The following is a faithful if partial narrative of the first three days of the Savannah Film Festival 2007 from the perspectives of editor Noralil Ryan Fores and photographer Chris Skeene. Follow the links contained throughout the story to hear filmmaker audio clips and visit related Websites.

Day One: Saturday, October 27

11:40 AM

As I parallel park outside my friend’s house in Atlanta, I run over the schedule. I’m to leave by noon for a four o’clock arrival in Savannah. I’ll head first to meet a stranger and then directly to the festival to pick up my media pass and packet. This stranger happens to be Cynthia Gore, or Cindy G, as I know her from my last minute plea for housing through CouchSurfing.com. For years I’ve heard about the Website, a non-profit sponsored worldwide network for frequent travelers who all offer freely their couches and guest rooms to other travelers. This, however, is the first occasion I’ve found an excuse to take full advantage of the site.

Cat in car, litter box in back, bags packed, cell phone charged, I’ve only now to drop off my dog Shiloh to filmmaker and friend Drew Sawyer. He’s promised to take care of my overly energetic pup for the week in order to save me the boarding costs.

“Thanks,” I say, as I set the kennel down in his room, “In advance for this. Now, here are his dog bowls, the dry food, wet food and chew toys. He takes two walks a day, at least 15 minutes each. But, don’t feel you have to walk him too much longer. I don’t want him taking up your time.”

“I’m sure we’ll walk longer.”

“Or, if you don’t want to do that, you could just take him to the dog park. He runs around and exhausts himself while chasing other dog’s balls. It’s pretty funny. He never gets the ball, just chases it. He’s independent that way,” I say.

I bend down to pet Shiloh on the head, and as I do so, I must look a bit nervous because Drew glances at me, saying, “We’ll have a great time. It’ll be okay.”

“I know. Of course,” I say. “Lunch, maybe, before I go?”

12:15 PM

We’re waiting outside J Christopher’s to be seated, along that is with six other guys, many of whom live in the same house Drew does. They’re former frat boys, mostly bachelors and not quite comfortable with that one stray woman in the crowd. It’s not that they’re unpleasant. In fact it’s quite the opposite. It’s just that they’re all a bit awkward, at least this early in the day after a night of heavy drinking.

I look at my watch.

12:35 PM

“I really wanted to be on the road by noon,” I say.

12: 45 PM

“Sorry this is taking so long,” he says.

The six former frat guys go to check on the status of the table.

12:50 PM

“East 16 is the most boring drive in the history of drives, but you’ll make up time on the road,” he says. “No one will be driving on the weekend.”

“It’ll be okay I guess,” I say, though neither he nor I am convinced by the statement.

The hostess calls our table.

1:00 PM

We order. I look at my watch.

1:20 PM

“Don’t worry,” Drew tells me. “You’ll get there.”

1:50 PM

Stuck in traffic on the way out of town, I curse my timing. At this rate, if I make up time on the road, I’ll just get into Savannah on close call for the seven o’clock opening ceremony, which includes a tribute to Michael Douglas and the Redgrave siblings as well as the screening of Kirsten Sheridan’s August Rush. I don’t want to miss anything. I say a prayer under my breath to the effect, and eyes open, keep driving.

4:30 PM

Still driving, I rifle through my purse, find my cell phone and look for Cindy’s number on the notepad. As I go to dial, however, I realize that my cell phone has within the last three hours died.

5:45 PM

Having pulled over at a gas station, I reached Cindy with a turn of fortune and now sit in her kitchen meeting her three dogs: Mojo, Butternut and Zepplin. Mojo wears a medical brace, making his head appear like an intrusion inside a victrola. “We just got him neutered, and he keeps pulling out the switches. We’re already on our second set,” Cindy says.

Butternut shies up to me as Cindy tells me about her jobs. In the morning she manages a Michael’s, at night she runs with a paramedic crew. She only has to finish with the exams, and then she tells me with a smile, “I’m leaving the Michaels. I’ve been there 15 years.”

6:23 PM

On my phone’s contact list, I dial Mark Wynns, a good friend and film producer. I’m bumped onto his answering machine to which I leave this message, “Mark, I’m running late. Can you tell someone for me? I just need more—time.”

6:50 PM

Temporary press badge in hand and time stamps no longer of importance, I take in the expansive scene before me. Outside the Trustees Theater, a crowd of filmmakers, all with drinks in hand, wander around a roped off area between Abercorn and Lincoln streets. Meanwhile, a line stretching the entire block has formed on either side of the theater entrance. Attendees and passersby look on as celebrities file into the exclusive crowd.

From this distance I spot Miss J. Alexander, well known as a sassy judge from America’s Next Top Model, and I’ve read that Illeana Douglas is also in attendance to support Neil A. Stelzner’s Order Up, a short film she’s recently starred in. I am, however, at this moment actively searching for Mark, who I do finally find at the edge of the roped off crowd, conversing with Genevieve McGillicuddy, a senior manager of brand development at Turner Classic Movies, and Scott Henry, a staff writer for Atlanta’s alternative weekly Creative Loafing.

With a shock of red hair, cut short flapper style and wearing a well-tailored cream jacket paired with jeans, Genevieve exudes dual senses of the professional and casual. Scott meanwhile glances around, taking in the scene as if in wondered study. He’s the type of person one assumes creates a vast world of thoughts at each given moment. They’re both so put together and tranquil that I suddenly feel as if I’m looking at myself from the outside, seeing for the first time how young and inexperienced I must look in comparison.

“It’s nice to meet you both.”

Our small talk and professional war stories are cut to a minimum by the appearance of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Immediately a sea of fans swarms up to the roped off area, snapping photographs on cell phones and other small electronic devices. The four of us step back a bit, giving more space between the rope and the crowd.

A chunky little girl five feet from me swoons, reaching her little hands out to Zeta-Jones, who at the exact same moment graciously signs at autograph. “Mayhem,” Mark says, almost under his breath.

Directly behind the duo Douglas’, the Redgrave trio file into much less fanfare but perhaps more awe. There’s such an easiness to their entrance that while it goes largely unnoticed by the crowd still clinging to the sight of Zeta-Jones, it speaks volumes about their respectability, grace and good-heartedness.

Later both Douglas and the Redgraves are honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards for Acting, and while Douglas’ speech is equal parts eloquent and gracious, his thanks extended to his parents, Milos Forman and Karl Malden, a thanks for which an audible sigh runs through the crowd, it’s Corin Redgrave who speech steals the opening night affair. His unfeigned enthusiasm is infectious, even from the back balcony rows of the packed theater.

Sadly, Kirsten Sheridan’s August Rush fails to live up to this last note what with its improbable and uninspired story, mediocre acting and overblown sentimentalism. It’s a film as standing proof that a professional cast and polished production quality can in no way save a script lacking in originality, depth and true cinematic significance.

Two hours or so later, I find myself walking to the River Club with Genevieve, Scott, Mark, Jaime “I’m Mark’s wife” Mahany and Pete Ballard, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Atlanta post house Lab 601. Other than the hoards of festival-goers streaming down Broughton Street, locals decked out in early Halloween attire skip from bar and bar. It’s a mix of high-class and high-kitsch party style, both flares distinct and neither intersecting.

“You can stop staring now,” Jaime says pointedly to Mark and Pete, the latter of whom certainly glances after at a woman dressed as the Energizer Bunny.

“I wasn’t even looking,” Mark says somewhat absently.

Jump. A few days later I’m spending time with Jaime when Mark calls to ask if she wants to go and grab dinner with him. “Noralil and I have already had a snack,” she tells him. “We’re going on a quick drive before the screening.”

“Are you sure you don’t want some alone time, the two of you?” I ask after she hangs up.

“We don’t spend time together at festivals,” she says. “We tried to do that a few times, but then when you make plans, someone’s feelings always get hurt. We were at Sundance one year, and I just wanted to be at the festival, to spend time with another person. He always wants to work.”

Back. “I believe that you weren’t looking,” I say, laughing.

Inside the River Club, an air of industrial chic intermixes former decay with modern decadence, a transition I find apt for the whole of the city as I see more of it progressively. Two bars line the right wall, immediately in front is a cover band, the lead singer at this time belting out Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” in a throaty yet wholesome alto, and placed in several distinct areas are large screens playing images of the festival’s previous selections as well as Savannah College of Art and Design student short films. The ambience pulses as older, rich and well-groomed men and thin, beautiful women, many of whom are dedicated to the little black dress or flamboyant designer print, stream in. It’s glamorous and crowded here, although apparently, we find out through Mark, there’s another room filled with more of the first and belabored by less of the second.

A festival staffer standing by the room’s stairwell directs special pass holders to the VIP lounge.

“Go up,” I tell Mark. “You’re good at that type of thing.”

“Why don’t you go?”

“Ah, you know, I’m shy.”

“You’re a journalist,” he reminds me.

Upstairs the duo Douglas’ hold court for the Savannah privileged, and I only briefly note how kind and accommodating the pair appears. There’s no mark of impatience in their demeanors, no indication that they’re uncomfortable or discontent. Had there been, I would perhaps not have reflected on the next moment as happily as I did.

I remembered suddenly the smell of the sea in Majorca. Years ago, when I’d studied in Spain, I, along with my fellow students and friends, had spent a long weekend wandering around the Spanish-owned but predominantly German and French island. Among our party was Sam Davis, an overly spirited Zeta-Jones fan, so enamored with her acting in fact that he made us all go on an off-road biking adventure to see if we could spot the duo Douglas’ vacation home.

“Are you sure they live on the island?,” I’d asked.

“Part of the year. That’s what I’ve heard,” Sam had told me.

We all got lost and found our way back to the rental shop hours later but still on time to return the rentals. It is, in my estimation, one of my favorite Spanish afternoons.

Blossoming out of the reflection, I see out of the corner of my eye a stunning woman decked out in New York hipster style—gray jumper dress, fishnet stockings and flats. I immediately want to saddle up next to her, thank her for looking a bit different from the rest of the flawlessly polished sea of femininity. I am however stopped in my tracks as she pulls out a cell phone and dials, and it’s then I notice her face, particularly her eyes, how wide and perceptive they are. Naturally, I realize, it’s Illeana Douglas.

I walk a few feet away, keeping her in my eye-line, hoping to catch her in downtime. I’ve made a promise to myself only ask one intelligent question to actors and filmmakers who are continually bombarded with interviews. Mine, I know, for Douglas is much more general than I’d like, but I simply want to ask her why she acts, why of all art forms that is her love.

She wanders not far from her former seat, chatting on the cell phone and looking in the general direction of the duo Douglas’. It occurs to me she must feel a bit odd standing alone, on a cell phone, at a party of people who should recognize her. The duo Douglas’, however have temporarily stolen the spotlight, and she’s diminutive leaning lightly against a pole.

Having little to no savvy of my own, I stand by myself in the corner, studying the thousand-odd dollar photography displayed on the walls.

“I always look at these and wish I could take one like them,” a tall boy says.

“I know what you mean,” I say. “Name’s Nora by the way.”

“Josh.”

Josh and I wander the room, and I notice that the duo Douglas’ departure makes an open space for singular Douglas to find a spotlight again. A photographer grabs her, and she cocks her hip, smiling into the camera as the flash goes off.

“The guy from The O.C. is right there,” Josh says. “I can’t remember his name, but I want to say hello.”

Despite the fact I realize I’m too timid even to greet Douglas, I tell my much more celebrity gusto comrade, “Then you should do it.”

On cue, Josh taps the actor’s shoulder and gushes some statement I don’t note about the popular television show, which I’ll add now that I’ve never watched, seeing as I don’t have cable. The actor says a brief and dismissive, “Hello,” and returns to his conversation. It’s only later that I realize that this actor is Benjamin McKenzie, whose performance as Johnny Johnsten in Phil Morrison’s Junebug both stunned and moved me.

Seeing as I’m too shy to do much more with this celebrity hobnobbing, I return downstairs, spend a few more minutes talking with my friends and leave the party shortly after.

“Where are you parked?” Jaime asks.

“Just a few blocks from the theater.”

“Let me drive you.”

“No, I’ll be fine. If I can handle New York at night—“

“It’s not all safe,” Jaime insists. “You walk down one street in Savannah, and it’s fine; you walk down the next, and you’re just not sure.”

Longtime familiar with the city, her parents living in the area, I don’t argue with Jaime and simply allow Genevieve and Scott to walk me to my car.

There’s that strange feeling I have as I get in and reach down to pet my cat. I’ve just come back from a star-studded affair, but after it, I’m reminded of a societal underbelly, that place we all see, fear and attempt to forget.

Day Two: Sunday, October 28

First a bit of history. Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, the Savannah Film Festival began as a somewhat impulsive venture. As retold by the festival’s Executive Director Danny Filson on opening night, in August 1998, Savannah College of Art and Design President Paula Wallace approached Filson with the idea of establishing a fall festival. Considering it Filson saw the potential and quickly planned out his year of preparation. “No, I want to do it this October,” Wallace explained. Such was the two-month ambitious genesis of the festival.

In and out of Savannah at the time, my friend Jaime volunteered that first year. “When the festival first started it didn’t know what I was going to be,” she tells me. “But, I knew that it was going to be big.”

Ten years later the festival, supported and run by SCAD, has honored and hosted filmmakers including Bill Plympton, Sydney Pollack, Walter Murch, Guillermo Arriaga and John Waters as well as screened, many times at first run, films such as Amelie, The Triplets of Belleville, Volver, Match Point and Babel. Important in the equation here is the work of industry insider Bobby Zarem, who builds the contacts to bring these filmmakers and films to Savannah. In other words, it’s a festival of big names and even bigger hopes, a Southern belle in a festival class less recognized than Sundance but still in top tier in terms of its professionalism.

A crew of more than 200 SCAD students, faculty and friends volunteer their services to ensure that the screenings run on time, the question and answer sessions make use of every spare minute and that ticket and pass holders know where to go at what times. All of this makes for an ideal situation in which festival-goers are both unrushed and at all times occupied. The environment is equally peaceful and productive, and this is what I’m most grateful for at nine in the morning as I head to meet SCAD Director of Communications Sunny Nelson to switch out my temporary pass for my permanent media badge and packet.

Carrying what look to be heavy boxes of files, Nelson bounds in and out of the Marshall House lobby in preparation for her day. At first the quality most noticeable in Nelson’s character is her focus. She’s intent yet calm, aware of how long the week will be without absolute organization. Yet, when I stop Nelson to introduce myself, the brisk attention held in her frame eases into a kind greeting.

“Now, I have the passes for both you and Chris. Here’s your packet, and if you need anything, you have my number.”

She’s brief and friendly, and I leave hoping to talk, though not burden her, again.

Having little else to do before the 11:30 morning screening, I settle in on the couch and review the press information. Sitting in the chair adjacent on the left to the one I occupy is actor and festival juror Timothy Dalton, sitting directly across is a young boy who I assume is his son Alexander and on my right is an inefficiently loquacious woman.

While Dalton reads the newspaper, Alexander swamps through a bucket of Halloween candy. He’s an intriguing little boy, alternating between being caught up in his own world and then looking somewhat bored out of his head.

“I always feel so bad for kids at these events,” I tell Mark at breakfast, just a few moments before the following odd encounter. “I’m sure he just really wants to go play with friends or experience Halloween like other kids do.”

Turning back to my packet, I study the schedule, noting in my head which films I’m interested in seeing. I cannot concentrate however as the loquacious woman, whose name I never do catch, retells a ghost story.

“This was years ago at an earlier festival,” she tells Alexander, trying to get his attention. “One night Illeana Douglas woke up and knocked on Alan Cummings door. ‘Did you hear that?’ she asked.

‘Hear what?’

‘The footsteps in the hall.’

Illeana went down to the reception desk later and asked the clerk, and she was told that the ghosts of Union soliders haunt the hallways.”

“I heard that story,” Alexander says, barely glancing up. “It’s in the magazine, on page 158.”

“Is it?” the woman asks.

Being somewhat closer to the reception table where The South Magazine sits with extra copies, I get up and pick up a copy for the woman. As I hand it to her, she takes it, looking directly back at Alexander without the least acknowledgement that I’ve done her a kindness. The dismissal does little to bother me, and in fact I’m amused by the impertinence.

“Is this hotel really haunted?” I ask one of the festival staff members.

“It was a Civil War hospital before it was renovated, so it’s likely,” she tells me, turning to include in this knowledge filmmaker and writer Nelson George, also here as a festival juror, who smiles affably back at her.

A second later, Alexander spills his candy all over the floor, and good-heartedly Dalton looks up from his paper to scold his son. Scuttling off with his candy bucket, Alexander makes his way upstairs, presumably to his room.

“I really do think kids know more than we do,” I say in passing to Dalton. “There’s some magic that they still know about that we forget.” I admit here, it’s a cliché statement to make, but I actually mean it.

“Well, they know more of certain things,” he says, quite easily and without a hint of the arrogance of our neighbor.

Minutes pass, and as I do final checks of my reading, I pack up to walk over to the Trustees Theater. On my way out I stop for an appreciative second, remembering how nicely my morning began. As I headed into the Marshall House to meet Nelson, Corin and Lynn Redgrave had been chatting outside, and before I could even conjure a polite greeting, brother Redgrave beat me to the punch.

“Good morning to you.”

“Good morning to you too,” I echoed.

What a beautiful way to start a festival morning, with such a lovely and enthusiastic welcome. It’s the type of optimism that shields you from any slight, and I give Redgrave all the credit for my good humor with the later magazine hand-off debacle.

After the screening of Edward Burns’ Purple Violets at the Trustees, I meet up with Chris Skeene, who as a former Savannah resident precedes to tour me around the city. As we walk and talk, he points out landmarks, starting with the Independent Presbyterian Church, and snaps off photographs at random intervals.

The growth of the festival, and consequently the prominence of SCAD, has also spilled out into the community, he says. He points out all the SCAD owned realty as we walk from Broughton up to Park Street. “I haven’t shown you all of it either. There’s a lot more.”

As we approach The Sentient Bean, the coffee shop Chris worked at when he lived here, he starts to tell me more about his individual experience with the city and its people. “Before I worked at the coffee shop and was just a student, I didn’t know anybody. It was so much better to live here once I got involved in the community. Once I started working in the coffee shop, and it’s like a hub for the community, you at least get face recognition, and so walking around downtown is a totally different experience.”

Later he’ll add more of a different ilk, saying “This is what Savannah really is to me though.” He points to a poorly handwritten sign that reads Little King Restaurant.

“There are some really visually amazing things about this city, and that’s one of the things I miss.

“There’s a giant metal ball on Abercorn Street. You should be able to see it when you hit—Victory [Street]—no DeRenne. To the left on DeRenne is a giant metal ball painted like the world, realistically painted with a giant hurricane coming up toward Florida. Where are you going to see that?”

“I do think it’s these little things that define an area,” I say. “Any area is just a composite. So there are the big things, the identifiable things, the things that are everywhere—everyone identifies SCAD with Savannah obviously—but is that the identity of the city?”

“It’s becoming the identity in some ways because they own so much property, so much of downtown. They have buildings that are just sitting empty because they don’t have anything to put in them yet. They’re responsible for Savannah being what it is right now. They prompted this giant growth spurt. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for SCAD…They don’t even have a separate page for the festival. It’s scad.edu/filmfest. That says something.”

I take a minute to mull over this before saying something that I currently find to be true and hopefully will remain so throughout the week. “As people have said, the festival is an advertisement for the school, and it’s done so respectfully. You can tell that the students are so excited, even to the extent that one of the students at the last screening, in trying to say ‘question and answer,’ ended up saying ‘quick and answer’ because she was so nervous and so excited to be standing up there in front of that crowd of people.”

Shortly after this Chris and I approach the Lucas Theater to catch the question and answer session with acclaimed film director Milos Forman, slated to be honored tonight with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Directing. In honor of his attendance, the festival is currently screening the director’s cut of Amadeus.

“I hope we’re not late. I’d be really upset not to hear him speak,” Chris says. “Plus, I want to make sure my lighting will work in the theaters. I’m a little nervous about it.”

“The photographs will be great, Chris. Don’t worry.”

As it turns out, we’re well ahead of schedule and catch the last thirty minutes of the new cut. The film is, just as I remember it, magical and honest and full of sadness. The closing lines, particularly, hit me hard, and I begin to worry, just as Antonio Salieri does that I’m nothing better than mediocre. When the lights come up Forman speaks for 10 minutes or so about his casting choices, his background in music and directing and production in his home country of the Czech Republic, specifically whether or not he plans to go back there. “You don’t decide where you want to film the next film,” he says. “You fall in love with the story, the characters, and wherever they take you, you go.”

The night welcomes a screening of Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Despite its aggressive and disorienting first-person perspective and its tendency to mirror French filmmaking clichés, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly adds a much-needed sense of lyricism to the festival’s programming choices. While it’s certainly a beautiful film, full of those truths which humanity is constantly grasping at, I’m hesitant to draw an immediate impression and decline, when my neighbor asks me, to say more than, “I’ll have to think about it.”

The Red Gallery after party is crammed, and Chris, now accompanied by his wife Kendra Skeene and I plough our way into an open space to find Mark and Jaime. “I’m not staying long I don’t think,” I say, and true to my word, I leave within 40 minutes. I’m not much for the genial drinking rat race, and while I love to sit back and watch it, I realize that there’s little leisure in a room this crowded.

It’s by a strange turn, however, that as I walk out of the room, Benjamin McKenzie is on his way in. As I’ve already got my foot in the door, I step right in front of him, and remembering his dismissive nature with Josh, I’m immediately sorry for the unintentional intrusion. Oddly, it’s then I realize I’ve done nothing wrong. He’s far from affronted, and I’m, I remember, equal to anyone at this party or any other. It’s easy to forget who you are when no one else recognizes you, though it’s hard to forget if others truly know you.

Day Three: Monday, October 29

Despite the fact that Mark is normally calm and cool, all day he’s wound up. As an associate producer on John Sayles’ Honeydripper, he feels every bump as the night screening of the film approaches. With its $5 million dollar budget, Honeydripper has been entirely financed by both Sayles and his partner and producer Maggie Renzi. “I feel a real responsibility to them,” he frets.

Jump back to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly screening. “It’s not packed.”

“It’s pretty crowded, Mark.”

“It’s just that I really want it to be packed. Last year it was packed.”

“Tomorrow night it will be. Don’t worry.”

Skip forward. Just before the parking garage elevator doors close, a harried woman rushes in to stand with the two of us.

“Are you going to the screening tonight?” Mark asks.

“Oh, it’s been such a long week so far. I’ve been up so late,” she says in a breathy Southern accent. “I just don’t think I’ll make it.”

“I’m one of the producers.”

“Oh—I didn’t know.”

The doors open. “Well, just see it when it comes out in theaters then,” he says.

Now, I’ve been a bit unfair here to Mark. While this could very well have been an extremely awkward conversation, Mark has such an easy constitution that it was anything but that. The woman flits away to her car without a second thought about the conversation, and it’s a testament to how affable Mark actually is.

“Did you know her at all?”

“No idea.”

“And, that Mark Wynns, is what I love about you.”

After finding a parking space, we meet Jaime and her family at the Trustees Theater, Mark composing himself as he walks toward them. “Thank you for coming,” he says to them all, saying this later directly to Jaime. It hits me as oddly beautiful that Mark should thank his own wife for coming, that he should care so much about this film and its filmmakers that he feels gratitude to everyone, his own family and friends, for coming to see it.

As the crowd settles, almost all seats taken, Chris Cooper, who’s starred in four of Sayles films, introduces the director and presents him with a Lifetime Achievement for Directing. And, as the lights dim, I feel for a second the same nervous excitement that Mark felt earlier, that hope that everyone will enjoy the film, myself included in that most of all.

Set in 1950 Alabama, Honeydripper opens into a world gifted with music, ravaged by racism. Tyrone Purvis (Danny Glover) runs an unsuccessful bar called the Honeydripper Lounge, and with the help of his wife Delilah (Lisa Gay Hamilton), daughter China Doll (Yaya DaCosta) and friend Maceo (Charles S. Dutton) fights against the system prejudiced toward him. In a last ditch effort to save his business, Purvis plans, and sometimes scams, a one night event to rake in the 200 dollars rent owed while also placating the local sheriff (Stacy Keach). As if on cue aspiring musician Sonny (Gary Clark Jr.) rolls into town, and despite a few missteps, ends up at the Honeydripper in rare—and fabricated—form. As a piece of art, Honeydripper lives in spaces cinematic, theatrical and literary all at the same time, using each of these to best effect to tell a story that, while it doesn’t challenge its audience in the manner other Sayles films do, educates them.

Following the screening SCAD film and television department chair Christopher Auer moderates a question and answer session with Sayles and Renzi, who speak in-depth about their experiences making the film, talking both about the business aspect and creative side of the production.

On the way to the party at Jazz’d, Sayles finds himself answering a barrage of questions, his desire to share with others superceding Renzi’s opposing desire, so trademark of a producer, to get on the move. “Mark, can you get him?,” she asks, making her way through a crowd.

After a time, we do start our walk, and as Sayles turns around, walking backward for a few seconds, he notices that his fan following is no less diminished. For a second, I notice a quick smile, but then again, I’m quite short, and he’s quite tall, and I could, I think, be imagining that hint of humor.

When we get to the club, Chris and Kendra, who I’ve caught up with on the walk, jet to drinks and food. I’m no less hungry and tag along, slipping and sliding in the open spaces in the dense crowd.

“Where does the line start?” Kendra asks.

“Right here I think,” and as we look down the long row of people, we resign ourselves to the wait.

A bit later, as a group of us stand talking in the corner, Chris spots Illeana Douglas. It’s almost a comic situation at this point, I think, my nervousness in approaching the actress, and besides, I’d spotted her earlier in the day carrying a wonderful, old camera, the likes of which I couldn’t identify from the distance.

“I’m going to talk to her,” I say, and as I steer through the crowd, I gear myself up.

As I turn a corner in the club, she happens to be standing directly in front of me, and with my childlike enthusiasm I bubble into the conversation I’ve already begun much more intelligently in my mind.

“Excuse me. Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

She looks at me deer-eyed, and Chris, who’s followed me unintentionally passes by, tapping my shoulder and saying hello. This minor action I think goes a long way to calm Douglas down from my ambush.

“You were carrying an awesome camera today, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.”

She tells me that it’s a functional 1967 Polaroid that she found at a flea market. That’s pretty much the extent of our conversation because to be frank, I decided right then that instead of asking about her acting, this question about the camera was actually just as interesting to me at that particular moment.

“Well, thanks,” I say, and walk away, back to my friends.

I realize that so far along I have these seemingly lame interactions with filmmakers and actors that journalists are supposed to swoon over, and oddly, I’m content with these. These are the lame moments that I share in with every other stranger in the universe. They’re quirky moments that I reflect on later with joy.

As the servers clear the food tables, the bar begins to clear, and we leave with the exodus. I say good night to my friends and head quickly and by myself back to the car. When I get home, I see I’ve missed a call from Kendra. “I can’t believe we let you walk to your car on your own…Call us back when you get this.” For all those disconnected, seemingly lame moments, there are conversely ones like these, the ones that perhaps your thoughts forget although your heart never does.

End Part One.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form