"Like Dandelion Dust" - Back From France and opening the CCIFF Film Festival in Century City

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Hey iP'ers,

Well France was A MA ZING! Truly a surreal experience for us and a definite celebration of our film. We were not in competition at the Deauville Film Festival, we were making our European Premiere. None of us really understood just what a Mecca for filmmakers Deauville is. We were surrounded by Hollywood's elite; Meryl Streep, Rachael McAdams, Harrison Ford, Steven Soderbergh and Andy Garcia to name but a few of the tremendous talent we saw there in support of their movies.

The day our movie was premiering was a whirlwind of press, cameras, fans and excitement. Even I was hounded for my autograph and I'm a producer! It just shows the level of commitment the French have to films, they knew each of us Producers by name, our director and of course, Mira Sorvino who had come with us to support the film. After a day of press we prepared for the premiere itself. We heard rumblings that many of the seasoned press had cried during our press screening which is quite uncommon and since our film is a drama, we were delighted to hear it. We all met in the Orange Lounge, or the Filmmaker's Lounge that was accessed by private credentials only and then once inside all food and drinks were free. Very appealing to starving filmmakers! We sat at our table discussing the absolute out of this world experience we were having at the Deauville Film Festival which included a week long filmmaker's lounge hosted by "Cartier" (no free watches sadly!), free passes to all the screenings, after parties all week long, panels and press experiences that were out of this world.

We were taken to our premiere in a fleet of festival cars. It was extremely chic and exciting! As we pulled up to the red carpet and exited the cars, hundreds of papparazzi snapped at us and screamed our names, it was electric. Once we'd walked the red carpet we made our way into the huge auditorium. It was a fifteen hundred seat theatre that had been sold out. Primarily because of the response we'd had that morning by making seasoned press cry!

We were called to the stage one by one, myself, Mira Sorvino, Jon Gunn, Bobby and Kevin Downes and we each thanked the French for having us and shared our excitement at the festival and hoped they enjoyed the film and then we took our seats.

After the film ending something spectacular happened. The applause was immediate, but then started to build to a crescendo. One by one the audience were standing to their feet and facing us and all in all we received a ten minute standing ovation! It was so overwhelming, it was like being a rock star (or what I'd imagine being a rock star must feel like on some small level!). We were blown away. It was one of the most exciting nights of my life and such an affirmation that all of our blood sweat and tears had paid off on this film.

Jon Gunn and I flew back on the night of September 9th as "Like Dandelion Dust" was opening the CCIFF FIlm Festival in Century City on September 10th! Mira stayed in France and Cole Hauser and Barry Pepper supported us at the CCIFF film festival which consisted of us premiering the festival on September 10th and then a Black Tie Awards Gala on September 12th - and I'm delighted to say that we won "Best Feature Gold Award" as chosen by the festival to be the best feature!

A very, very exciting week and a half all in all :-)

Have a great week iP'ers - I'm jet lagged and going to take this week to acclimatize!