FIRST. FILM. FESTIVAL. part one.

MADE IT.

The Maryland International Film Festival in Hagerstown was held the weekend of April first.  No, this was not a Fool's Day joke. To say this was a fabulous experience is not doing it justice, so bear with me here...

I arrived in Baltimore a day ahead of Jonny, as I have family in the area and we hung out for a day before I drove north. Once in Hagerstown, Jonny and I hopped in the car and wandered around the downtown area, parking in a metered lot and getting five dollars worth of quarters for the weekend before realizing the lot was free on weekends. Yeah.

We checked out the main party location at 28 SOUTH, got our badges and swag, and had a coffee in a nice outdoor park area. Seeing our movie's name on the bag, on the mobile app, and on our "Filmmaker" badges was really, really cool.  (As a writer I recognize that using "really" twice is pointless and also that the whole sentence poorly conveys emotion and that I'm coming across as a hack.... but it was really really cool!)

We walked around a bit (downtown is pretty small and the main street is only about a block or two), and passed the Maryland Theatre, which is where the "red carpet" and the major Opening Night movies (some shorts and Michael Bay's "13 Hours") would be playing.

It just so happened that Tom Riford, VP of the Festival, was being interviewed live on WHAG (my favorite call letters ever now... it's like a local station run by witches...). We talked to them a bit about our movie, how we were here from L.A., and that I was born in Baltimore.  Next thing you know, they're doing a live segment where Mark Kraham pulls out my HOMESCHOOL REUNION card, namechecks me and the movie and BOOM - we're on local TV.

We found out (via posting on Facebook and having people know people etc) that our DP's wife was in one of the movies they were showing and that the director, Brandon Green, was here for the screening! He wasn't arriving until later, so maybe we'd meet him tomorrow...

We attended the festival mixer upstairs at 28 South where we finally met Nicole Houser, who we'd been emailing back and forth for a month! We chatted with some filmmakers, had some whiskey, and headed over to the red carpet premiere of "13 Hours" by Michael Bay. Photos happened, and, crazily, I got a text from Leah Stansberry Richie, my high school pal, who just HAPPENED to be in Hagerstown filling up the gas tank mid-way to dropping off her kids with her mom!  She detoured to the theatre and we took some pics outside before rushing off.

"13 Hours," by the way, a pretty good movie. And I'm not a Michael Bay fan.

There was a SUPER cute girl in an amazing mermaid dress who walked in behind us (and sat behind us!) who I sadly didn't talk to, and after the screening which went way longer than expected, Jonny and I headed back to the room to catch some shut-eye, not realizing that the AFTER PARTY WAS ACROSS THE STREET!!!!!

But we had someplace to be at 10am (a new pal's screening), so we knocked out...