audiences can be brutal. they can laugh at your film, they can pointedly fail to clap, they can simply walk out. this weekend i had a reminder of the courage necessary to be a filmmaker - what it takes to put out a piece of your heart and then come to watch the rest of the world pick it up and sneer at it. and yet, that audience honesty is absolutely vital to this festival. i mean, dang, i can barely stand it during the Q&A when one filmmaker gets all the questions, and the other directors shift from foot to foot trying not to look sheepish. but without that feedback loop, film is just a fancy form of doodling. does that even make sense? it's almost four a.m. i meant to write about "the art of breathing" tonight, but guess that'll have to wait.

Replies: 2 Comments

on Wednesday, March 10th, sketchy said

that's actually one of my favorite things about the festival, which is that interaction between you and the filmmaker.

anyone see any good q&a's though? sometimes they can really run amok. like when you have people making comments instead of asking questions.

on Wednesday, March 10th, crimson said

I stuck around for the "Master's of the Pillow" Q&A with Prof. Hamamoto. Some in the audience got really hostile and booing when Hamamoto followed up a question about why he chose not to use a condom in the porn for aesthetic reasons.

I also remember who audience member after a screening at last year's SFIFF asking what the film meant.