Blau Jeans Awarded “Best Feature Doc” Rhode Island International Film Festival
Hi All, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you. I am writing this post with an incredible delay, but as the year wraps up wanted to write about Blau Jeans success this year.Blau Jeans won Best Documentary, Second Prize, at the Rhode Island International Film Festival this past fall. It was a total honor and surprise. Really. I hear when people say this, but I truly did not expect it. After six years of making this film almost I felt detached from the whole thing. I wanted to honor the project though and was just happy to premiere at RIIFF. My mother flew is from California and was so enthusiastic to attend. ”You never know! Maybe Blau Jeans will win! “ You have to love the loved ones who think this of you!My screening had a good slot time: Friday night at 7pm at a theater in town at the University of Rhode Island. We arrived in the theater a half hour before and met a local writer on the arts council in Providence. We made our way down the hall to the young volunteers at the festival who were collecting tickets , ” I am the filmmaker for Blau Jeans where is the screening?” Their faces lit up and welcomed me like the guest of honor. They directed me down the hall. When I arrived to the screening room, I was shocked, but tried not to show it. It was a tiny tiny little room, with a couple of folding chairs, a green chalkboard on the wall, and a flimsy roll up video screen. It looked like a junior high science classroom.A girl came up to me and said “Hi, I wanted to congratulate you on your film. My brother Phillip went to film school with you. He said he saw the info on facebook and told me about the screening!” It was great distraction from my disapoinment and the screening room we were in at that moment. “Thank you so much for coming!” And I meant it. It was really nice to see her. While we were talking back and forth I began to hear in the background the soundtrack to my film. The German music began to play, but the lights were still on in the room where we were. It did not make sense. Suddenly she interrupted me and said, “We don’t want to miss your screening!” She quickly ran past me to another doorway…….I followed her and WOW. It was a big beautiful theater! I had been in the waiting room!! A rush of excitement came over me now! I saw my film screening in a big dark theater on a wide screen and it looked and sounded fantastic. Now this was an American premiere. After the lights went up there was a round of applause. We had a great Q&A with the audience there.On sunday the RIFF had a final brunch and award ceremony. It was a total fluke that I went. I almost did not even go, but figured it would be festive to attend the final brunch. There we were were, at our own table, watching each filmmaker walk up to the podium and collect their award. Every time a person called out a filmmaker’s name in the award ceremony, I would hear gasps and weeps in the room. It was incredible. So much emotion and tension there. I was not expecting to win anything so I was just the observer, and as each person gasped, I understood their reaction. So much hard work and dedication goes into every project, and to be recognized, after sometimes YEARS, is just an emotional rush of joy. When they called out “Blau Jeans” in the Best Documentary category I was floored. It was a bit surreal. I looked at my mom - OMG!!!!!! Now we were the ones who gasped! It was quite awesome and it is one of those life memories I will always have.
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