Breathing again....

The film festival has finished after 17 days. As usual, I'm a mixture of relieved and sad.  It's always an intense period because not only does the cinema see more customers per day than we usually do (by hundreds), as a reviewer and the cinema's programmer, I need to see as many films as I possibly can too.

I certainly didn't see as much this year as I usually do, and the things I did see, for the most part, didn't blow my mind.  There were certainly good films, but nothing that stood out to me as being great.  Maybe I didn't make it to the great ones.  Or maybe after over 20 years in the business, I'm much harder to please.

There were films I enjoyed while I watched them (The Bling Ring for example), but gave me so little to think about afterward, that they were ultimately forgettable.  Then there were films that I hated while I was watching (Maniac), but certainly left an impression on me.  I came out of that one and wrote an article about lazy horror tropes (don't get me started...)

My favorites were The Past, a gorgeous, heartbreakingly real film from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, Jim Jarmusch's uber-cool vampire flick, Only Lovers Left Alive, and a little Mexican gem called La Jaula de Oro, about a group of Guatemalan kids trying to cross the border into the US.

I usually see a lot of docos, but this year timing and availability meant I didn't see any.  Which is disappointing, because docos really are my favorites.  But that's life sometimes.

And now the festival is over, I can get back to work on my new WIP.  And maybe query STUMPED a little.  I have a feeling it may take me a few days to get back into my routine, but I'm determined to do it.  I'm giving myself a 4 week deadline to finish the draft.  September 15th is my son's birthday, and I want to be done by then.  So I'm counting on you, my lovely blog readers, to keep me accountable and on track.  At this moment, I'm sitting on a word count of just under 30K, which should be close to the halfway mark.

Can you help me reach the end by September 15th?