I have had an amazing month, thus far. When you start to really push your insecurities aside and go out to the world with your arms open, it is amazing what opportunities may come your way.
For example, last week, I was on a panel for a incredibly influential and dynamic Town Hall Panel Film Initiative Event presented by University of Albany President George Philip, hosted by Times Union Editor, Rex Smith, and featuring Albany native, Craig M. Hatkoff, Co-Founder of the Tribeca Film Festival. My fellow panelists included Debby Goedeke, Albany Film Commissioner, Pat Swinney Kaufman, Executive Director of the Governor's Office for Motion Picture & Television Development and Philip Morris, C.E.O. of Proctor's Theatre in Schenectady.
Wow! What company!
Once, again, I find myself living the truth in extraordinary circumstance and, like a child, excited and fascinated by what reality can present to us as human beings.
I remember, once, being at the Berlin International Film Festival in a VIP party with George Clooney, Ice-Cube, and Mark Wahlberg. I was a journalist, at the time, living in Berlin and covering the Berlin International Film Festival for Deutsche Welle TV.
Honestly, it was my first year covering the festival and, having lived in near seclusion in a tiny village outside of the Black Forest for several years prior, I wasn't used to all the pomp and circumstance on such a high level.
I stood there, next to Ice-Cube, a huge star and rapper, and realized, in standing next to him for several minutes of silence, that he was, in really, a normal human being, living his truth in extraordinary circumstances (or an extraordinary individual, living his truth in ordinary circumstances), surrounded by images of himself splashed across every wall in the glitzy and glammed-up room. I asked him, "Does this not all seem so surreal to you -- seeing images of yourself every where you look at the center of an amazing VIP party, where you are one of the main VIPs?"
He looked at me as if to say, "Lady, that's Hollywood."
Now, after having years to think about it, I would respond, "That's storytelling."
The writer, producer, actor and director in me knows that, as a storyteller, you have the opportunity to outline key characters and events, illuminating them for all to see and read. Ice-Cube knew something, there, in Berlin, that has taken me a long time to understand:
WE ARE ALL CHARACTERS in a play that is larger than life, even while we continue, as humans, to understand and make sense of our lives.
And so, back to the TOWN HALL FILM PANEL EVENT in Albany, where the main message of the event highlighted Craig Hatkoff's passion behind a concept called "Disruptive Innovation" and how it can be utilized in all facets of business, policy, art, economics, philosophy -- and film, by taking "disruptive" ideas to break the mold of common and ordinary.
Specifically, for Albany and the surrounding Capital District Region, we have the opportunity to be disruptive innovators in creating our own niche in a part of the film industry of New York. We can be disruptive innovators by following our passion for film-making upstate, even when others don't get it right away.
My fellow panelists are considered key players in the plot of that story; and, though I know I'm not the only actor, writer, producer, director in upstate, New York, I cannot help but feel inspired to be in their company--and proud to be a member of the proud, passionate and inspiring filmmakers upstate.
