Last year I got a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts to produce a short film that I had written and wanted to star in.  I was super excited because any decent film costs thousands of dollars to produce and I just didn’t have that kind of money to put into another project after Brothers TV.  I produced and directed the short as well so it really was my baby.  I had the amazing Lisa Fryklund as my Director of Photography (the person who operates the camera in case you didn’t know) and a great cast and crew.

I had no shortage of obstacles to overcome with getting this film completed, from money to crew to locations to technical problems, etc.  But in the end it finally got done and I was thrilled with how it turned out.  Well, close to thrilled anyway.  I’m a bit of a perfectionist so you know, it can always be better.  But for my first project of this calibre, I was pretty darn impressed.

Getting it actually shown somewhere ended up being probably the biggest obstacle.  There are tons of films submitted to film festivals and most have to be turned away because there are only so many spots available.  And you have to submit at certain times of the year or you miss your chance and have to wait for next time.  And as luck would have it, the editing of my film completed just after the main film festivals that I wanted it to premiere in had closed their entry periods.  I really wanted my film to be shown in Western Canada and the best chance of it getting accepted was if it hadn’t been seen anywhere else yet.  So I had to wait almost a full year before I could submit it.  I didn’t think about it for quite a while knowing I had all that time to wait and then one day realized that I had better check on the new deadlines.  Sure enough, I had missed one of the film festivals that I wanted to submit it to.  Doh! I was so mad at myself.  But there were four more so I submitted it to all of them and hoped for the best.  Three turned it down and then yesterday I got the great news that one had accepted it!

“Not My Type” will be shown at the Edmonton International Film Festival in September.  I’m actually planning to head there to see it’s premiere on the big screen and be present for the Q & A that they do with the directors who attend their screening.  My parents are going to probably come as well and maybe even a friend or two so I’m really looking forward to that.

And now I can start submitting it to film festivals throughout the rest of Canada and the states.  I’ll of course keep you updated on anywhere else that it gets accepted!

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