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My essentials DANIEL BORG Artist Daniel Borg is a Maltese musician, artist, and draftsman. He is well known for his musical work with a number of Maltese alternative bands among which are Superlove, Skimmed, The Velts and Fastidju. He graduated in Building and Construction Design at MCAST, Malta, and has worked with top firms in the field both in Malta and Berlin. He began teaching himself to paint in mid-2020. 1. Book 2. Film 3. Internet 4. Music 5. Place I have a small ritual. I al- ways put on the album The Greatest by Cat Power while I'm setting up a new painting. This helps me to get in the right frame of mind to start a painting. I do find that the music influences the way I paint and as time goes by, I'm getting to know myself more and what music to put on at a particular stage of the painting. THE USA. There are many things that I'd love to see that I have read or heard about over the years. The United States has produced a huge amount of visual and musical artists and cultural movements that interest me. I've been meaning organise a long cross-country trip for a while, but I haven't been lucky so far as plans were cancelled twice. IS-SRIEP Reġgħu Saru Vele- nużi by Alex Vella Gera. I'm not an avid fiction reader, however I picked this book up following the hype generated by the film. The use of lan- guage, the political relevance it still holds and especially the expat experience is so perfectly exemplified in this novel. It hit me quite hard because the book verbalised many of the thoughts and feelings I have as a Maltese person who moved to anoth- er country and the confused emotions that this brings, as well as rediscovering and re- defining what it means to be Maltese. TITANE by French director Julia Ducournau. I watched it at home but I highly recom- mend those who haven't to watch it at the cinema. It's a very visual, body horror mov- ie with some very visually powerful scenes and it blew me away. I had never seen an- ything quite like it. There was a mixed reaction from the people that watched it (my partner hated it), but I think it's an excellent movie and the uncompromising attitude of Ducournau is what makes it so compelling. WHILE painting I feel the need to kill the silence in the room since it is a very solitary act so I listen to a lot of podcasts. I find it helps me to not concen- trate on the act of paint- ing and allows my sub- conscious to do the work resulting in a more gen- uine piece of work. From all the podcasts that I lis- ten to (and which proba- bly some would find very boring), I recently dis- covered one called Busi- ness Wars. It's basically a history podcast narrating how two business rivals adopted business strate- gies against each other. Compiled by Laura Calleja suggestions by email lcalleja@mediatoday.com 4 5 1 MaltaToday is supported by Arts Council Malta 4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 NOVEMBER 2025 ALMANAC 3 2