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“TWENTY-EIGHT HOTELS ROOMS” | writer-director, Matt Ross
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, January 21 5:30 pm –Prospector Square Theatre, Park City]
The most truthful answer I can come up with as to why my story is told as a film (and not a novel or a play) is this: the most profound narrative experiences I have had have been in a dark movie theatre.
One of the first films I can remember seeing was Jaws. I must have been about five. The experience was seared into my brain. It was horrifying, primal. Even now, as an adult, so many years later, every time I swim or surf in the ocean, I have hallucinations of sharks all around me. Why I was in that theatre or who took me, I have no idea. They probably should have been arrested. Whoever you are, I accept your apology. But something else happened that day.
Something wonderful. I recognized that someone made this film. That it was expertly crafted. Crafted using pictures to tell a story. The power of the image. Images that I couldn’t get out of my head.
Why I’m a filmmaker:
1. My entire life, I have painted, drawn, taken photographs, made films, written, acted, and done graphic design. But I’ve always returned to film because it’s unique among the arts in that it’s a combination of so many of them – writing, acting, photography, design, music, editing. It’s the ultimate sandbox.
2. A script is re-written over and over; it’s essentially a blueprint for a possible film. The production is a race against time to film what was written, but also to film the unknown, the undiscovered, the unrepeatable, the surprises and accidents. The edit is where you grapple with the film you actually shot, creating new rhythms and nuances, re-forming, re-structuring, and finally, re-writing. Every film asks questions. And every step of the process is an exploration; you excavate, you search for answers. That is as terrifying as it is exhilarating.
I make films because I know nothing and want to know all.
I make films because watching a film is to dream while you’re awake.
And because making them is the most fun I have ever had doing anything.
Aside from eating.
And sex.
Now you have those images in your head.
For which I apologize.
