Funchal

Funchal Festival takes place (Nov 4 to 11) at Funchal, capital of lovely island of Madeira one of the pearls of Portugal, lost in the atlantic ocean, about 45 minutes off Canaries islands, 700km off african coasts...

The island is about 50 by 25 km, takes a day or to visit by car, has about 300 000 inhabitants of which one third live in Funchal.
The weather is mild and sunny all year round (yes you read me : coats are totally useless)

Funchal hosts its festival for the 3rd time., through the initiative of Henrique Teixeira and his team.

With a competition (8 films) I, Bruno Chatelin, "declare hereby my honour"  to be part of its jury for the third edition (the best ever).

How do you get there? plane: good idea of course, unless (it happened to me) the air transporter prefers to ship your luggage in a different city.
Luckily TAP found a way to ship it the same day and shipped to the hotel after only a few hours.

The waiting was odd and I realised for the first time how loud all these airports lounges can be: try to listen your mp3 machine with two planes next to you (engines on of course), and all other airport business loud on...

Warm welcome at the airport and a great diner at the Bear House with other fellows from the jury and two film directors guests of the festival with film in the competition Alexander Oppersdorff (CAPRI, YOU LOVE? ) and Saman Salur (A FEW KILOS OF DATES FOR A FUNERAL )

Great diner by the port with traditionnal food from the island (no dates as Saman 's luggage got lost too, we could not taste any of his fresh dates but enjoyed the fried bananas)

Fantastic setting for the screenings a proper classic theater 5 minutes of the Casino Madeira.
alexander-oppersdorff

Ana Teresa Klute charming festival organiser