Post Durango Independent Film Festival Stress Syndrome

Pictures from the festival will come in a few days...

This past weekend, Borderline took my mom, my girlfriend Natalie, and myself to Durango, Colorado for the 9th annual Durango Independent Film Festival for it’s premier screening. I was so excited to go that even picking out the rental car was a thrill.

The audience LOVED Borderline. Lots of laughs and chuckles. I think people feel kind of creepy laughing at the Mother in Borderline. The first time it is revealed that the Mom is behind everything people don’t bust out laughing, it’s more of an, “oh my god, that’s messed up, what the hell is wrong with people, etc.” The biggest laugh of Borderline at both screenings was at the end of the film when Timothy innocently suggests of Chelsea’s dad “Maybe he can give you some therapy.” I never thought that that would get the biggest laugh. In all honesty, I wrote that last scene pretty quickly, I just needed to wrap everything up. You gotta love it.

Borderline screened with a feature called “The Passage.” The Passage was directed by the same guy who made “Alpha Dog” so there was a packed house at the first screening at 6pm on Saturday Night. Unfortunatly for me, The Passage was an INTENSE horror/ thriller and by the time the credits stopped rolling and the lights came back up, there were only about 8 people left in the theater for some Q&A on Borderline (No one was there to speak about The Passage”. Everyone wanted to get the hell out of there. The first thing I said before the brief Q&A began was “Thank you so much for staying. Listen, I wanna get out of this theater after that just as much as you do!”

Durango was extremely beautiful, and with temperatures at around 50 during the day we never worried about us LA people getting too cold. It was a really cute festival. I met the head of Features for the fest and she seemed interested in the feature I’m writing. She’ll be one of the first people I’ll be calling once I’m done.

This weekend really made me realize that my future is not in this short film. Sure it’s fun to go to festivals, but I can’t rely on Borderline to jump start my career. I have heard so many awesome stories of people getting agents, or people screening their films and getting approached to direct some feature. These, I’m guessing, are probable 1 in 1000 stories that are like miracles to filmmakers. I think I’m just like everyone who thought that it was going to happen to me.

If you ask my mom or my girlfriend, I was in kind of a bad mood all weekend. I think I now know why. I have a good amount of festivals I have left to submit to, but
It’s time to begin the end of Borderline’s chapter in my life. It’s time to look at what’s next….


(it’s a full length movie I’m writing that I want to direct in case you were curious)