Snowflakes and Hollywood

The snow was falling in Berlin last week. It didn't stick much but reminded me how a real winter feels.

For a couple of days in February each year, I get a glimpse of the movie business. I was visiting my Hollywood friend, who had just flown in from LA. to be a part of the film market that happens during the Berlinale film festival. She sells movies (and she will, to protect the innocent, remain nameless).

They are all very friendly, these film sales people. All very smiling and hand-shaking and 'have I met you yet?'. Of course they hadn't, and didn't need to. I was just an intruder. These same people see each other, in various countries, several times a year. This time, I had barged in on their traveling club of selling, buying, negotiating, wining and dining and incessant talking.

Hollywood Friend and I had almost forgotten about the movie business on a snowy evening, as we got lost taking the bus across town. The snowflakes drifted down while we walked past chunks of the Berlin Wall, speculating which streets were most full of history. The streets now seemed full of expats and hipsters and families wrapped tightly in puffy coats. There are so many languages spoken, in Berlin sometimes you almost forget you're in Germany.

The next day, after smiling handshaking cocktail hour, my Hollywood Friend and her movie coworker told me they were perplexed. They just couldn't figure out the German film buyers. While most meetings with buyers from most countries are filled with pleasantries and catch phrases and light laughter, with Germans the conversations often reached a dead end. She was worried about this, like she was missing a cue, and couldn't see why the Germans wouldn't (like everyone else) want to find out that you liked to ski too, and how are your kids, and wasn't that a great hotel breakfast.

I told her not to worry. This sounds like something a German, upon meeting you in a work situation, might do. They are not your friends and don't plan to be. They are usually nice people, but they are not going to ask where you bought your shoes or rave about a film they have not yet seen. I haven't done business with Germans, but I would imagine that even movie people in Germany do not gush. Gushy is not a word that describes Germans.

Do they realize that this scares people from LA? My Hollywood Friend understands that she can't close deals with buyers from certain countries because she is a woman, she slips easily into French and Italian, she can tell which clients need to be left alone. But she is rattled when the Germans seem so disinterested in buying what they came to buy, and even less so in building a relationship with the person selling it. Of course, I wonder what they think of the movie sellers...

As the snow fell on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, I watched tourists take photos beside a painted chunk of concrete that used to divide the city in two. I remembered that it is not quite like any other city I know.  It's a little disjointed and stitched back together, making it a place full of edges and interesting little corners, where something might happen as soon as you turn around.

At the Ritz-Carlton, there were a lot of deals being made. I have no explanation for why the Germans would seem so chilly in these business meetings. Except that they just are that way sometimes.
I left the club of film sellers and buyers, zipped up my coat and enjoyed the last few snowflakes in Berlin.