"You can't simply throw love overboard." "If you've experienced it once, it's for good." "It's a positive thing." "If you can shake it off, it was never love in the first place." "FRED ROBSAHM ACTS IN CANNES FILM" "FRED ROBSAHM HAS LEAD ROLE IN ITALIAN FILM" "Fred Robsahm, who plays the lead in 'Flashback', is Norwegian." "You are a foreigner, unknown to the Italian audiences." "Why were you chosen for the lead role in this film?" "I don't really know." "I came here two years ago." "I was a diver in Norway." " Quite a different career!" " Oh, yes." "My plan was to spend a few months on vacation here..." " Hello?" " Hi." "Am I talking to Fred?" "It depends on..." "what's in it for me..." "I'm just kidding." "I try to take everything with a sense of humour." "It sounds foolish sometimes." " Listen, Fred?" " Yes?" "How do things look for you tomorrow, or Thursday..." "How things look for me?" "Pretty much the same as always." " I hobble along through life." " Right." "Would you be home if we brought our cameras tomorrow?" " Tomorrow...?" " Yes." "Yes!" "Sure!" "I think we can assume that this is where he lives." " "Fred Robsahm."" " This is it." "Fred?" " There you are!" "Can we come in?" " Yes." "I have realized that I cannot chase you away." "I can't hear it if you knock downstairs." " OK." "You live down here, too?" " What?" " Should I take my shoes off?" " No." "Something could bite you." "How is my make-up?" "Shit, here you come, and..." "Passabile?" "This is what it's like to be the subject of a documentary." "I don't recommend it." "Did you make that, or find it?" "I made this ages ago." "It could use some restoration." "It isn't finished." "I need to fix the bowsprit and make some more waves." "Maybe a little dolphin jumping..." "Right?" "Little things that don't mean anything." "That's what happens when you go up against the wind." "When you go up against the wind." "Things tend to break then." "FRED HAS ALWAYS BEEN PASSIONATELY INTERESTED IN BOATS" "I practically learned to row before I could walk." "As kids we hung out with the pilots." "And when they headed out, we would hoist sail and join them." "It was crucial." "FRED WISHED FOR A SAILBOAT WHEN HE GREW UP" "HE WANTED TO SEE THE WORLD WITH IT" "If you have a chance to see the world we live in, you should do it." "Meet other cultures and people." "Enrich your mind." "FRED SIGNS ON AS A DECKHAND TO EARN MONEY FOR A SAILBOAT" "AFTER A FEW YEARS AS A SAILOR AND DIVER, " " FRED JOINS HIS MOTHER ON A VACATION IN ROME" "HIS INTEREST IN BOATS TAKES HIM TO THE MARINAS OUTSIDE THE CITY" "HERE FRED MEETS A FILM PRODUCER, AND A NEW WORLD UNFOLDS!" "THE ITALIAN SPAGHETTI WESTERNS ARE IN NEED OF BLONDE HEROES" "FRED ROBSAHM - WESTERN HERO FROM LILLESAND" "I was popular and photogenic and could speak the language." "The acting itself is not so difficult." "NORWAY'S FRED ROBSAHM IN THE SPOTLIGHT IN CANNES" "FRED ROBSAHM IN BLOCKBUSTER BARBARELLA" "LILLESAND BOY IN ITALIAN FILM" "Welcome, duke!" "FRED FROM LILLESAND AND HIS GIRLS!" "FRED DECIDES TO CONTINUE AS AN ACTOR" " UNTIL HE CAN AFFORD A SAILBOAT" "Please offer Your Royal Highness my gratitude..." "It's like they belong to some devil." " My legs hurt so much..." " Your legs hurt?" "It would take a lot for me to smile now." "Are they better sometimes, or do they hurt all the time?" "They're better sometimes." "But at other times they kill me." "Son of a bitch!" "Bloody hell." "Damn." "Damn!" " Do you have to have that on now?" " Pardon?" "Do you have to have that on now?" "Are you in agony?" "Where does it start?" "Let me know when it really hurts." "You react immediately there." "How about here?" "Right." "And there..." " Your nerves are in bad shape." " Well, I..." "If we only could have installed some new wiring..." "It's as if... as if they aren't mine." "There must be something you can do, or I'll go crazy." "I'll talk to that neurologist." "Maybe we could try Rivotril." "FRED HAS BEEN HIV-INFECTED FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS" "THE SIDE EFFECTS OF THE ANTI-HIV DRUGS CAUSE THE LEG PAINS" "You can't simply throw love overboard." "Love is forever." "If not, it isn't true love." "If it isn't with you forever." "If you can shake it off, it was never love in the first place." "You're stuck with it." "You will keep it forever." "It's a positive thing." "I commuted between Milan and Rome." "I didn't live in Rome." "I come from Milan." "I came for some screen tests and started slowly and gradually." "All the steps, first as an extra, and so on." "One night I saw two handsome boys." "One a tall, blue-eyed blonde,   the other a dark, handsome Southern Italian, also blue-eyed." "They started looking at me and flirting with me." "It was Fred and Antonio Cantafora." "We became close friends." "But I didn't become his girlfriend right away." "Fred was shy." "I went out with Antonio first." "Antonio was more audacious." "He swept me off my feet." "But after a month our relationship soured." "I first met her in Rome." "She was Antonio's girl then." "He was more of a playboy." "They saw each other for a while." "So then..." "I had an eye for her, but..." "But it was only when I came back from the States in 1972  that it said 'bang'." "By coincidence, I wore..." "It was the only time I wore it." "Someone had given me a gold Dunhill lighter." "I lent it to a friend who liked it a lot." "And he lost it." "So he gave me a mink coat, as compensation." "I wore that when I started dating her in Milan that winter." "It was carnival season." "I did an ad for Michelin." "And we danced and got entangled in the confetti." "The film which made her, or us, famous, was 'Sepolta Viva'." "That was one of those tear..." "'Strappa lacrime' come se dice in italiano." "In norvegese non lo so." "Certain things cannot be translated." " It's a..." " A kind of drama?" "It's one of those..." "What do you call them?" "Tear..." " Tear wringer?" " Tear jerker." "It was very popular." "Made a mint." "Help me!" " Philippe!" " Try to hang on!" "Try to hang on!" "Gode Gud!" "Help me!" "My God, I was afraid I had lost you." "God is too kind to separate us." "We had a wonderful time." "All the Italian newspapers wrote about us during that time." "All the articles!" "Everyone wanted to take our picture..." "Everyone wanted to see us together." "At that time a magazine even had a huge poster of us." "It was a picture of me and him." "The caption read: 'A Happy Couple!" "'" "I had to..." "No, I would say I also married his passion for the sea." "His energy, his love of the sea rubbed off on me, too." "I became smitten with the same love." "Then we built the boat." "We built this dream, this boat, to escape." "We wanted to work in films first, and then escape out to sea." "And live like that for the rest of our lives!" "I need to go grocery shopping." "I haven't bought anything." "Mangy..." "Ugly bastard, but plenty dangerous." "Just ask the fish." "Just showing you this is enough to get arrested." " How long a walk is it?" " Walk?" "Don't we have a car?" "NO FISHING" "There's always something to do." "It's good, because later, when you're out on your boat..." "Even though it might have been futile on land,   you have the skill with you... up here." "I'll fry it in the pan." "Need to slice it first." "Let's do that." "When you were out sailing, did you do a lot of fishing?" "Oh, yes!" "Lots of dorado and tuna." "Put them in salt, wash them with seawater, and hang them to dry." "You'll have food for long voyages." "And it's tasty." "Especially during night watch." "That should work..." "This is a nice trout." "It took me 21 days to cross the Atlantic." "People talk about the sea as if they'll never see land again." "Navigating is simply getting from one place to another." "You navigate through your entire life." "But being at sea is getting from A to B." "You have a mobile home, like a car that you can drive wherever you want." "You're not on the autostrada all the time, are you?" "Magellan said it..." "He was misinterpreted." "He who found that..." "close to Tierra del Fuego..." "He said, "Navigare necesse est." "Vivere non est necesse."" "It means, "Navigating is necessary, living is not necessary."" "Sitting still in one place, without navigating, without moving..." "Everyone thought he meant navigating at sea." "But you navigate through life." " But it's best to navigate at sea?" " No." "Yes!" "There are less reefs." "There are many more reefs here on land." " Did you go to sea to escape?" " No, not to escape." "You are much more responsible for yourself, at sea." "You can't call anyone for help." "You take it as it comes." "It looks good, but shoot it if it jumps out of the pan." "Thank you, my dear" "For letting me give you the whole world with me" "For having sought out another life by my side" "For having failed and paid even more" "Along with me" "But saying goodbye is not possible" "Thinking of you without smiling" "Not to be there in your eyes" "But no, I don't say goodbye Because you live in me" "We are in the earth and in the trees" "In the light and in the sun..." "In cinema, you have to be visible." "There are award ceremonies, dinners, premieres..." "You have to promote yourself." "And Fred hated that." "So I always had to drag him along." "He didn't want to frequent these milieus." "He was like a fish out of water." "...thinking about what has been" ""Show them the tits, and they fall."" " Wasn't that more common in Italy?" " Sure." "In the movie business in Rome, they wanted you in bed  whether you were a man, a boy, or a woman." "They were crazy." "It didn't matter if you could act or not." "That's why I went for westerns." "They were nice and fun to do." "Not like those..." "Visconti and Fellini and those nuts." "Visconti was really offended by me." "I said he could use my contract as toilet paper." " My agent fired me over that." " Really?" "He said I should go in that door and out that one." "That would land me the role." "I said, "Here's an idea." "Why don't you use this as something else?"" "Apparently that was wrong of me." "I had had it up to here." "I reminded her that we had an agreement." "We wanted to save enough to build a boat, and leave." "See the world." ""I don't want to grow old without having done it," I said." ""I'm crossing the Atlantic, with or without you."" ""You have to respect that." She said all right." "Sometimes I loved that boat so much." "But I also hated it, because it always took him far away from me." "I wish I had had someone with me." "But I had only the cat." "He loved it." "Across the Atlantc." "I had only the cat with me." "He gorged himself on flying fish." "He lay on his back, on deck, moaning." "There were dolphins..." "It was nice." " You crossed the Atlantic alone?" " No." "The cat was with me." "The customs officer asked for my crew. "He swam ashore," I said." ""That's not allowed," he said." ""I couldn't stop him," I replied." "He laughed when he realized it was a cat." "He meant I couldn't have sailed that boat alone." "But it sailed itself." "I didn't have to do anything." "It was steady once I got it on course." "A long keel." "Well-balanced." "It was a good boat." "I did charter work in the Caribbean." "Out at 9 a.m. Diving for spiny lobsters and oysters." "I'd find a pearl or two." "It was great for the American tourists." "I made good money." "I earned about 500 dollars a day." "I let them hoist the sails." "They loved that." "I was sad that we weren't together, doing what we had agreed." "I could understand that she got swept up in her career." "That she no longer wanted to leave, although I would love to have..." "Taking that trip alone, or in bad company, is the worst..." "Bad company is worse, but being alone is also bad,   because it is so beautiful." "Not being able to share something,   only makes it half as good." "I thought we had a nice relationship." "But it's hard enough when you're together." "When you're far apart, it's even harder." "So that's why I flew back." "To patch up our relationship." "FRED MAKES A STOPOVER TO VISIT HIS MOTHER, " " WHO HAS SETTLED DOWN IN MAJORCA" "AN ACQUAINTANCE FROM ROME HAS A BOAT IN A SPANISH MARINA" "HE ASKS FRED TO SAIL IT TO ITALY" "Fred was an excellent skipper." "People had him sail their boats from Portofino to Genoa, for example." "Travelling like this became his job." "He loved it." "Give him a boat, and he was the happiest man alive!" "He had visited his mother in Majorca, Spain." "And he met someone who needed their boat sailed to Rome." "That was all." "I sailed the boat to Italy, as skipper." "I could have been more careful, but..." "I had dinner at a restaurant in the harbour, and took a taxi home." "I thought everything was fine." "But that night they came and..." "CAUGHT WITH 1.5 TONS OF HASHISH" "NORWEGIAN ACTOR IN ITALIAN DRUG GANG" "NORWEGIAN ACTOR FRED ROBSAHM WAS ARRESTED WITH 17 ITALIANS, " " SUSPECTED OF SMUGGLING 1.5 TONS OF HASH" "MAFIA MONEY" "Police in Civitavecchia and the drug police in Roma  followed 'II Franco Cacciatore:" "suspected for smuggling with Spain." "Yesterday, 1.5 tons of hashish were unloaded from the boat  into a van for transporting fish." "The police followed the entire operation." "The smugglers are in custody, charged with drug trafficking." "Fred Robsahm, Agostina Belli's husband, was involved." "The entire organisation has been uncovered." "43 days in a cell, and beatings, everywhere." "It wasn't easy." " What do you mean by "beatings"?" " I got beat up." "They kept me awake." "Beat the soles of my feet with pipes." "I weighed 50 kilos when they carried me out." "The worst prison guard, an illiterate shepherd from Sardinia..." "He thought I was dead when they carried me out." "I couldn't resist it, but smiled and winked at him." "That made all the hell inside worthwhile." "He was afraid." "I saw the fear in his eyes." "They copied the boat owner's confession and claimed it was mine." "That was a mistake." "There were things in there" " I couldn't have known, since I was in the Caribbean." "But the prosecutor liked it, because they needed a ringleader." "I had money at the time, and landed in the middle of..." "Poof!" "When this tragedy started, " " I had already met Rudi, my present partner." "I had wanted to talk to Fred about this." "But I never had a chance to talk to him,   because he was arrested the night he arrived." "I couldn't to anything." "What could I do?" "Rudi followed me to the lawyers, to the jail." "He waited outside." "He was always at my side, and I fell for him,   because I saw how human he was during this mess." "Poor Fred." "One day he saw an article in a newspaper." "Photographers were always following me." "They had taken a picture of me outside the prison with Rudi." "Fred saw it, and asked me who that man was." "And I hadn't been brave enough to tell him." "It was horrible!" "It is strange that this beautiful relationship  had to end because of an injustice..." "It shouldn't have ended like that." "She was a fantastic human being." "A great girl." "I'll always be in love with her." "Can't throw that overboard." "You can't switch it on and off." "If it's real, it's there for good." "When we left each other, I said:" ""We'll meet when we're 70 or 80,"  "and I'll tell you a thing or two."" "She laughed, but I'm going to keep that promise." "FRED IS HELD IN CUSTODY FOR ONE YEAR, BUT IS EVENTUALLY ACQUITTED" "WITHOUT ANYTHING TO KEEP HIM IN ITALY, FRED RETURNS TO NORWAY" "HE HAS NOT BEEN TO ITALY SINCE" "THE BOAT, LEFT WITHOUT SUPERVISION IN THE CARIBBEAN, " " STARTED TO SOAK UP WATER, SLOWLY ROTTED AND SANK" "AN UNUSUALLY LONG BOUT OF THE FLU MAKES FRED GO TO THE DOCTOR" "A BLOOD TEST REVEALS THAT HE IS INFECTED WITH HIV" "I understood how..." "when I contracted it." "It was while I was in custody." "They tried to calm us down with a bowl of water and a..." "With syringes..." "They went around, these... nurses." " They used the same syringe?" " You know..." "I lost my footing for a while." "I did." "But I'm stubborn, so..." "It wasn't exactly fun to begin with." "It wasn't fun to come back here, either." "To begin with." "I was thoroughly beaten up, to put it simply." "Lost my teeth." " Because of the HIV?" " Partly, yes." "A LOCAL RESIDENT HIT AND KICKED THE FORMER ACTOR FRED ROBSAHM" "HE THEN THREATENED TWO POLICEMEN WITH A SPEAR GUN" "It took a while before I reacted." " What happened?" " I don't know." "I started drinking." "Stopped giving a damn." "I didn't give a damn." "I stopped giving a damn." "I don't know how to explain it." "I think it's individual." "Anyone can understand  that when you come to a point..." "you no longer give a shit." "Don't you think?" "Did you lose many friends?" "I don't know." "I had already lost them." "HIV INFECTED WANTS PEACE" "From being infamous in the paper." "It wouldn't have mattered if I had come home healthy or ill." "But maybe the HIV made it worse." "Shit!" "I hope they haven't got dogs here now." " Switch that off, if you hear a car." " OK." "That suitcase..." "It's missing a handle, but otherwise it's ok." " Don't you agree?" " Yes." "I need to put my eyes on, if I am to see anything." "The big or the small eyes?" "The big ones..." "That one!" "Come on!" "The one sticking up..." "That little wire." " Do you feel lonely?" " Am I lonely?" "Sure..." "But what can I do?" "I can't jump out of the window." "I'd only land on the neighbour's garage, anyway." "It's not high enough." "Of course I miss having a..." "What do you call it?" "A..." "A cohabitant, or..." "I do miss a woman." "Or a girl." "What should I call it?" "The opposite sex." "I can't very well go and buy one of those inflatable dolls." "That isn't what it's about." "It's more intellectual, talking to..." "You can talk to a friend, but it's not the same as a girl." "I think that's only natural." "But you have a virus that makes it difficult?" ""Tough apples," as they say in English." "That doesn't mean I have to cut it off, or join a monastery." "But..." "I just have to live with it." "I don't know." "That's just the way it is." "I wouldn't recommend it." "I wouldn't." "Absolutely not." "But that's just the way it is." "Come on!" "REMEMBER TO FORGET" " Hello?" " Hi." "How are you?" "I have some problems." "With my heart." "With your heart?" "It dances a little ballet." "I have to take pills." "Just don't get afraid." "It isn't the heart that kills people,   it's the panic." " Really?" "The panic?" "We had an agreement, didn't we?" " I would love to see you again." " No, from all those years ago." "I'm calling a little early, but that's just the way it is." " The 28th is St. Agostina." " St. Agostina?" " Can't you travel with him?" " One can't travel with him!" "What kind of saint is he?" " I'm Agostina." "My name is Agostina." " Right!" "I didn't know..." "You didn't make the connection?" "I thought you travelled with him." " I'm not used to saints." " Right, you don't have saints." "I had my saint the other day." " Fred?" "Fred Otto?" " On the 29th." "Right." "It was your birthday!" " I got younger." " How old are you now?" "What do I know?" "Very old." "63 years old." " And you?" " 59." " Pardon?" " 59." "Old lady!" "Old lady!" "I feel young, but I'm ugly and fat." "It's what's in our heads that matters." "I want to live a new life." "I hope we can sell this house..." "I'm coming to see you!" "I'm coming to see you!" "I'm coming to see you!" " Ciao!" " Ciao, bella." "Big hug." " Big hug." "Ciao." " Salute." "Ciao." "Hi." "It's been a while." "How are you?" "No!" "I've gained a little weight, but you're still as skinny." " How are you?" " Good." "I can tell." "Me too." "Though I'm a little heavier." " I recognize you." " Little mask..." "Come inside!" "Have you seen the garden?" "You left it as a garden, now it's become a park." "I'm glad I've done what I have done." "I have no regrets." "It's strange." "One little thing, and everything would have been different."