Lost Things and the "Go To Guy"

"Dear St. Anthony, please come around. Something's been lost and can't be found."

"Miracles waited on your word, which you were ever ready to speak for those in trouble or anxiety."

One theory that rings true for most Italian Americans is that they form a relationship with Saint Anthony early on in their lives. If you come from parents, or grandparents of any sort of Roman Catholic faith, it is ingrained into you early on that if anything is wrong, Saint Anthony will fix it, as he is the Saint of miracles, if anything is lost Saint Anthony will find it, as he is the Saint of lost things. Pretty much one stop spiritual shopping. When you were young, you were constantly losing stuff, and or hoping for a miracles to assist you in situations like that math final you need to ace to avoid going summer school. Saint Anthony became a guy you talked to on a regular basis.

My cynicism comes in waves. I am well aware of this. I wrote a small monologue in my short film about the soul growing hard as you get older, and I do believe that. You see to much in your life as time passes and your knowledge of the world grows to the point that reason stands to be hopes biggest adversary. Ultimately faith is born of hope, so when hope is gone, you're left with a brain swollen with theories and ideas and a soul thats greatest task is to decipher right and wrong.

Those who know me know I almost always wear a medal of Saint Anthony around my neck. I always question my attachment to this medal. I am not quite sure if it comes down to the fact that the medal came from my grandmother (who was part of the dynamic duo of Grams and Gramps that shaped most of my world), that I ultimately believe that a prayer to this man can help me find the words that seem to be lost when that page is blank, or it is way of hanging on to a time when hope became faith, a time that seems out of reach when reason tells me that the world can be cruel and lonely.

I ended up in church this morning. I am not sure what brought me there. The need for clear thought, an attempt at an honest prayer, or the fact that the first time I discovered I wanted to put words down on a page was in church. I've been reeling a bit lately trying to seriously break through on the draft of the feature script of Mamma. I guess I thought that if I walked out of church once, and walked home to fill a few a pages with some words that felt right to me, it could certainly happen again. I am writing on this blog now, so in that sense the clarity must have helped some. As far as a draft of the feature, that remains to be seen. Not sure I will put my head to that task until tomorrow morning, but I think in a way, I am in a decent place. This feature was designed to be a dark and funny commentary on the culture I have always found so warm and satisfying. This was the culture that championed the belief that if you prayed hard enough and believed with everything you had inside of you, good things will happen. I know that is not always the case, but I also know that those around me that believed it found comfort in that sort of divine abandon.

Making a film is maybe not that sort of abandon, but abandon nonetheless. You believe in a story, and that this story can bring something to the people that watch it. That a story can change things, open people up. You can only tell that story though, if you understand it's essence, the truth that exists inside of it. For me, the truth to Mamma lies in the sum of the parts of identity. I guess today I just wanted to remember with hope, rather than disregard with reason. Today I wanted to find something that was lost. In a way I did.

Beauty and the Bitch

Things have gone so well for so long, that I knew, just knew there was a rough patch looming. The home team’s winning streak ends, the wine goes dry, and the sun eventually stops shining.

I guess there is no point in creating a blog like this if you aren’t going to report the good and the bad. This entire filmmaking process is one of extreme emotions. You struggle to get the ideas out, and that struggle hurts. You finally get those ideas out, and that flow of thought is satisfying. You no longer doubt yourself. You could be, you should be, YOU ARE A FILMMAKER. The project takes shape on page and you work as hard as you can to see it through to screen. Schedules weigh you down, finances, scenes you thought made sense don’t make sense anymore. Then it happens. Suddenly it seems to start breathing, taking on a life of it’s own. The project is up on it’s own two legs and not only is it walking, but it is strutting like disco’s back.

You have a finished product, and you screen that product for an audience. People respond. They tell you their feelings, and those feelings match up with your reasons for making the picture in the first place. The timing is spot on. Your vision has gone from one small idea to one very big screen and life could not be better...... Then it’s festival time.

You come to the realization that you truly don’t have a name to push to these selection boards. Not one to be recognized and certainly not one to be sold to their ticket buying public. There is always that hope against hope. Good filmmaking shall overcome. Then you step back, take a look at your local multiplex, or the thousands of one star Netflix pariahs that you come across daily while building your que, and you know that is just not the case. Not the case at all.

I received rejection letters this week from Sundance and Slamdance. Neither was unexpected but neither failed to disappoint either. As I mentioned, there is always that hope against hope. You talk to yourself over and over from submission to notification and you whisper to yourself a bunch of soothing maybes and possiblys, but you know what happens in the end. If you’ve got no press, you get no selection. Seems to be that simple. You can spend a great deal of energy blaming festivals for their politics but in the end you have to take a long look at your film, and yourself. First off, “Does the film fit into the festival?”, and secondly if it does, “What do I do to push it in?”

So here it is: I am taking full responsibility for my rejections from these festivals. I rushed these submissions out without having any sort of gameplan. I am not saying that if I had a plan I would have gotten accepted to two of the most prestigious festivals in the states, but I would have given myself a better chance for sure. It all comes down to promotion that should have been done, that wasn’t even considered at the time. I think I was too busy patting myself on the back for successful screenings and one audience award. I should have had a press kit for Mamma tattooed on my back when I finished the film but instead, I had no press kit at all when I sent out those submissions. When you make a film there is no time to slow down. There is the need to be a oneman studio and to be honest, my marketing department was not only closed but was never open in the first place.

So that’s off my chest and quite a relief. Take it from me, it is easier to blame yourself for your films shortcomings than some invisible festival heads or theories that exist about an industry that no one can quite figure out.

Listen to Mamma!

With Anchovies...Without Mamma has long been a passion project of mine. It is a film that was born within my own frustrations and search for identity. Not only did I want to make this movie, but felt I had to make it. The other scripts I wrote on spec were bigger comedies that were designed for stars, studios and budgets. They were never something that I truly felt were a vehicle to explore my voice as a filmmaker. Mamma was a story that was 100 percent me with 100 percent possibility.

I had a vision for this film, which was greater than the short film that exists now. The story was much broader before I felt the need to pare it down. I knew that to shoot the original script it would call for more money than I was equipped with. In the end, I felt that the best way to approach this journey was with one first small step. I structured a project that I felt retained the soul of the original film, but also helped me develop a vision that was tangible before trying to inspire the confidence of external investors. With the original vision in my back pocket for a future feature length picture, I went into production.

The process was cathartic in a sense, helping me deal with loss within my own life, as well as the loss that existed within the lives of my characters. These factors made everything surreal and hyper-real at the same time. Whatever the case was, I was making this film one way or another. There was no chance to turn my back on it now.

Mamma’s roots stretched for miles in various directions. From a need to speak up about a culture that I felt was fading, to the loss of some people very dear to me, there was no shortage of material to draw from. As I worked in various pizzerias to earn money for school, it all became clear to me. Martin Scorcese’s “Mean Streets” were ridden with mafia while mine came covered in Mozzarella. This was my story to tell.