Last night Nicolas, one of my closest friends in Berlin, moved back to Paris. He was also my collaborator, confidant, and co-conspirator on all the films I made here. We braved many chaotic and confusing waters together.

I recently found this video of him and another friend Alba in my apartment over the winter. Alba is a wonderful photographer studying in Berlin whose work can be seen on her lightstalkers page.

Nicolas is returning to Paris to study cinematography. I bought him Robert Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematographer as a going away present, and wrote a quote from my favorite Pablo Neruda poem in it;

“Horses”

“From the window I saw the horses.

I was in Berlin, in winter. The light
was without light, the sky without sky.

The air white like a moistened loaf.

And from my window a deserted arena,
a circle bitten out by the teeth of winter.

All at once, led out by a single man, ten horses
were stepping, stepping out into the snow.

……………………………………………..

I saw, I saw and seeing I came to life:
there was the unwitting fountain, the dance of gold, the sky,
the fire that sprang to life in beautiful things.

I have obliterated that gloomy Berlin winter.

I will not forget the light of the horses.”

I will miss them both very much.