Why are directors constantly asked about the film industry? Are shoe designers constantly interrogated about the state of British boot manufacture?

I swing into gear with my co-director publicising the upcoming release of our film Sparkle, just as our producer tries to get the next one off the ground. It's an odd combination. A friend of mine who dabbled in sadomasochism said it was like being alternately hugged and lashed, except you never knew what was coming next. Being entirely well-adjusted, I would opt for 100 per cent hugs, but I recognise that financiers tend to hang out at the sado end of the bar, and, after all, skin heals.

All the journalists who interview us, after the hugs, ask our opinion of the British film industry. Do similar interviews with, say, shoe designers, seek views on the state of the British boot industry, or do they confine their discussion to stitching and lace-holes? Perhaps because there is something intangible about film, media discussion tends to slide towards government policy, Hollywood and the usual inferiority complexes. The result is an echo-chamber of opinion that keeps us all entertained while we await a real job. For the record (and because I know you care), I think the British boot industry remains as haphazard as it has been throughout my life, lurching from top-boot to welly and back.

Foretaste of hell

In recent months my life has been intersecting with that of a lovely singer-songwriter called Tom Baxter. He is unaware of this, but I'm hoping he reads the New Statesman. First encounter was at Hightide, a literary festival in Suffolk, where we both contributed non-literary events. His chaotically charming set induced us to book for his next London gig - but before that, we ran into him again at Latitude, a boutique Glastonbury Festival. As for his recent London gig he was, as they say, cooking (though I'd think braising is more Tom's thing) . . . only we had to depart pre-climactically to attend a film premiere at the new-look Dome.

I am one of the few who admits to having enjoyed the Millennium Experience (was it really called that?), with its zones and dodgy trapeze acts and confused sincerity. I thought it a fascinating snapshot of Blair's Britain (we don't get out much) - like Ikea, in a way, but without the queue at the roundabout.

Returning after all these years, one's first thought is "airport", and I was very conscious, stuck in the middle, that I was about half a mile from the possibility of a cigarette, what one might think of as the Smoking Zone. I felt terrible missing Tom's climax for a couple of free drinks in a thudding Gatwick-style bar, not least because someone was shouting in my ear that it would be better if my films were more commercial (my producer has also pointed this out). Medieval divines kept skulls on their desks to remind them what was coming; in a similar spirit, I am sure this foretaste of hell will usefully return to me over the coming difficult period.

On the boat back up the Thames, we encountered two gentlemen with a huge wrapped canvas stretched between them. "Art?" I inquired. "Barbra," they proudly replied. Only then did I become aware that we had been inside a tiny filmy bubble, next to a huge, Streisand-shaped one. And now I come to think of it, they never did answer my question.

Deathly dissection

The deaths on a single day of Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni prompted Newsnight into one of its occasional forays into the embarrassing world of artistic endeavour.

The problem is that Newsnight's combative, contentious tone, so bracing in its habitual realm, doesn't work when it comes to the sphere of artistic appreciation. So poor Richard Eyre, presumably hoping to share his thoughts on the miraculous balance of the morbid and lyrical in Wild Strawberries, finds himself instead badgered about Bergman's box office and budgets. He looks understandably bewildered. Of course if you judge Newsnight by its ratings, it's a Chabrol at best, and certainly not a Michael Bay, so it's hard not to detect a degree of anxiety under the macho posturing. We can only hope, for the sakes of all concerned, that next time a major director dies, he or she has the good sense to go on a busy news day.

Neil Hunter's film "Sparkle" opens on 17 August

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