I just posted a "status update" on Facebook: "Andrea is so nervous. At 12:00 noon today the AFI is screening 1000 Journals to the press, and I'm not invited. The film is on its own! Post partum, big time." Indeed, the film is out of my hands, since Friday afternoon when I delivered the HDCAM tape to the AFI. And it feels… really not so great. In moments like these I realize how much I'm invested into this piece, how much it is a part of me. You see these poker face directors bravely facing their audience, the critics, the peers, and we all are scared shitless. If it is even fear, it is hard to describe. Failure? Indifference? My relationship to the film is perhaps best compared to parenting: responsibility, protection, absolutely hoping for the best, challenged by a sense of uncontrollability, for lack of better words. Ugh.
What makes this "uncontrollability" so emotionally difficult is that it is the opposite of how we work, as filmmakers, or as actors, writers, painters… We control and tweak the minutest detail of our work. And suddenly, we have to let go and smile. It's a tough job!
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