A movie screening during the Tiradentes Film Festival in Brazil.After all of the long days spent on a set or location filming one’s latest work,
When you’ve spent months analyzing scene after scene, and then cutting frame by frame from a story that has been years in the making,
Just to bring a concept to life,
Following the moments full of stress, doubt and anxiousness about the constant limitations, closed doors and rejections met…
The lights go down and the screen lights up.
A group of strangers, friends, lovers, couples, neighbors and peers are engaged with the imagery and sounds moving along before them.
Some of them have been anxious to get a glimpse of what’s next while others are in the room out of sheer curiosity.
All of a sudden, people start laughing.
Or somebody in the room gasps.
Or somebody begins to cry in his or her seat.
Or somebody screams, out of shock.
It is the moment that makes this turbulent, uncertain and unpredictable path of independent filmmaking not seem so detrimental, in retrospect.
When your name or work is displayed on the marquee.
When that work has a showtime – or two, or three, or more -- playing at a theater near other living beings.
When these living beings respond to that work, in their shared experience of watching it presented on a larger scale – literally.
THAT is one of the most rewarding reasons to make movies!
Are YOU quiet or are YOU vocal while watching movies at theaters?