The following morning I’ll be driving with Ashley to Tipton, Iowa to attend the Hardacre Film Festival. I just found out that we won the runner up jury award too! Pictures from past festivals look really neat and we’ll be staying at local bed and breakfast and taking it all in.And we got a good review from the Little Village Magazine. Go to page 24 here to check it out.

Excited about both events. The Vickers is less than 2 hours from Chicago! And even closer to South Bend, IN. It would be amazing to have a good crowd there (and in Iowa!)

Stay tuned for more exciting information.

After the screening we went out for a bite to eat and took a picture. Almost all of these people drove all the way in from Chicago to see it. Super grateful to have such good friends and family. So a week later I went down to the Tallahassee Film Festival. One of the really cool things we did was go on a tour of Tallahassee and the surrounding areas to show that this would be a good place to shoot our next film. I had a few drinks the night before after a long trip (I left at 4 a.m. to fly into an airport several hours away and barely made it in time for a documentary panel that I was part of, so I was tired), and I frankly didn’t want to participate in the tour. And besides I had to meet Michal Kapral who was coming in for the screening as well (graciously) later in the afternoon. AND, I wanted to be rested for the screening that night since the tour was from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m…. and I had another panel at 2:30!

I ended up really enjoying the tour. We went to this nature preserve where they shoot a lot of films and I took a few pictures with my iphone, so pardon the quality. 

We went to a bunch of other places including a town (I forgot the name) where the local banker secretly invested most of the town’s money in Coca-Cola stock and told everyone one day that they were all millionaires. Crazy.

We went to the FSU Stadium and, being a Notre Dame football fan, I reluctantly took this picture to be gracious to my hosts. I’ve since burned it.

My phone died soon after so I don’t have many other pictures of the tour, but like I said, a lot of fun.

Michal Kapral came down from Canada to be part of the screening and do a joggling presentation. The theater is part of the FSU film school and super cool, and the projector gave a gorgeous image.

Here’s Michal doing his joggling demonstration. He was unfazed by the first question from the audience from a 7 or 8 year old, “why did you come all the way down to Tallahassee?”I met a few other filmmakers that I really enjoyed hanging out with and getting to know better. Tyler Elliot was there with his film Hooligans at War, which played at the same time as mine so I wasn’t able to see it, but it looks great. Check it out.  And I hung out with the guys, Ahmed Ahmed and Taylor Feltner, who made Just Like Us, which I was able to check out later that night and I enjoyed it a lot. We all participated in the panel after the tour together and they had a lot of interesting things to say. I’m hoping to meet up with Taylor after our screenings this Saturday at the Atlanta Film Festival, where we’re both playing (at the same time).

Atlanta Film Festival you ask??? Yes. Winnie, Guffman, and I drove down from Chicago to come to be part of the Atlanta Film Festival. We left on Wednesday, and were going to try to push through to make it in one day, but decided to delay it a bit because of the pending crappy weather. We ended up staying in Franklin, TN and completing the trip today. I’m glad we didn’t try to fight through the bad weather. There were many tornadoes that tore through the area and we got glimpses of them along the way.

We made it to Atlanta and Guffman is in heaven running around and swimming and playing in the monkey grass at my in-laws.

My friend Curt Gill is in PR and was nice enough to get me on a few radio shows here in Atlanta. Now I know how some of the subjects in my film feel when we would shoot 20 hours of footage and they’re in the final movie for 10 seconds or something. I did a 15 or 20 minute interview the other morning and they used a couple seconds of it here. But I’m happy that they’re promoting Breaking and Entering and the Atlanta Film Festival, even though I sound like a jag.

I’m really excited to be back in Atlanta, and can’t wait to screen Breaking and Entering with family and friends. Get your tickets here if you haven’t already.

Let me start from the beginning. The festival gave me 16 tickets to the screening for my friends and family (and myself). Despite my best intentions of getting there 30 minutes early to dish out the tickets to my friends and family I got there probably ten minutes early in a semi-panic. I saw a long line of probably 75-100 people in line when I got to the theater, which immediately made me feel at ease. It was 11:00 a.m. and I was worried that nobody was going to show. I got to the front of the line asking for the volunteer who would be introducing me, and they told me that I was at the wrong theater and I had to go downstairs to the theater. I went down the stairs and there was no line at all. The only people down there were my friends waiting for tickets. No line at my theater. No 75-100 people. At least my friends were there I thought. So I introduced myself to the volunteer and walked into the Student Union Theater. It turns out that the festival director, Meg Hamel, was going to introduce me so we started looking for her. I walked into the theater, and not only was it ENORMOUS, but it was PACKED! I don’t know what the official headcount was, but I would guess at least 700 people… EASILY the biggest screening we’ve ever had. WOW! Absolutely surreal.

I met Meg briefly and she introduced me and the next thing I knew the movie was starting with Ashrita and his giant hula hoop. I can immediately tell how the screening is likely going to be by the reaction to the hula hoop. About ten seconds into this screening I knew it was going to be a good one. The audience was engaged from the beginning to the end. Unbelievable screening! Unbelievable audience!

My wife was sitting next to me and I glanced over and saw her shedding a few tears. I have to admit that I welled up a bit myself and I thought about the journey of making this film. I thought of how I met with Kelley Maher (producer) in the beginning and we decided to actually go for it and make this documentary that had been on my mind for so long. Then I thought of all the various places we shot footage and all the amazing people we met along the way. And I thought of the editing process with Ashley Nath (editor), and how many hours we spent editing this movie from 260 hours down to 88 minutes. I exhaled and just enjoyed watching it with such an engaged audience.

We did a quick Q&A with the audience, which was fun. And we got pushed out the door so they could get the theater ready for the next screening. I brought my camera but didn’t take any pictures. I always forget to do that, and my head was in the clouds a bit so you’ll have to excuse me. Somebody did get one picture of me and Kelley that I’m linking here.

My friends Paul and Tina may have a picture or two that I can post later (they came in from their anniversary celebration in Milwaukee. So nice!)

All in all, great time. I just wish it went on longer. Thank you, Madtown!

After the interview, we dropped off Guff and went out to lunch with two other filmmakers who were interviewed, Justin (here’s his film) and Brett (and his film). It turns out that Brett played his film at the Cucalorus Film Festival AND the ReRun Theater. AND he came to see BREAKING AND ENTERING at Cucalorus. I’m going to break my run of not going to see other films at film festivals and Winnie and I are going to see his at the Student Union Theater tomorrow. (Justin’s is already sold out).

After lunch we picked up the passes from theater and walked back to our hotel. My friend Andrew Kaplan has some ins in Madison and was able to get posters put up around town and we stumbled on one near the Union. It looks really cool around the other posters! Thanks, Andy! 

It also turns out that Winnie sells her jewelry (she’s a jewelry designer and a pretty darn good one if I do say so myself) to a store only a few blocks away from our hotel, Atticus. We checked it out and now we’re back at the hotel. We play tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. at the Student Union Theater.

A dozen or so years ago I saw the short movie COVEN at the Wisconsin Film Festival, which was featured in the documentary AMERICAN MOVIE. AMERICAN MOVIE is still my favorite documentary (BREAKING AND ENTERING is a close second), and is a big reason I wanted to make a documentary. So I feel a little nostalgia here in Madison, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s screening.

The Isthmus calls Breaking and Entering one of the 12 “sure things” at this year’s festival.

The Onion’s AV Club (Madison) calls it, “inspiring and oftentimes comical tales of how some people spend inordinate amounts of time and energy just to grab hold of their own personal 15 minutes.”‘

The Capital Times says “Breaking and Entering celebrates unusual feats.”

Here’s the entry from the film guide.

We’re screening Saturday, April 2, at 11:00 a.m. at the Student Union Theater.

I’ll be driving down with my wife and dog. Please spread the word to anyone who might want to see the film in Atlanta. It’s good. I promise.

Here’s the link to buy tickets.

Breaking and Entering will be screening in Asheville, NC tomorrow night at the Regal Biltmore Grande Stadium 15. It’s part of the Asheville Cinema Society.

I’ll be there for a Q and A after the screening.

Looks like a lot of fun.

Check it out.

Winnie and Guff

We arrived early morning and stayed at the Salem Inn, which was built in 1835. I got up a few hours later for a first time documentary filmmakers panel with three other filmmakers from two films: A Good Day to Die, and The Sons of Perdition. It was a fun panel, and despite their films’ subject-matters being quite different than Breaking and Entering, I felt a kinship with them. They clearly have a lot of passion and it was nice to see.

Screening

The screening went really well, and we had a good Q and A afterwards. We met a great woman there named Rhonda Moskowitz who is working on her own documentary, and actually started a documentary filmmaking club in Boston where they talk about their docs, show rough cuts, etc… called Connect the Docs. Couldn’t meet a nicer woman, and I can’t wait to see her film in early 2012.

My wife, Winnie, and I ended up hanging out a bit later with Jennilyn Merten (The Sons of Perdition), and swapped war stories. I haven’t seen her film yet, but listening to what she went through shooting her documentary had me on the edge of my seat, so I’ll definitely check it out when it comes to Chicago. I think she said that it will be on Oprah’s OWN channel in August. Winnie tried on her glasses later and is trying to find her own pair on ebay.

Before I go to these film festivals I always promise myself that I’ll take a lot of pictures and that I’ll have the audience sign up for the mailing list, and I always forget to do both. But I have a few pictures here.

As always, I regret not going to more screenings, but it was tough with our dog, Guffman, being there.

Now Winnie, Guffman, and I are unwinding and catching up on emails at her family friend’s house in Cape Cod. It’s off-season, but going on long walks during the day and eating good food at night is good for the soul.

Thanks to Salem and the film festival!

Glasses