We’ll Always Have Cleveland
The invitation came in an email: “Congratulations! Easy Made Hard has been selected to screen at the 34th Annual Cleveland International Film Festival.”
Yes! Yes! Yes! The first invitation requires attendance. Who knows this might be the only festival to which our baby gets invited.
So I wing to Seattle, pick up my oldest daughter, Amy, and together we fly easy to Cleveland. We are met by a film festival representative (one of the 450 volunteers that make this festival run like a Swiss clock,) and are whisked off in a Mercedes SUV to CIFF headquarters. We are warmly greeted and presented with colorful bags filled with programs and vouchers for shirts and caps.
We’d missed the chance to see films that night and we were tired and hungry. So we ventured over to 4th Street, a colorful alley crisscrossed with strands of lights and lined with chic restaurants and hip bistros. A great dinner and back to the hotel for some rest. It had been a long day.
Up early the next morning, a quick breakfast and by 9AM we’re taxiing our way in pouring rain to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
What a poignant, amazing place filled with memories, struggles, wonderful music… lyrical diaries of not only the musicians’ lives but ours too. For decades so much of the events that went on with all of us are interwoven in the songs of this massive gathering a talent.
A light lunch and then back to the Tower Center for movies. The Center is a huge mall filled with offices and stores ranging from high end to less expensive faire. In the atrium is an enormous reflecting pond with fountains and a large multiplex which, for one week, is the home of the Cleveland International Film Festival. We manage to get in one feature before it is time for the program for which I’ve been anxiously waiting: Indie Shorts.
Amy and I are the first in the theatre. And the ONLY people in the theatre. What if no one else comes? Okay, that’s all right. At least I’ll be able to see the film on a big screen. It doesn’t matter that we’re sitting in a theatre that holds 300 people…all by ourselves…two people…here…alone. Who goes to shorts anyway? Why would they when there are all these features to see? Oh, look. Another person comes in and sits across from us. Okay. Three people. That’s good. Why would I think people would come—look! Over there. Four people. And five stream in. And then ten. In 20 minutes the theatre is full! There’s not one empty seat.
My mouth is dry. I can hardly swallow.
A festival person welcomes the crowd and invites filmmakers who have shorts showing in the program to come down front. There are three of us. We are introduced and then back to our seats.
The lights dim. The first film comes on. The screen now really looks huge. The sound is awesome. The images enormous. I slump down in my chair. Oh, my God…what was I thinking…
Easy Made Hard is sixth in a program of eight. Up it comes. That edgy musical beginning. I stop breathing.
Rhonnie Washington’s million dollar smile lights up the theatre. The kids are spectacular, beautiful and engaging. The action carries us into the darkness of the house. There’s Lloyd Roberson II, the complexity he brings to the character of Tyrone, the boy with the sweet face but the sad internal poison, flooding the screen. The cinematography is striking, editing tight, lighting perfect and the music right on. (Of course these are MY observations!)
12 mintues, 21 seconds the credits roll and I breathe again. There’s hearty applause. During the film the audience doesn’t move. Not a hair, not a clearing of a throat, not a shift in a seat. They are glued. The man sitting next to me whisperes, “Great. Disturbing, but really great!”
The program is over. Lights up. Filmmakers are invited to answer questions. The audience is interested in everything from all of us. They want to know what we shot on, or how the make-up was handled or how we made the fight look so real.
Finally the audience drifts out to a large table where there are ballots for them to vote for their favorites. The winner will be divulged the last night of the festival.
An enthusiastic woman approaches me. She wants to bring the film to the Stark County, Ohio area. Another is interested in getting it into an Ohio classroom. I’d be thrilled to work with her. This is what Easy Made Hard is about. As we say on the web site: “We want to further the conversation.”
Many people congratulate us. One man is in tears. He is experiencing a Tyrone in his life. For me, as a storyteller, I see it as my job to provoke emotion. Happy, sad, angry, disgust…what ever it is, provoke emotion. Clearly we have touched this person and for that I feel satisfied.
Though the cast and crew weren’t able to go with me, their hearts and souls were there on the screen.
We’ll always have Cleveland!
