jam was drawing her closer and closer to the pancake stand. She starred at all the colours of cream and ice cream that were on offer to go on these pancakes. There was also chocolate, choco chips, nuts, honey and syrups of all kinds. Before she finished noticing all the flavours on offer, Tina’s mouth started watering and her eyes twinkled in the image of creating just the perfect treat for herself.

Tina found herself standing in the line for this delicious treat and in a blink she was enjoying a deliciously crisp pancake surrounded by beautifully arranged fruit and all the juices from the jam and white chocolate were running through her mouth. This was heaven. She knew that if this was at the end of that endless queue in the shopping centre, she would stand in it. Luckily for her, her treat was quickly ordered and eaten even quicker.

Pancakes now became the start of Tina’s experience at the festival. She imagined movies starring the most delicious desserts and competitions won by pancakes filled with hot fruit and ice cream. Raspberries were her favourite hot fruit to eat with ice cream. She decided to get them with her next pancake, so she went to join the pancake queue once again. This time as the time before, the journey to the till and her conversation with the cashier felt even quicker than before. And there she was standing with her second pancake plate.

She overlooked the park full of people having the time of their lives, enjoying the lovely sun and only in the least taking part in the festival. There were some photographers, she noticed, trying to take an action-filled picture for the festival and town newspapers. Tina thought to herself that one of them should take a picture of the pancake stand she was enjoying so much. And since these thoughts made her think about pancakes again, she ventured on her third hunt for a bloody good pancake.

This time she got what seemed like a plain pancake with jam but the batter was made with coconut and cinnamon. The first bite was proving that this risky combination of flavours was worth it. The pancake vanished through her teeth quicker than she could sit down by the café. She was content with her snack, the pancakes gave her much needed the energy to continue on her journey through the festival sites, program and movies.

She wondered what would surprise her next, but before she even considered trying to remember the movie she was heading to, she was standing by the counter of the pancake shop once again. There was now sugar floating through her veins and she knew that no journey can start without a good strawberry and dark chocolate pancake.

Tina wasn’t worried about the time she spent at the pancake stall because each order was so quick and the pancakes disappeared even quicker than they appeared on her plate. People say good things come in threes, but Tina ordered more than three pancakes that day. It took until a stroke of luck that her mind lifted from the sweetness of her treats and passed onto the festival poster couple of meters away from where she was enjoying her last pancake. If it would be up to her this wouldn’t be her last pancake, but because that poster reminded her of the movie she so wished to see and had been heading to see before she noticed the pancake stand, she thought of stopping her pancake adventure.

So it happened that Tina finally looked at the time… oh no!

She not only missed the start of the movie screening but it appeared that it was now halfway in. She looked at her sticky fingers and felt defeat. Through all her enjoyment she got lost in her mind and forgot to keep track of what was the festival truly about – the movies. But as much as it bothered her, Tina finally understood that people can have a different obsession but dive into them with the same amount of enthusiasm – her obsession was delicious disks of fried batter.