An Invitation Arrives
An invitation arrives in my in box: “Dear Elizabeth, Congratulations! Your film Easy Made Hard the Film has been selected to screen at the 34th Cleveland International Film Festival (March 18-28, 2010).This year, close to 1200 independent short film entries were submitted for review by our Selection Committee and 160 films were chosen. Needless to say, competition was fierce.”
I breathe comfortably for the first time since the day I tucked my DVD screener into its bubble pack envelope and sent our baby winging off to Cleveland. Founded in 1977, the Cleveland Fest has been presented every spring for over three decades. Considered an A List festival, it is Ohio’s premier film event featuring over 240 films originating from 60 countries.
It feels wonderful to think someone else appreciates what I know is special. I suppose I view the film from a bias point of view. But that’s what we creators do. We create a work and to do that we must first fall in love with the vision. Then we must get others to fall in love too.
“I will die if I can’t work on making this story into a film!”
Well, maybe that’s a bit extreme, but plucking an idea out of the ethers, getting it down on paper in a form that stirs the emotional gut of someone else, and then translating it into images requires all involved to be totally dedicated and completely insane.
As somebody said, if you don’t court disaster, you can’t have success. Somebody else said, life expands and contracts in proportion with one’s courage.
It’s a requirement for you to understand if you choose to join the family of artists, whether you’re a filmmaker, a painter, a writer, musician, sculptor, or a composer, you need to know it’s like joining the Mafia. Prepared to be whacked!
And once you’re in the family you’ll soon discover creating ain’t enough. Hell no! We creative types want the world to love our baby. The truth is we want the world to love us. It’s primal.
So I bow to the wonderful people at the Cleveland International Film Festival for recognizing our newbie. Bless you!
