July 02, 2005
We received another invitation to submit the other day. They've been coming from festivals in Europe more often these days. Dutifully, we send them the film and then forget about them. Every now and then a rejection letter will surface; the only notable recent one was from a woman who very kindly told us that we were really close to getting in and that if another film was pulled from the schedule, ours would most certainly replace it.
This time last year, these invitations would have excited me, even with their implication of rejection; they represent an expression of interest about my work, and that's always wonderful; but now I feel like writing back and saying "hold that thought until my next film is ready, because it will be incomparably better and is the one you really want to invite!" But no, I have to think about this film, and, in this recent case, make a VHS copy of it. Which means I have to print it off my computer, and for 100 minutes, it's there, preventing me from possibly doing something else, inviting me to look at it, taunting me with its insufficiencies.
I'm making this all sound more dramatic than it is; I'm just taking a more prolonged stay on the hate it side of the constant love/hate flux, and just don't want to deal with the film in any manner at all. But I will, of course. There are enough people out there who genuinely like our movie that it would be irresponsible of me as a filmmaker to cater only to my current enfant terrible feelings towards it.
I was sixteen before I ever went to a rock concert. My youngest sister Anna is six, and she went to her first last night, and loved it. Granted, it was a Polyphonic Spree concert for which my grandparents bought my whole family tickets - and man, wouldn't you know it but as I'm writing this right now, their song from the Eternal Sunshine soundtrack just started playing on my iPod - but it was still cool to see her standing in her chair, waving a glowstick. She's fearless. She's so unlike me in that way.
Posted by David Lowery at July 2, 2005 03:48 PM