We wuz robbed

On Friday I attended the screening of the film The Patient, which The Ministry made for the Toronto Film Challenge's Fall 2008 24-hour competition. I was petrified going into the cinema. I had no idea what the projection was going to look like - would the big screen make the film look really pixelated, would the production values make our film look amateurish compared with the others - I didn't know. A lot of my friends had generously donated their time and energy to this little project and I wanted them to be happy (and not embarrassed) with the results.

As it turns out I had nothing to be worried about - other than the usual worries one has when putting yourself out there creatively -as the film went over really well. In fact, ours was definitely one of the better ones. Maybe some others had higher production values, but The Patient held it's own, and I was quite proud. Unfortunately we didn't win any of the kick ass prizes, and I have to say I was a little disappointed by that. Not because the winning films weren't good - the second and first place films (Monster Face and Prom Day 1981, respectively) were both really well done - but because all of the winning films were comedy-horror films. This was suppose to be a horror film challenge, not a comedy horror film challenge and there is a substantial difference. The Patient was definitely the best true horror film screened, and I feel a little bit robbed that that wasn't officially recognized. I say "officially" because one of the members of the winning team said during his thank you speech that "the film The Patient was one of the best things he's seen in a while."* I thought that was incredibly nice and classy of him to say.

I don't want this post to make it sound like I had a bad experience as that's totally not the case. It was a fun, and a little stressful, night and overall the entire experience was encouraging and, as I've mentioned in previous posts, I learned a lot about film making.


*despite the quotes that might not be exactly what he said, as I can't remember word for word, but that's definitely the gist of it.