Irony deficiency

Mary of Magdala, former high priestess of Isis, came to Malta when she was pregnant. The child, called Joshua, died, and was buried in the crypt of the chapel near Dingli Cliffs – which is opened only, of course, on July 22, this being her Name Day.

The catacombs are only accessible through a stairway, beneath a paving slab hidden under the carpet in the aforementioned chapel, which is lifted by turning an anaglyph chiselled into the corner.

Somewhere in Malta, perhaps, is the only known complete, original codex known as the Gospel of Mary. Elsewhere, all copies have pages missing.

The Order of Malta is alive and, well, kicking; the chaplain boasts a huge white, enamelled Maltese Cross on his left lapel, as does the Grand Dame, Lucia Lascaris, direct descendant of the supposedly celibate Jean Baptiste Lascaris de Castellar, 57th Grand Maestro of the Knights Hospitallers.

Meanwhile, the German professor Paola Reichmann, specialising in paleo-Christian studies, is found crumpled at the bottom of Dingli Cliffs, venom from a poison dart (containing party drug ketamine, apart from other substances) discolouring the double snake (another reference to Isis) tattoo on her back.

Moral: A GPS will save your life only if your mobile’s switched on.

This, of course, is (im)pure fiction; merely parts of the many-layered plot stinking with red herrings, of one of two recent Rete 4 series, Le Indagini di Padre Castell (Wednesdays), that has the eponymous priest nose out mysteries, murder and mayhem as would a latter-day Fr Brown (the ‘short, stumpy Catholic priest, formerly of Cobhole in Essex, and now working in London’). Both episodes featured Maltese extras.

Meanwhile, on Rai Due, a totally different type of man of the cloth called Lasko tackles crime differently. He divides his time between monasterial ascetics and the disciplines of martial arts – a sensational combination that makes Robin Hood and Walker, Texas Ranger, look like a couple of plush teddy bears, and giving a totally new meaning to the phrase ‘Make me an instrument of Thy peace’.

Moral: Don’t clash with a cordelier, especially if he has a six-pack under his Franciscan-like habit and the typical ring of The Fist of God.

His back-story is that he was a German soldier who fought in Kosovo, and was later ordained into the Pugnus Dei military order of the Church. This brings together Opus Dei and the ethos of the Knights Hospitallers in a neat amalgamation that involves night-time fisticuffs in traffic-laden tunnels and different types of martial arts in each episode.

Malta is the ideal location, probably able to double up for any place in the world and any year in history, as we have seen hundreds of times.

Indeed, the call for applications for the Malta Film Fund has now gone out. The eponymous entity was set up in 2008, with a view to promoting and further cultivating the Maltese audiovisual industry.

It aims to apportion “an amount of funding for development and production of audiovisual projects and encourage training and networking among audiovisual professionals”.

This year, the deadline for submissions is October 25, and there are two categories – ‘Actions’ – under which one may seek support. The first is for the development of a Maltese short film, feature film or documentary, and the second is the production of a Maltese short film, feature film or documentary.

However, it is being made unequivocally clear that an applicant may only submit a request for funding under one of the actions. Those eligible to apply include the directors of a company, the producers, the executive producers, line producers and associate producers.

For further information go to https://opm.gov.mt/maltafilmfund .

Meanwhile, the screening of the current short films available through the Malta Short Film Festival collection will be aired on TVM from the second week of July. The films will be screened on Fridays, from 9.15 to 10.30 p.m. The last programme in the series will feature the award presentations.

Joyce Grech, whose name is synonymous with this marvellous showcase, will be presenting the programme and acting as judge with Saviour Chircop, Tony Cassar Darien and Winston Azzopardi. The festival director is Tony Parnis and the technical director is Godfrey Smith.

Unfortunately – as is often the case with the excellent programmes (I am to understand it has something to do with sponsors and/or advertisers) there will be no repeats.

The countries taking part this year, are Malta, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Iran, Finland, US, Canada, Singapore and Pakistan. Grech says they have received about 140 films.

• Much ado had been made of the fact that the Office of the Prime Minister would be headed by Marlene Bonnici, who has been appointed permanent secretary (EU funds) in the OPM. The way it had been reported in some television, radio and print news bulletins made it sound as if the woman were an alien.

Was it that important for us to associate the name ‘Marlene’ with a gender? Had the appointee been called Mario, would it have been pointed out to us that he is a man?

Since then, to my knowledge, not one item of news has included the work being carried out by Bonnici, as mentioned by name.

Likewise, all the local media had been in a furore over video footage shot after that infamous post-Eurovision party – and unfortunately, in Malta, it does not seem to be the case that everyone is innocent until proved guilty.

The chances are that Fr Castell would have demanded voice clips from everyone – including the victim – to run them on a recognition machine. The perpetrators must not be allowed to get away scot free.

television@timesofmalta.com