The toxic words came just after our second screening, at an Austin
drinking-and-film establishment called the Ritz Alamo Drafthouse, which
had gone even better than the first. As I walked downstairs into the
lobby, a little high from all the praise we’d received, a woman of
about 60, standing in the lobby with a festival badge around her neck,
beckoned me over to congratulate me on my performance and the film’s
reception. “I’ve heard a LOT of buzz about you guys winning the
competition. A lot of people are talking about your film. A
lot.”
The film is called My Effortless Brilliance. It’s directed
by Lynn Shelton and cowritten (and largely improvised) by her and the
cast, including Basil Harris, Calvin Reeder, Jeanette Maus, and me. The
competition the lady was referring to was for narrative features at the
SXSW Film Festival. In the world of independent cinema, this is a
pretty big deal.
From experience (and a bad Christopher Guest movie), I know that
when someone says the horrible word “buzz” or tells you you’re going to
win something, you’re supposed to smile, say thanks, and keep walking.
But her words stuck with me, because she happened to be saying exactly
what I had (secretly, secretly) been hoping to hear. This is my first
film, and my first time at a film festival as an actor, and I’m happy
just to be here. I would also love to win some damn awards, because I
happen to think our movie is kind of awesome. However, me thinking that
won’t get us anywhere. We need other people thinking it. And this
lady—was she a festival representative? a distributor? the
mythical figure who would discover us all?—would do nicely for
now.
I confess it took me about 30 seconds to begin making a mental list
of people I needed to remember to thank that night at the awards
ceremony. I later found out that the lady had said the same thing to
Lynn and Basil, and that all three of us had spent the balance of the
day freaking out in shameful secret silence. All known laws of taste
dictate that you’re not supposed to want to win an award. That it isn’t
the point. That it’s a distraction. Which of course it is. It’s also a
good way to get your film noticed, which is exactly what everyone at
the festival was trying to do.
Ever since I saw and loved the first rough cut of MEB, I
wondered if it would ever be seen by anyone I didn’t know personally;
acceptance into SXSW and a spate of other festivals (including SIFF)
made that seem likely. So would it get seen outside of festivals? As
with every Northwest film that is screened outside the region, our
company shared contradictory desires. We obviously wanted to be
recognized as just as worthy as any of the works coming out of
N.Y./L.A./Chicago, etc., but we also felt a strong regional pride in
our deeply site-specific creation. Was it ridiculous to fantasize about
willing ourselves into the winners’ circle, and, thus validated,
rolling onward to the raging glory that was basically our birthright as
award-winning filmmakers? Was it folly to visualize the exact moment
(Tuesday night, 6 pm CST) when we would break away from the pack of
Seattle movies to become an overnight sensation? Was I being
ridiculous? I wasn’t the one who uttered the word “buzz,” after
all.
No one comes to SXSW to score a million-dollar deal (though no one
would turn one down) or even a special jury award. They go to see
films, see people seeing their films, meet filmmakers, make plans, and
drink beer. I met some excellent people and saw some excellent movies
(Baghead, Nights and Weekends, Full Battle
Rattle, New Orleans Mon Amour, plus Jeffrey Tambor’s
massively illuminating acting workshop with Greta Gerwig and Kent
Osborne). I had the thrill of just being included, with the added
frisson of knowing that people were noticing our movie because it was
in competition, and because of Lynn’s pedigree. Though there are
several competitions—narrative, documentary, short,
etc.—within the festival, the atmosphere among the artists is 100
percent noncompetitive. Even when you’re all drunk. And even when
you’re secretly thinking you’re probably going to win the narrative
competition because some lady said the word “buzz,” but also because
you’re so awesome.
The camaraderie is pure pleasure. But it doesn’t answer the burning
question: Is anyone outside a film festival, even a cool one like SXSW,
going to see this fucker?
Well, if they do, it won’t be because we won any prizes. We didn’t.
We weren’t even the runner-up, or the other runner-up. Three out of the
seven films in our competition got prizes. We were one of the four that
didn’t. And as we sat clapping for our colleagues, silently cursing the
evil lady who had poisoned our minds with hubristic flights of fancy
and ourselves for letting her, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one
thinking what an honor it was just to be there. And it was. It was!
