Wild Freshness

There was a bohemian atmosphere in Bucharest’s Old Town the day I met Charlie, the compere of the well-known series Wild Carpathia. He talks about small and simple things with the same enthusiasm which can be seen in his eyes when it comes to significant experiences, movies, adventures and life. As a matter of fact, everything is complicatedly simple and nothing compares to meeting people and enjoying the beauty of things.

Films and truths

He doesn’t like the restraint imposed by a single activity which is the reason why he doesn’t keep away from writing, making movies, entertaining people and introducing them in multiple worlds by means of his poems and documentaries whose fascination never fades away. “It doesn’t seem to me that I’m doing too much, I could do even more. If one day I should choose just one thing, that would be poetry.” Charlie Ottley loves reality and sustains that “everything we see is strained by our own perception. This is why it is necessary to tell the undistorted and unembellished truth when realizing documentaries, to stay as objective as human nature allows.

The new tsunami culture

The success of the series Wild Carpathia confirms the public’s appetite for this type of films, despite the worldwide extension of the Hollywood empire’s productions. Documentaries remain an instrument of knowledge and a means of access to the middle of places where past and tradition keep their original definition. “I don’t think that nationality counts in making documentaries, but the desire of reflecting the truth and the curiosities of new places. For example, Romania is such a beautiful country and we need to talk about it. It’s a challenging place because it is in a continuous transformation. Your culture accumulated very much water in Ceausescu period and now it transformed in a tsunami culture. It has a savage thrill. This is what I love about Romania, that irreplaceable freshness.” Wild Carpathia 2- From The Mountains To The Sea presents Danube Delta like it hasn’t been before, including interviews with Princess Margaret of Romania and Ivan Patzaichin.

Charlie Ottley says that he is a pragmatic artist. “In a way I think that art should reflect the truth. And the truth is that we live in a pragmatic world. Generally speaking, in the world, money is very important to people. Not to me, I just need a roof over my head, the possibility of travelling and doing what I like. Luxury means having true friends and enjoying every moment.”

He didn’t spend years in colleges; he studied journalism in London for three months, being convinced that practice is the best lesson. “You learn a lot by doing something instead of reading about it” is the principle after which he guides and he believes that experience is the best teacher that develops your style and technique. “Some people think that you have to study to become a professional, to take classes, to participate to trainings, and only then they allow themselves to be good in a field. I believe in accumulation and evolution, in passion and flair.”

After some dozen minutes of talking about movies, people and places, he told me that he will come back to Romania in November this year in order to film his next documentary. I took my leave by telling him that this is a lifestyle. As he was pulling his hand through his hair, he told me: “This is a passion, life itself is a lifestyle.”

 Translation by Cristina Maria Tanase