Short version: It was amazing!
Slightly longer version: It was amaaaaaaazing!!
Much longer version: The dictionary definition of “amazing” should refer – at least in passing – to the Dam Short Film Festival (DSFF) held in the beautiful Boulder City, NV. (Not far from Las Vegas.)
I had the absolute, incredible, mind-blowing honour of having my sci-fi short film, “Please Don’t Send Help,” screen at that beautiful festival. They accept only 23% or so of submitted films, and they’re among the top 1% film festivals in the world, out of about 15,000 or so. I first learned about the DSFF through an old friend of mine, Aaron, who lives in Nevada and occasionally volunteers. I’d never heard of DSFF before and I’m ashamed to say that my first thought was, “Well, that’s one goofy-named festival.” Heh. (The Hoover Dam has been a really big influence on that town’s history.) In the end, it was a matter of paying $50 for a submission fee in September – and I’m so very, very glad I did.
The notification email dropped on January 1: I was in! What a way to start the year, y’all. What followed was a frenzy of activity, since the festival began just six weeks later. Found a ridiculously cheap flight deal out of Montreal (thanks, Kiwi.com!), secured a couch to crash on (thanks, Aaron!), and started counting down days…
I won’t bore you with the minutiae and the many, many stories of fun shenanigans that happened in that desert town. Fun was had. Many many new friendships with fellow filmmakers were forged. Great vibes were shared. Much beer was drunk.
The staff, the volunteers, and the locals were so ridiculously, over-the-top friendly and enthusiastic… And there was so much variety among the films. Mine was an experimental 2.5-minute (not a typo; two-and-a-half minutes) short film made with NASA’s archival footage and a $15 budget. It aired alongside films shot on an iPhone in two days, films made with animated paper figures, Netflix-quality student films, and a film on sweatshops (Anuja) that’s up for an Oscar this year! Not every filmmaker was there, but there were still dozens of us, and we all rubbed elbows at the early-morning coffeeshop get-togethers and the almost-nightly afterparties. (Huzzah!)
While we were there, it rained for the first time in 10 months. Such a rarity in the desert… I’d spent 10 years of my life in Nevada, all over the state. I’m not sure if the others truly gathered the rarity of that event.
My film screened during the sci-fi block on Saturday afternoon. The theater was full: probably 250-300 people. It was incredibly nerve-racking. (Also didn’t help that I hadn’t eaten much beforehand…) It reminded me of the first time I did nude modeling: intellectually and logically, you know everything will be okay – but emotionally… Emotionally you’re a wreck, and you keep imagining wilder and wilder scenarios. (Incidentally, there was an excellent film from the festival that explored that very concept! Please enjoy The Bell Never Rings Again, a 15-minute masterpiece by Matthias Fuchez. Hurry, because I don’t know how long he’ll keep his film up for streaming.)
But I digress, eh. The nerves. Yeesh… After my film screened (without any booing or rotten eggs or riots!), there were a few more, and then it’d be time for the official Q&A on stage. I’d spent the entire day mentally rehearsing my answers to the most likely questions, trying to keep it my replies short as possible. (No one likes a microphone hog.) I sneaked out during one of the following film’s credits, went to the movie theater’s bathroom, and did the most stereotypical thing possible: splashed water in my face and gave myself a pep talk in the mirror. Long-time blog readers might know that one of my many, many online nicknames is “Grigorius of Tomsk, Devourer of Pop-Tarts, Victor of Many Battles.
Soooo, yeah, I stood there, in the empty bathroom, trying to psych myself up for the huge Q&A in front of hundreds of people, by staring my reflection in the eye and saying – repeatedly – “You are Grigorius of Tomsk, Devourer of Pop-Tarts, Victor of Many Battles. You got this!” And you know what? That actually helped! (It would be so very, very funny if there’d been a volunteer or just a random guy who stood just outside the bathroom, afraid to go in, wondering what the hell was going on. I guess I’ll never know!)
So, anyway… The Q&A. It was myself and the guy that did special effects for one of the other sci-fi films. Just the two of us on that big stage. Something went sideways during the planning process, apparently, and the entire Q&A ran for just three minutes, not 10-15 like I’d anticipated. Bah, humbug. Still, I got a couple of quick answers and didn’t make a fool of myself. That’s not bad, eh.
I’ll fast-forward here and say that I didn’t win the audience prize for the best sci-fi, but that’s alright – there will always be next year. The festival went above and beyond with their red carpet experience on the awards night. They ferried each filmmaker (or filmmaker team) in a fancy car, ranging from a famous pickup truck to a red Corvette (I got to ride in that one, wooo!), with an actual red carpet, a local pageant winner escorting you from the car, arm in arm, the local media doing a quick interview, and about a hundred people cheering and whoop-whooping at the top of their lungs as you made your appearance.
That was phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal and over-the-top and brilliant and amazing. (The final afterparty was fun, too!) I say this with utmost honesty and without any exaggeration: that was the greatest week of my adult life. I am addicted now. I shall return. And also, now I’m spending a lot of time looking up other top-rated festivals, as well as those that aren’t in the top 1% but have rave reviews focused on hospitality and enthusiasm.
This festival gave me a ridiculous boost of self-confidence and inspiration. During the flight back to Quebec, and the days that followed, I wrote two new short stories from scratch (for upcoming anthologies) – and I have a great feeling about them! A couple of days ago (the festival ran February 12-17) I chugged my emergency NOS energy drink, sat down with no distractions, and knocked out three new short films. All three were made with found footage, and with sub-$50 budgets. Two of them were drafts I’d never gotten around to finishing, and the third one was something I’d gather the components for but never quite assembled. Well, they’re done now: just need to make a few more tweaks after my beta-viewers’ feedback, and voila – three new shorts I’ll bring to the festival circuit, right after I finish hiking from Mexico to Canada. (Again.) ((My life is very strange.))
I still can’t quite believe any of this is happening. If you’d told me this a year ago, I would’ve called you a damn liar. Making my sci-fi film was just a fun distraction while I waited to hear back from literary agents. (Still waiting!) There are some mighty interesting implications in the fact that it’s literally easier to break into one of the top film festivals in the world than it is to simply find an agent. (Not a publisher or a writing award – just an agent.) I suppose I may have to rebrand myself from “writer who dabbles in editing” to “experimental filmmaker who occasionally writes.” Heh.
Oh, and before I forget – I have my own IMDB page now, woooo! It’s pretty funny how you can add almost anything to your own trivia page.
So… I suppose I’m officially a filmmaker now. Got many many new ideas. Grandiose plans. Strange stratagems… Or, you know, the usual. This is a wild, unpredictable, amazing new chapter of my life, and I am loving it. Here is to many more film festivals, my friends.
P.S.: they’re still processing the red carpet pictures, but you can find the rest on my Instagram here, here, and here!
Grigory Lukin.com 