Emelia at San Francisco Independent

Come check out Emelia next week at the SF Indie! She is screening two times as part of Cartoons Etc

Saturday Feb 5th at 4:30pm
in the funky arthouse Roxie Cinema

Friday Feb 10th at 2:15pm in the Women's Building
which is that groovy building with all the mural on it.
I'll be there for both screening, and also plan on doing a talk on indie filmmaking at the Apple Store as well Saturday Feb 3rd at noon.

I also just heard that Emelia has been selected for the
Stuttgart International Animation Festival which I am really excited about!

I've been trying to go to all the festivals I can because, now that I've made Emelia I need to find out who I made her for. I made Emelia for lots of people I have never met and it is now my job to get Emelia out to them, to find Emelia's audience. That's hard work, but as I do it I think I learn from them and their responses to Emelia a lot more about what my film means than I ever could have on my own. Sort of like how a band can't really know what their song is about until they play it for people and see how it effects them.

Emelia is a pretty intense little story about our own darkness inside, and about our own struggles to figure out who we are and where we fit in. And it seems that people are able to see their own stories reflected in the story of a little five year old goth girl. After screenings, lots of people have come up and told me how they connect to Emelia's quirky little tale of redemption in ways I never could have imagined. Getting to hear that at festivals, I learn stuff about my film I never knew was there.

Even though it's hard for us artist types, connecting with an audience, getting your stuff out there in the world, is not some extra "marketing" thing, it is a big part of what it means to be an artist. Otherwise you end up as one of those sad guys who cuts off their ears, and then 50 years after you die, they find all these paintings in your attic and wonder "My word, these are quite lovely, I wonder why he never showed them to anyone and died sad and alone. What a pity."

So there you have it: attend festivals or die sad and alone with no ears.