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I’ve been back from California for a week now.  It’s cold here, and I want more red wine in my life.  I recently traveled to the Napa Valley Film Festival in support of my entry, Shape Of Things To Come.  A long way to travel for a short documentary, but the programmer and hospitality manager were pulling strings to get me out there, so I convinced myself I needed the escape and took it.  After a 12 hour travel day I found myself with a beautiful hotel suite, all sorts of concierge amenities, and one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen – the meticulously trimmed rows of grapes of the valley.

On the plane ride out there, I was feeling a little uncomfortable about the trip.  I thought I’d be completely overlooked, and that I should treat it as more of a vacation.  But starting from the moment I walked into the hotel (reserved for all the documentary filmmakers) I knew I would make some great connections.  I found myself following what seemed to be the entourage of the film Rising From Ashes, the feature documentary about Rwanda’s first cycling team.  It was a $800,000 doc produced and narrated by Forrest Whitaker and directed by T.C. Johnstone.  I continued to meet consistently nice people and found myself demystifying past notions about the industry.  Of Course, I take everything with a grain of salt from nearly everyone I talk to – but at least everyone seemed to care.

The events held for the filmmakers, producers, and winemakers, were absolutely mind-blowing.  One mansion had a shark tank, another was 30 minutes into the mountains and prepared a 6 course tasting menu while carefully explaining each course of wine we were served.  Wine is allowed at the local hot springs, encouraged, they say.  The industry mixer had a bowl of my favorite olives – Castelvetranos – PITTED.  Wowzers.  The opening night Gala, shown in a photo to the right, featured 20 + local restaurants and winemakers offering their finest for our enjoyment.  I’ve decided if I’m fortunate enough to ever retire, I want to sit on a beach drinking wine and eating tuna tartar.  Simple and effective.

My film was screening 3 times throughout the festival, appearing before the feature film Jake Shimabakuro: Life On Four Strings.  The screening venues ranged from old barrel storage rooms, to airplane hangers.  All were comfortable, and sported premium visual and audio set-ups.  The turnouts were better than I expected, and the Q&A sessions even better.  I was caught off guard to be approached by last years Oscar doc winners TJ Martin and Dan Lindsay after my 2nd screening.  Along with Lissa Gibbs, they were serving as the festivals’ documentary jurors.  They commended my film, and took interest in the young man from Vermont who got their start with community access (VCAM).  I found myself very overwhelmed – they told me I had a bright future in the industry.  Yes, please.

Fast-forward through a weekend of extravagant (free) meals and ‘mixers’ and I found myself extremely nervous for the awards ceremony.  My girlfriend and I decided to see the screening of Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut prior to the awards ceremony and this helped me relax a bit.  Or it was the wine.  Either way, I had originally thought I’d be completely overlooked, and now I found myself wondering if the compliments I had received from the jurors would translate to an award.  My film was in contention for Juried U.S. Documentary Short, and the Audience Award for Documentary Short.  By the time my categories came around I was…lets say… fidgety.   Lissa started explaining a 3rd award, The Special Jury Prize for Most Promising Director, that they had created after seeing a certain film.  All the awards before this had short introductions, but she started a long and sincere explanation of what this award recipient had showed them, and the future they saw in them.  Then she called my name.  Holy headrush.

From this point on, I believe I walked in incredible grace up to the stage and gave a heartwarming, sometimes funny, sometimes tear-jerking speech about what it meant to win this award.  Or something like that…But really, I think I may have connected my sentences in some fashion.  The rest of the night was filled with trying to network at the collection of after-parties, and trying to find one of those film festival backdrops with the sponsor names on the background to get my photo taken in front of.  Those are so pro.  Need one of those.

We woke at 5:00 AM for our flight home.  The festival had proven to be a life-changing experience.  It was an inspiration in many ways, but also intimidating.  I realized a future is possible in this industry, to make films that have an effect on people.  But, it will be just as hard or harder than I imagined.  It justs get more competitive and more difficult from now on.  Here we go…

 

-Matt Day

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http://www.vtiff.org/films/addicted-to-fame

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Speakers: Mark Cavino, Jeff Howlett, Alison Segar, Joe Egan, Matt Day

Moderator: Bill Simmon

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If things go as planned we’ll be shooting the rest of the season in the spring, and it will premiere summer/fall 2013!!

Thanks to our amazing cast and crew!

Cast: Bruce Dietrich, Orion Lay-Sleeper, Ben Ash, Dre Idle, Matt Day, Jonathan Day

Crew: Adam Lukens director of photography, Dan Mazur sound mixing, Chris Parente 2nd Cam Op

Production Assistants: Tess Holbrook, Andrew Burns, Brandon Jones

Super Special Assistant of Production Services: Matt Maydick

Production: Jonathan Day, Matt Day, Johanna Hiller

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Stay tuned for press releases about the series!

Check out Signalkitchen.com!

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Pitchfork Article
Check out ZAMMUTO!

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Pictures will be posted!

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