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SXSW BLOG: “BOB AND THE MONSTER” DIRECTOR KEIRDA BAHRUTH, PART TWO
Keirda Bahruth, director of Bob and the Monster, has been blogging her SXSW experience. Read part one here. Part two is below.
8:29pm March 14th — 72 hours later. What an amazing ride this has been. Yesterday was our premiere and to say I had pre-screening nerves would be an understatement. Would anyone show up? If they did, would they enjoy the film? If they enjoyed the film, would they stay for the Q & A? If they stayed for the Q & A… you get the picture. Jeff Malmberg, the director of last year’s audience-award winner, Marwencol introduced our film, which was really exciting. I had timidly requested that I not be called up to say hello beforehand so he invited up our Executive Producer, John Battsek, who I adore. John gave a charming introduction and then coerced me to come up and say hello anyway. That’s when I first realized that the house was actually packed. I managed to thank everyone for coming and then ran to my seat for the screening. Lights down, sound up. Here we go…
Now, I am going to be honest here, watching my directorial debut screen in front of my first audience at my first SXSW was… horrifying! There were moments that I enjoyed and moments that I felt good, but mostly I saw the little flaws, or big flaws, or sound mix issues, up-rez problems, etc. It was difficult. It made me feel incredibly vulnerable to show this work to an audience. This film has been my little secret for six years and now it was there on the screen for the audience to interpret and critique. It was overwhelmingly emotional for me.
So the credits roll and I make my way up to the front and realize that we are receiving a standing ovation! You have got to be kidding me, this is just surreal. As much as I’d love to take credit for this, I must credit Bob Forrest, the subject of my film, for having such an inspiring story to tell in the first place. I guess it’s true that a powerful story can usurp a poor up-convert and a two-day sound mix. So anyway, at that point my nerves melted away and I felt incredibly embraced by the audience during the Q & A. I enjoyed every minute of sitting up there and talking about our film. First screening down, two more to go. Piece of cake, right?
Earlier today, Bob and I had a lot of press planned by our fabulous publicists, Bebe, Shannon and Gillian from ID-PR. We all had a great afternoon at Moonshine talking about the film and our experience here at SXSW. It was a nice break from the anxiety leading up to the first screening and now that we have a full week left, I’m looking forward to a more relaxed week of screenings. Wait?! Did the press like us? The reviews haven’t come out yet. Oh boy, here we go again…
