The festival is over and I feel like a kid who has to leave summer camp. It was an amazing 5 days of intense work and equally intense partying. Being able to see the festival from the beginning stages in May to the culmination this week has been such an eye-opening experience. Over the last two weeks the festival gained a whole new group of staff bringing us to 35 or so people. I have never worked with such a cool group of people before in my life, people I can truly call friends. They welcomed me, they welcomed Martin and I only hope I have the priviledge to work with such an enthusiastic and hardworking crew again in the future. The films were wonderful and I met so many cool filmmakers, volunteers, industry folk - I feel very lucky to have had such a great experience.
During the festival I worked on a jumbled array of projects. One was the Industry Toast, a high profile event where we toast a vital member of the film industry. This year we toasted Wouter Barendrecht, a pioneer who starting Fortissimo Films. The Toast was hosted by the one and only John Cameron Mitchell of whom I greated by slapping on the back while simultaneously telling myself “you don’t actually know him in real life”, thankfully he is just as kind as you would imagine. Other attendees included heads of production companies, filmmakers and all around amazing people. Another celebrity highlight of the weekend was getting a scolding look from Rudy Giuliani as I overheard him bash Sarah Palin and running into Alec Baldwin at least 5 times, one of which he discussed the importance of quality DVD-R’s.
But now it is back to the real world. Things to do and a job to get back to. I can’t say I’m very excited about getting back to interpreting but I know that I can make some $$ and start focusing on my own projects. Our Executive Director at Hamptons also works for Berlinale and has give me a recommendation for their week long filmmaking workshop I applied for. I’m also applying to 2 other workshops, one specifically for female directors. WIDOW is almost done and I will have a Tampa premiere during Thanksgiving for my crew, family and Laurie, who is coming down from Wisconsin, YIPEE!
Now I must pack, wrap-up work and say my goodbyes to the woods and the ocean and the 10am mornings.
(above image is one of our 8am staff meetings. Thank god Nespresso was one of our main sponsors)
