I finally took some time to show you the love story of my friends Kristina and Filip. We travelled in pairs; my girlfriend joined me on this trip. From the very beginning things were very exciting, because immediately upon arrival I got a car with a steering wheel on the right side and had to drive on the left side of the road, which is the opposite of my ‘normal’. We rented a car, so we managed to tour a lot of nice places. The weather was nice, I mastered the driving ‘on the wrong side’, and everything went well. I will remember this trip for a very long time, because Malta really impressed us in every way.
We did the first part of the shooting in the capital Valletta, and Popeye’s village, and we did the second part around Marsaxxlokk. I wanted to create a story for the two of them, because they are very friendly, relaxed, and very goofy. It was a pleasure to photograph them in such beautiful places.
We enjoyed every minute on this sweet island and I certainly can’t wait to visit Malta again.
Apart from traffic, the influence that the British had is visible in many other ways. In addition to Maltese, English is the official language, which is good because Maltese is an extremely difficult combination of Arabic, English and Italian. In addition to borrowing language and driving practises from the British; architecture and telephone booths, which everyone recognizes as a trademark of London, are partly “borrowed”.
POPEYE VILLAGE – This village was not originally intended to serve today’s purpose, but was made for the purpose of filming Popeye (1980). More than 20 wooden structures were built on the site, and when filming was completed, the film crews just left the village, leaving the entire set behind. Seeing this, the creative locals further landscaped the village, turned it into an amusement park, hired actors and began to attract tourists from all over the world. We were delighted by the colour of the sea next to the village, which was crystal blue.
