The Second Screening

So we had our second screening yesterday in the Egyptian at 3pm.

I spent the morning trying to chill and hanging with filmakers. I've been meeting up with alot of people from Austin, Texas. There's a director I was at NYU with called Margaret Brown who has a documentary here called the 'Order of Myths' which everyone has been saying is pretty great. anyway, she's from Austin, there's a bunch of other films from there, I like chilli, Richard Linklater and Texas politics so I want to hag out with these people - and they're having a party tonight.

The screening was sold out. There were 100 people waiting outside for tickets. Here's Caroline Libresco introducing me before the film started -


For this screening, I didn't stay. Me and Val went for a cup of tea, then I came back for the last 20 minutes. I tell you what is cool - standing outside the auditorium and just listening to the sound echo out. Especially when all the thriller/horror stuff kicks in - screaming and music and bass rumbles. It sounds really intense and ominous.

The Q&A after was awesome. We had Jaime and Julian and David and Angus and the audience loved the film and responded with really smart questions about how we wrote it, how the idea was originated and the acting process. Julian actually referred to me directing him as 'a process' which made me very excited in the wrong sort of ways. But him and Jaime came off as being really smart and intense actors and people are really digging the quality of the performances and the hard work they did. It's just great. David is loving the mike and a captive audience - his answers turn into standup and I swear tio Gid he actually works the crowd. Someone wanted to know about distribution and if the film would get an NC17 - Dave answered "actually, we want a triple X".

I guess I should have thought about all this before we came but the NC17 thing is a big issue with this film - to be blunt, it's too hardcore for America. At least, the sex is. All the torture and mutilation - that's fine. But show a naked woman or - horror of horrors - a willy and you're a moral destroyer. What a country, huh?

Unfortunately we ran out of time on the questions, but there were lots of people coming up afterwards to say how much they loved it. Then me and Natasha went and met a very interesting agent from a very big agency who had a very impressive super sales pitch tailored to young independent filmmakers. This is fun, having people come after you after so many years when I couldn't get arrested. Now I know - and I do KNOW - all this is ephemeral, it can pass as quickly as it came, life is but a fleeting dream or whatever it is that Confucius or Buddha or Richard Nixon once said. But this is alright, and in a weeks time I'll be back in London trying to swing a Head and Shoulders commercial.

We all went to the Austin party - we actually got in! - in this incredible 6 story condo about 10 mins out of Park City. Some Texan high rollers showing their love for all their hipster filmmakers. And the Austin filmakers are kind of the definition of hipster, cords, grubby t-shirts, softened up metrosexual southern drawl and all. Then we all headed over to a party at the William Morris house, which was a completely weird mock Alpine edifice - like the Overlook hotel. It was quite crazy and by this time my head was literally reeling from sleep loss, andrenalin, cigarettes, high altitude and red wine. So everyone started to look like this --


We called a car and headed out but the director of Half Nelson had just arrived and Val and Julian freaked out and ran back in and almost bum rushed him. I think he was quite taken aback.

Back home, I crashed.