First, I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to our own self-proclaimed, social (media) butterfly, Theresapedia for filling in on the blog last week. And I'd like to extend an official invitation for her to "guest post" any time the mood strikes - especially now that she's going to be just lounging around doing nothing on mat-leave for the next whole year!
Yes, that's right. The time has come, or the term is full... either way, we must now bow to the will of the wild and reluctantly bid adieu to one of our key collaborators and most eloquent cheerleader as she leaves us to embark on a whole new kind of production - a "reproduction" if you will.
Wishing you and your growing family all the very best, T! You are going to be soooooo missed by me and everyone at Dolly HQ. Your contribution to this whole adventure has been more valuable than you can know. xoxo
But now, we must go back to the business... of show.
For things are starting to move ahead at a brisk pace. In fact, the summer is looking very warm and sunny for the second act of our film's story!
Fresh off its hearty "homecoming" in Winnipeg, the film is set to play in Victoria at the end of the month, and to my own admittedly sentimental satisfaction, we're booked to open in Saskatoon in July! Both sets of my grandparents, a beloved aunt and uncle as well as my closest cousin, Trevor lived in Saskatoon as I was growing up. So my childhood is crowded with memories of long, frequent car trips between Calgary and Saskatoon to visit them.
To this day, the smell of egg salad sandwiches still evokes the special mix of tedium and anticipation that characterized those trips toward the "Paris of the prairies" for me.
So the news that my film will be playing at Saskatoon's Broadway Theatre makes me a little nostalgic. Especially because that's the first theatre I ever went to without my parents - at the age of 8 my cousin Trev and I snuck out of his house and walked across the river, in the waning daylight to go see "Cinderella" at the Broadway. Who would've thunk that almost 40 years later, my own film would be playing at that very cinema...? Now that's a fairytale!
That Saskatoon seems to be the final Canadian city our film has been booked into doesn't make for an ending to this film's story though - oh no... far from it. As I mentioned in my Second Acts Can Suck post, there's still the festivals. Ahhh, the festivals. In that same post, I alluded to the challenges of navigating the international festival circuit... Let me explain what I meant: It's a bit of a chess game really, because what are known as the "A" festivals require that your film be at least an international premiere to be considered for selection. So, if you're in serious running for Cannes let's say (which we were - our film was one of only 7 Canadian films short-listed for two sections of the world's most prestigious film festival!!!), you cannot accept any other festival's invitations until you hear whether or not you're in Cannes. And so on...
So, starting with our short-listing and then our coming-up short (spoiler alert: we did not make the final selection) at Cannes, it's all been a bit of a waiting game - a juggle, a gamble, a weighing of the ifs, ands or buts... Do we say no to yet another lovely festival because we're being "considered" by an even bigger festival right around the corner? Given that our film was technically completed in Dec. 2010, our "best before" date is quickly approaching - so we've been facing the question: when do we finally close our eyes and finally just jump into an international premiere and start swimming in those warm waters?
Well, let me announce here that we are finally, officially poised to get nice and wet!
Stay tuned to find out where!
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