Turbulence & going places...

Turbulence is to be expected when one sets out on an international flight. After riding a wave of good news, and booking our flights to Amsterdam to attend IDFA (International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam) everything seemed to be falling into place. Our film's position in the festival had improved, and it looked like everything was coming up roses. 'A Shift in Perception' was now set to screen a total of five times at the fest, with us invited to host Q&A sessions after each screening. Em received her travel grant from the SA Film Corporation, and I received a quick response grant from SAYAB... between them that just about covered our airfares. Then, on the morning of our departure the phone rang.

The phonecall was from Joost, the Program Director of the festival, with some urgent news to report. The screening copy of our film that we had sent to Amsterdam in advance had NO SOUND and this needed fixing. After sweating about how we were going to solve this problem in two hours, we ran out the door with the soundtrack burned to a CD in the hopes that we could find a dubbing studio in Amsterdam and sort it out on arrival. Being a compulsive checker of emails, as our airport taxi (Em's mum) arrived, i hit 'check' one last time... and the distress levels jumped to an unforseen extreme. One of my best friends from uni had died suddenly the night before.

He was such a passionate (many would say insane, and certainly misunderstood by the majority) man, and I will miss him dearly. tears and gut-wrenching grief lasted all the way to the airport and well into the flight, as we heaved our luggage into and out of the car, through airport security and climbed upon the first leg of our 26 hour journey... Adelaide to Singapore. The little bit of turbulence we faced in flight was nothing compared to the three hours before we left the ground. 

Amsterdam calling...

It's ten o'clock tonight and my phone rings. A man on the other end introduces himself as Joost from Amsterdam. The penny drops. My latest (and first) documentary short film 'A Shift in Perception' has been picked up for its world premiere at IDFA... the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam. For those on the outside, it's pretty well the duck's nuts in breakin' into the world of documentary and it's the best break in my film career to date. Ha! I'm afraid dear readers, the Bloggywood explanation will have to wait a little while... I've been way to busy phoning film-making friends and breaking the good news tonight. Not bad for a crew of four, a swag of Super8 cameras and ten rolls of film. And all from little old Adelaide. My next step is to find a way over there to the Festival... I'll buzz the AFC tomorrow and see if they can help. Exciting times.

Bloggywood Boulevard

After many years of quietly bagging the blogging community for it's precautious self-absorbtion and voyeuristic fancies, I've finally grabbed the keys, jumped in the Sunbeam and taken off down Bloggywood Boulevard full tilt. A cautionary note mind you: if your ideal blog is stuffed with amazing shopping trips, cute pets, boy/girl problems and other such burdens of affluence, you'll find no shelter here. Expect instead, ye brave few, an insider's (and harsh critic's) angle on the music, art and film trades... along with an outsider's refelctions on the society he's swimming through. First stop, Bloggywood baby!