The first half of the year 2009 was marked by two events, both of which had a strong emotional impact on me. One of them was the fact that Adrian Johnson, Dawna Cha and I agreed to put our experience, energy and whatever wit we had together, and create something that hasn't been here before - an inexpensive, intuitive and elegant management tool for people who organise film festivals. The web application we called Eventival 1.0 was designed by Dawna and built by Adrian, while my task was to spread the news about it around the world of film industry. The first several months of 2009 were among the most exciting in my life. The nights when Adrian, Dawna and I would sit in Adrian's house in the French countryside until 4 am, working on the system, forgetting to eat and to sleep, made it clear that when you have passion and a goal, you body and mind will not let you down.
The second event created excitement of a different kind. The moment when my former partner in Datakal showed up at a meeting during the Berlinale on 7 February 2009, and explained to me his month-long silence by telling me that he had transferred the fruits of our nine-year-long work into a company he had just created, gave me the biggest shock in years, and made me realise you never really know anyone well enough.
I thought the second half of 2009 would hardly match the first one. But I was wrong.
In the summer, an old friend of mine once again told me he would like to help me develop my projects - this time Eventival - by investing in it. By then it was clear that Eventival had stirred a lot of interest and that with this interest came a much greater responsibility. We had already begun to feel that the only way to act responsibly would be hire a professional software development team which would of course cost a lot of money. Therefore, we were happy to accept the offer.
Adrian did a magnificent job in supporting the four film festivals (Giffoni FF, Toronto IFF, AFI Fest, and Bergen IFF) and one film market (Ventana Sur), and towards the end of the year began preparing to leave Eventival and pursue other interesting projects. Dawna focused on her MBA studies at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, and I began assembling a team in the Czech Republic that would take on the task of developing Eventival 2.0.
It was all very wonderful and inspiring, but all this time I felt as if a heavy veil was hanging between me and the world. For the first time in my life, I experienced the loss of someone who was so young, so close and so full of life that any change of that state was simply unimaginable. And yet it happened, when Jin Ly, my Korean friend living in Paris, one of the most unique, talented and original people I have met, drowned in the Seine going back from a party. The circumstances of how she got into the water have never become understandable, and the case was close merely a week later. The hole her disappearance left in my heart will never close.
Looking back at the year 2009 while standing on the balcony on 31 December with Dawna and Claire Bayrasy, another friend of the rare class of Jin, my inner voice and I had to conclude in an unusual agreement that as regards gains and losses, this year certainly overdid it.
But 2010 has so far brought only good things. Eventival 2.0 is growing impatiently, we all like what it's turning into, and a few days from now, in Rotterdam and later in Berlin, we will be able to see what people think about it. I can't wait!
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