At times, it seems like this web account should be subtitled, “Against my better judgment.” In the application for Director’s Fortnight, there’s a place make a “statement” or “message.” Here’s what I whipped out at the Les Halles Cybercafe:
The fact that I felt compelled to make this film by
the events in my hometown last year is unsettling. I
would normally be wary of any film created under such
personal circumstances of duress; who would want to
see something like that?
Well, in New York, where it was just reported that
tens of thousands of people have exhibited signs of
depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, we must
learn to live and deal with things that once seemed so
remote, foreign, far away, long past. I made a movie
about people living next to a crater for 80 years
because *I* now live next to a crater, and I need to
learn how to do it.
If this little movie can tune the eyes and ears of
anyone (especially my fellow residents of the US)
toward the people who have some experience and
resilience in the wake of horrible violence? I will
count it a success.