Letting Go

This November, our documentary, Paxson: A Home in Common, had its first public showing at the Alexandria Film Festival. Out of more than fifty submissions, this was the only festival that accepted us with a physical showing. My belief was always that the toughest obstacle would be getting the documentary accepted into a festival. We had no acclaim, no connections, and our story asks a lot from the viewer. I knew I may only be given one shot to have the final say with a story I tell, and I decided to go an unconventional route. We asked people to connect with the outsider, have patience with them as they experienced their trials, and settle with an ambiguous ending with no clear answers.

So the showing started and literal construction was happening in the next room. If my eyes could bulge out of my head, I'm sure they would have. I remember looking back at the moderator, who was horrified. For the next half hour, she worked with the library, presenting my film, and finally got them to stop the construction. I was struck by how few others seemed to notice what was happening off-screen. They genuinely seemed glued to the experience, laughing at all the right places and leaning in. However, the ultimate test was at the end of the film. An escalation happens that involves all our main characters. My question was, will the audience still be present?

What I witnessed will stay with me for the rest of my life. The whole theater gasped, one person even shouting at the screen for a character to stop. For the three and a half minutes of escalation, every person in the theater was completely engaged. At the end, I witnessed some people wiping away tears and got big applause as I came up for the Q&A. There simply is nothing like getting a reaction like this from a film I spent years of my life laboring over.

And at the end of this experience, once the festival closed, they awarded Paxson: A Home in Common with their best documentary award. The only festival we presented in won Best Documentary. Not bad, if you ask me.

Unfortunately, this recognition came shortly after I lost my brother to an unexpected death, for which we still have few answers. A loss like this takes a toll. And I fear the greatest victim has been this documentary. I submitted the film to one last festival, my local festival, The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. Sadly, for the second time, they passed on the opportunity to show the film.

There is so much I could have done for Paxson that I could not make myself do. Though I felt uniquely capable in being able to tell this story, I've felt like a complete failure trying to sell it. Should I have used our win at the Alexandria Film Festival to help catapult our film in other festivals like Big Sky? Probably. Should I have networked with more local artists? Yes. I also should have spoken with people working in assisted needs, done more private showings to obtain film funding, grown better advocacy, and done countless other promotional activities. But it truly overwhelms me whenever I need to write another cover letter for a festival or participate in another Q&A. I love talking about the film I made, but I often come across as defensive and uncompromising. I feel I need to convince people to invest in the film by defending my actions and getting bitter about those who don't seem to understand it. The trouble is--I'm not a producer. I'm not the one who is meant to promote the final product. I'm the visionary. I took on most major roles--director, editor, cameraman, and interviewer. The project is glued to me, but when the final cut was ready, nobody was there to take the reins.

Now I've just been accepted to the AFI Screenwriters Graduate program, and the ramifications of my brother's death are far from over. The last nine months have represented the least creative stage of my life--not exactly in a bad way, but in a way that requires me to turn a page and start anew.

I did my very best for the men of Paxson and the courageous servants who cared for them. And I am genuinely sorry I didn't find a larger audience who could help advocate for an assisted needs industry deeply in need of support. With all that is going on, the story of Paxson is more relevant now than ever. But I believe my new role is to unglue myself from this project and let it go. For this site, I hope it means more blog pieces exploring issues important to the film industry and what Dreamer's Edge is all about. But there is no eloquent way to express how disheartening this separation is, when I know the project deserves more.