37th cleveland international film festival :: April 3 - april 14, 2013
Film Festival Blog
April 3rd, 2011 @ 12:45am

My best Festival Day ever

Some days are just impossible to top, and I think this was one of them.

Not only did I find myself face-to-face with Dan O'Shannon, a screenwriter I admire greatly, I also got to watch my editing mentor (the brilliant Laura Paglin) enjoy an encore performance of her film with a huge walk-up crowd, found myself in the midst of an incredible musical group as an impromptu performance overtook us, acquired a new pronunciation of my last name that I think I'm going to keep, and saw a trio of spectacular new friends (yeah, Joke, Biagio, and Steve, I mean you!) have the night of their lives as they discovered that their film had essentially sold out in not one but two theaters. And write a ridiculously long sentence about it all.

I planned to do one more post a bit before 9:30, the way I usually do, and then head home... but instead I found myself hurrying down to the Tower City Cinemas lobby so I could see the looks on their faces. Somehow, they hadn't even realized that we were showing the film in a second theater as well, and the looks on their faces when they did is a memory I will treasure forever. I wish I could have stayed for the Q&A, and gone to the Midnight Shorts, but my transportation turns into a pumpkin around then. I couldn't have everything, but what I did have was beyond spectacular.

We have one more incredible day at the CIFF before it's time to return to the "real world" again. I feel so much richer, though, for my week and a half in this wild, mad, beautiful dreamland. I hope all of you feel that way, too.

Since I've been trying to end the night with a video clip, here's a particularly special one for me: Steve and Biagio clowning around together in the media hub as they talk about their film. It might explain why I fell madly in love with the D2DL team even before I got to see a single frame.



Have a wonderful night, everyone... I'll see all of you around the fountain tomorrow night. We have one more brilliant day to come.

Posted by Lara Klaber

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