I must begin by apologizing to any remaining faithful readers who no doubt have been disappointed by our lack of updates for the better part of, oh, the past eight months. We were holding off until we could make a glorious announcement that we had been accepted into Sundance or SXSW or some other film festival. Any other festival. But nearly eight months into the festival rounds, we are oh-fer.
0 for 19 – to be exact.
The first few rejections, from major festivals like Sundance, SXSW, and the Berlinale, were expected (though we had our fingers crossed) and we took those in stride and looked boldly forward to the next round.
Our producer Sumi continued to email Keith and me the form letter rejections and we’d all make a few pithy jabs at the location of the festival in question, e.g.:
re: Nashville, Mike: “Ahhh, who likes country music anyway?”
re: Florida, Keith: “Screw old people, and alligators, and hanging chads, and Elian Gonzalez, and lawn flamingos.”
Though as the rejections continued to come in, the internal jokes got significantly more R-rated, certainly not appropriate for a family-friendly weblog like this one. After nineteen consecutive rejections, it’s hard not to become an insufferable potty-mouth.
Striking out at anything is discouraging … at least in real baseball you go back to the dugout to a bunch of other guys who also don’t get a hit most of the time. But entering these festivals is not only time consuming and expensive - couple hours busy work and $50-$100 per entry – it’s also a fairly solitary pursuit. Sumi, Keith and I are the only ones who face the defeat and we don’t even get to commiserate in person.
Someday, we’ll have a water cooler to chat around. But for now, we will be better about sharing our struggles and God-willing a success or two on the blog.
The bad news is, our batting average is .000. But the good news is, it can only go up.
We’ll keep you posted – cross your fingers!
Love,
- ML
Film Festival Rejections:
- 12/1/10 Sundance
- 12/15/10 Berlinale
- 1/15/11 Cinequest
- 1/31/11 SXSW
- 2/15/11 Florida
- 2/25/11 Nashville
- 3/6/11 Tribeca
- 3/31/11 London
- 4/22/11 Seattle
- 4/28/11 Los Angeles
- 4/29/11 Nantucket
- 5/10/11 Sydney
- 5/12/11 Edinburgh
- 5/18/11 Gen Art – Subject was “Your Film Matters”
- 5/18/11 Waterfront
- At some point: Washington DC, Hong Kong, Cleveland, New Directors
This is crazy – this is REALLY good film and yes, I am friends with these guys but I challenge anyone to watch this and tell me it is not on par with anything they have seen in a full theatrical release.
Submit to Chicago International Film Festival. The people there are really kind and they like to break new American filmmakers. I think the deadline is this week.
And soldier on – this is a really great film that will somehow get discovered.