The Triumph of the Film...

So I didn't become the next David Hasselhoff, more like his less talented brother Barney Hasselhoff. But that's not bad.

The Munich festival went great. By far the most impressive festival that we've been to. They treated all of the filmmakers with such regard and respect, it was amazing. When we landed they picked us up from the Airport in a brand new BMW that TALKED, took us to the Film Museum, gave us a giant cookie and our festival passes and then took us to the hotel (which had an awesome breakfast spread.) We spent the first day wandering around Munich with our new South African friend Gilli (another Director attending the festival) looking for the perfect place to have our first real German meal. After about an hour we found what we were looking for. It was good.

That poor cookie never stood a chance.

The quality of the other films was ridiculous. The production value and style of some of these works made us look like George Michael Bluth video taping himself using a broomstick as a lightsabre in his garage on Arrested Development. It was almost discouraging, but promising at the same time since the jury felt that our little movie belonged amongst these great films.

The schedule for the screenings worked perfect for us. We'd wake up super early every day, check out all the sites, and then cruise by the Film Museum to check out a few shorts at night. Here are some of the highlights:

It snowed the whole time, so Celeste started a Stinkerball Fight.

This is where Sauron lives.

Celeste and I took a train to Neuschwanstein to visit crazy King Ludwig. This isn't a camera trick. Everything was blue, it was that cold.

Celeste is apparently in a competition with my sisters to see who can become an old lady first.

I got excited because I thought Celeste said we were going to Castle Wolfenstein, not Neuschwanstein. It was still pretty neat, I guess.

When we went to the closing ceremony we were pretty relaxed. We usually have some shred of hope that we might win an award at one of these things, but this time we were sure we weren't going to hear our names. Good thing we were wrong. In the middle of all the action, there were our names on the big screen. Celeste and I were nominated for Best Screenplay, which was pretty fitting since Celeste was there representing the film as a writer. This was the first time that we were in the running for a prize that she could take credit for (well, half credit). We didn't win, but it was very exciting since we had no idea we were nominated until our names were on screen, and to be one of three nominees for best writing out of the 50 to 60 incredible films there was quite an honor. Something interesting, they played a clip from the film after they announced it's nomination and it actually got a decent response and I realized I had never been in a situation where a group of people (or even one person for that matter) watched a scene from the movie completely out of context, and the scene worked. That was pretty cool.

I can't express how much fun this Festival was. I actually don't really ever enjoy myself at these things, but this one was pretty fun. I only wish more people that worked on the film could have been there. Both screenings of the film sold out, and it was really interesting to see how an audience that consisted mainly of people who understook english as a second language reacted to the film. It was actually quite different that any other screening. People seemed to be laughing more at the subtleties of the performances and the awkwardness of the scenes than the dialogue or the physical comedy. Colin and Jon would have been proud.

After Munich, Celeste and I went to Paris, but who cares.