Fin

You don’t know me, but I feel a really strong need to write to you after reading your article about “The Pilgrimage”. I had a big lump in my throath while reading it, I became oddly and strongly moved. Mostly because I get you. I get what you’re saying about not being able to talk about, to describe, and ultimately to really share an experience like that. I think you did a good job. My name is Matilda and last year I was at the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams.

For a passionate never-grow-up escapist cinemalover it was just paradise. I’m sure there’s no need to explain why. I didn’t have the money nor the time to participate in this years adventure but in a way I’m completely content with that. I had my share of the magic (fuck, it sounds so cliché, but magic it was, truly) last year and I will never forget that. There is a light that never goes out, indeed.

Also I believe in once in a lifetime experiences and spontaneity (and so seem to do the exquisite Tilda and Mark). I read about the Ballerina on Afterellen, talked to my cinema-enthusiastic mom, and after a week or so we found ourselves on a plane together, flying from Finland (I’m Finnish) to London and took the night train to fairytale-like Nairn. There we were, on the station, like you, unknowing of what was to come.

I’m sure you had even a bigger community/family feeling this year. On the road that often happens, not to mention while pulling an object of an unimaginably heavy weight together. It’s a beautiful feeling isn’t it, having that momentary, trusting and open family feeling between complete strangers. I think it has to do with the fact that you know it’s going to be for only a period of time, you are in it together for a glorious while, and then it’s over. There are no strings attached.

At the Ballerina, for me, there was a feeling of being ageless, genderless, countryless, labelless. Just being yourself and loving cinema and being playful together. You compared Pilgrimage to a dream. To me the festival felt almost as if the time had stopped and we were having and creating a dream together. Judging by your article, while being a unique experience, something like that happened again.

Also, I know how lonely it can feel after any kind of trip, not to mention something as indescribable as the Pilgrimage must have been. You can talk about your trip - the way you live for a while - write about it, but nobody really understands, and frankly, doesn’t usually even care to understand that much. Even though I wasn’t there and I even though I don’t know you, I feel a strange kind of connection to you.