Italy Again

We were invited back to Italy again, this time to Lucca for the Donna Discover women's travel weekend. Check us out on Flickr.

Strategy Meeting

Brunch at my place to try to figure out how to win this time. We came in second in November in the Ideablob contest. We have been gathering votes, registering friends who want to support us and generally preparing for a big push next month. Chang Hun's friends in Korea are running into some kind of web problem, but Taek's friends did not have the same issue. Can is working on his Turkish pals, Mara's confirming her Italian and Croatian links and Benjm has gotten almost a hundred from France. The contest this month is looking like it will take double the votes of last month to win - ouch. Nevertheless we are forging ahead with our plan - next month is a clean slate. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

You can't vote yet. You have to wait for February. Then we have to win a weekly sprint, and then we have to take the finals at the end of the month. If you only want to be bothered once, wait until the end of February. You can register now, just to be ready, at ideablob.com. But hold that vote for now.

Going to Lucca

We've been invited back to Italy - Lucca this time - to exhibit shorts from the festival at the 4th annual Women Traveller's Weekend. All the films exhibited will have to be subtitled in Italian, so we're planning on showing a combination of the films that screened last year in Lucarno and a few new ones. Stay tuned for more info.

What a Weekend!

I am so happy that the Festival weekend in Venice was such a success. The filmmakers who came watched each other's films and talked in the lounge and enjoyed not only the satisfaction of having other people see their work, but also of meeting other women whom they admired. There was much to admire in this crowd.




What I loved in all the conversations was the spirit of problem solving vis-a-vis women's invisibility in the film biz. Unlike last summer's WIFTI summit, where much of the message was, "Sue the batards. We did and now we have work. We have to struggle to maintain our status, so we can't help you. You need to help yourself." The feeling here was more, "Okay, things are skewed. But look at all this great work done mostly without any support. What can we do with it?" The problem becomes how to unite or at least coordinate our energies so that some of it goes into making opportunity for all and not just for oneself.



The image I have in my mind is a dry creek bed. There, women are building boats - some tiny rafts, some canoes, some sailboats, some the Queen Mary. But without water, the boats will do nothing but rot in the sun. A flash flood will carry a few further downstream, maybe even to open water. There we are, working on our boats, praying for rain and hoping not to be smashed by the others when it comes. We are afraid of each other's work and success as if only a lucky few will make it,and their finding the way out will block or smash our own escape.

At many industry and networking events, people are always asking for help on their "boat." Instead, we need to be thinking of ways to get water to our little river. A rising tide lifts all ships. And who knows, we may find we have created our own reservoir where we can sail our flotilla and the world will come to us for a break from the vast, indifferent blockbuster ocean.

Tote bag or purse?

I kept hoping somebody would donate tote bags for the filmmakers. I imagined the experience for the filmmakers arriving and wanted them to feel they were part of something real. We are a first-year festival and they sent their money in on faith with nothing promised in the way of prizes beyond the festival itself.

Well, I got another one of my ideas. You see, for all of my adult life, I have carried from town to town, apartment to house, a large box of fabric. My mother used to sew. When she died, my sister and I cleared out a whole roomful of unused cloth, some of it fabric she had owned since before I was born.

I know how to sew, more or less, the way I know how to cook - from watching my mother. Well, I hauled out that box and found more than enough fabric to make every single filmmaker a tote. I know, I'm crazy busy, the festival is looming, and sewing is not my area of expertise. But two rectangles and a strap...how much time could it take?

I forgot that I am constitutionally unable to make thirty of the same thing, or even thirty similar things. I started getting fancy. I played with shape and rick-rack and stitching. Lili and Ferrania got in the spirit and whenever they had idle time would pick up a square and start playing around with it.

Well, we're two weeks out and almost done. We have about thirty bags made so far, and depending on how many filmmakers actually can come, we may already be finished. True, none of the stitching is straight, nor are the corners square or the straps even. But every single one is one-of-a-kind, like the women who made these films.




The plan is to let each filmmaker choose the bag she wants. The early arrivals will have the most pick. But no Filene's basement tug of war, ladies. If someone else has a bag you must take home: negotiate the deal.

Choosing

Let me just say that choosing is not fun. I am more stressed out by the thought of saying 'no' than I would have expected. In the abstract, it is a simple matter. And in reality, the binary nature of the 'yes' or 'no' carries a cartesian clarity. Unfortunately, none of the films or scripts was submitted by a computer that speaks in binary coding.

High Gear

One month to go and we go into overdrive. There are now too many things for my brain to remember. A list on paper I can lose, so I stick my list on the archway. The post-it notes go up one side of the doorframe and down the other.










Whenever the stress of too many important decisions and looming deadlines with everything important and needing to happen RIGHT NOW! starts pushing my manic button, I take up the arts-and-crafts cure employed by summer camps and mental institutions. Cut, paste, stitch, iron and zone out. Hats and shirts: we will be making them. Costumes are part of the festive atmosphere - hence the word festival - but the price of even cheap promotional wear is too deep for our pockets.


Like the films in the festival, like many an indie producer with a project, things either take money or time. The interns have come on board, and while the more mundane business tasks are basically what they are handling, they too find the crafts project s relaxing. And I am grateful for the many hands.

In and Out burgers anyone? My treat.