Could This Be A... Holiday?

I'm here! 'Here' being San Sebastian, the wonderful city on Spain's north coast. It all feels damn good. Having said that, today has been mainly taken up by attempts to find a wireless connection, so I can finish my work and start properly enjoying myself.

I'm here for the city's 18th Horror & Fantasy Film Festival, which is a yearly delight. While I'm covering it for a magazine, though, this appears to be my one chance at a holiday in 2007. Me being me, of course, I'm already looking at the list of guests and wondering if I can interview any of them for UK magazines. One of these days, I'm due a long sit down with myself, to discuss why I seem to live to work, as opposed to the other way around. Hmmmm.

Last night, I saw a really clever Spanish film called Time Crimes. As the title suggests, it's about time travel, but deals with the subject in a truly mind-bending fashion. Some seriously clever scripting and plotting here, as time bends in on itself. A really confident debut from young director Nacho Vigalondo, who I was happy to congratulate afterwards. Local distribution is bizarrely eluding the film, although it's apparently been picked up for America.

After Time Crimes, the festival's opening party took place in the usual beach disco. I'm here on my own until my friend Jay Slater arrives tomorrow, so it was nice to meet director Marco Besas, who I first got to know at Porto's Fantasporto event last year. There was food, booze and blokes dressed as asylum inmates, running around shrieking like chimps.

Tonight, the main attraction is George Romero's fifth zombie film, Diary Of The Dead. Looking forward to that, and also a post-midnight screening of the ultra-nasty Guinea Pig: Flowers Of Flesh & Blood, if I can prop my eyes open that long.

In script news, I handed over the first draft of the feature-length ASK to director Dan Turner. 102 pages in 26 days! No wonder I feel a tad run-down. And filming is complete on the short Look At Me. See below for another on-set still from it, in which the scary Lionel (right) says something lascivious in a disturbed Shaun's ear. Can't wait to see the finished product, once editing and all the other post-shoot malarkey takes place. Right now, Dan's also on holiday. Talking of which, I'm going to stop blogging and start beering. It's holiday time!