Jumping Off Bridges World Premier!!!

It’s happening.!
Come this Fall, we’ll have our world premier of jumping off bridges, in cities across the nation. I’m so excited that it’s coming together.

Here’s our current screenings and awards:

screenings (more screenings TBA)
· 8/11, Lubbock TX, Flatland Film Festival
· 8/8 - 8/13, Dallas, TX, Dallas Video Festival
· 9/13, Seattle, WA, Broadway Performance Hall
· 9/15 - 9/21, Overland Park, KS, Kansas City International Film Festival
· 9/30, San Antonio, TX, Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, 7pm
· October, Baltimore, MD, TBA
· October, Washington DC, TBA
· October, Chicago, IL, TBA
· October, Boston, MA, TBA
· October or November (week run), Jacksonville, FL, San Marco Theater, TBA
· 10/3, Austin, TX, Alamo Drafthouse South, 7pm
· 10/3 - 10/8, New Haven, CT, Connecticut Film Festival
· 10/6 - 10/7 (weekend run), Tallahassee, FL, All Saints Cinema
· 10/14, Nashville, TN, Belcourt Theater, 2pm
· 10/14, Houston, TX, Rice University Media Lab, 7pm
· November, Los Angeles, CA, TBA
· November, New York City, NY, TBA
· 11/2, Montclair, NJ, Montclair State University

awards
· 2002 Chesterfield Fellowship Finalist (Script)
· 2002 IFP Market Emerging Narrative Participant (Script)
· 2002 Semi-Finalist Sundance Screenwriter's Lab (Script)
· 2005 Texas Filmmaker's Production Fund Grant
· 2005 IFP Rough Cuts Lab Participant
· 2006 Semi-Finalist, Women in Film Foundation Finishing Fund
· 2006 Official Selection, South By Southwest Film Festival
· 2006 Official Selection, Jacksonville Film Festival
· 2006 Official Selection, Waterfront Film Festival

Check out www.jumpingoffbridges.com for the latest most updated screenings.
If you want this wonderful film to screen in your area, tell me now, and I’ll see if we can bring it to a theatre near you.

family vacations

There is the Florida that most tourists see: white sandy beaches, Disney, buildings newly painted in ocean foam green, vibrant tropical shirts over 3rd degree sunburns.
Then there is the Florida that I see: 600 year old gnarled old man oak trees, manatee sliding through greenish hued waters, the light crunching sound when walking on a deep bed of pine needles, the luring smell of magnolias and jasmine.
I grew up in north central Florida and I recently went back for a family vacation. The highlights were: boating in Crystal River with my mom, dad, brothers, sister, husband and kids, to a nothing special waterside restaurant, canoeing around the small islands in the morning and listening to the soft sounds of the canoe paddle pulling through the water, and the surprise of when a manatee bumped the bottom of my son’s canoe and almost sent him out of it! Then while in Tampa Bay, watching my sons experience the thrill of catching sharks, and holding on to my kids and onto dear life, as one of my brother’s boats skipped across the water at 65 miles per hour.
A harder part of the trip though, is the emotional. For the first time in my life, while in Tampa, I was boating with my all of my siblings, but my dad (who had gone back home) wasn’t there. When I realized the reason for my odd feelings, I almost cried. I know he would have been out there if his health would have allowed it. He would have been at the helm. And when we landed on a barrier island, he would have been walking with that bouncy walking style, down the beach to explore with my mom (who would have already served our lunches and made sure everyone had on sun block).
We were there for a week and now I’m need some down time. Family vacations are not relaxing. Everyone is constantly trying to make up for lost time. It’s can be raucous, intense, loving, sweet and bitter sweet.
It was hard to say good.

If life were wishes

Kat asked, “What do you want to do with it?” and even though I had toyed with some ideas, it still felt strange to say them out loud.

“I don’t know, Direct it maybe. Act, maybe…I don’t know, direct it?” I said.

I had just offered up the first pages of my screenplay for critique. Of all the comments I anticipated, that was not one of them. And it gave me pause.

What do I want to do with it?

I ended it by attempting something decisive, “ Direct it in 3 to 5 years.” But my lack of conviction was embarrassingly apparent.

If life were wishes, and that somehow I was impervious to stress, that I could think clearly and decisively, that jealousy and ego didn’t dwell within, perhaps I could do it. If I could sweep away the emotional blocks I so carefully build and place in my way, perhaps I could do it. If I believed in myself like others do, if I could see myself as others do, perhaps, perhaps…

What is it that has me working so hard for the national release of this film, jumping off bridges. I sit at this computer, find the numbers, make the phone calls, write the letters, send the mailers, emails, emails, emails and just pound it out. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it. I do, I like doing this. But why am I working so hard at it. I can think of a lot of reasons, and all of them are real and very good. But not one of them is the best reason. Even combined it would not be enough to push me this much.

Kat and Stacy asked me a while ago, why am I doing this and what do I want from them. I told them I wanted to learn. Which is definitely one of the biggest reasons. And of course they were totally cool with that. But still it isn’t the complete reason.

All I can think of, is that it’s a feeling. I don’t know where I’m going with all of this, but something tells me it’s a good place. And that is something I do believe.

reruns

~Saw this one from way back and felt like putting it out here again.~

It doesn't happen very often these days, but lately (especially in the summer) I've been homesick for my old stomping ground. The place of my youth was wild in nature and people.
It was a small town with miles of thick Florida woods and swamps. There were alligators, snakes, mosquitoes, blackberry bushes and dragon flies the size of my hand. Thick clumps of Spanish moss draped across the greenish limbs of massive 600 year old oak trees. In the early evening, fireflies would put on a spectacular show of blinking constellations. After hot days, heat lightening (lightening but without any thunder) would light up the night. It was an enormous flash of greenish light that would sear the image of whatever you were looking at into your eyes. It would take a moment for your eyes to adjust back to the dark when, another flash would blanket the area, again stamping an eerie motionless image of the back yard in your mind.
The people of this town were reflected the landscape. There were long haired hippies that would be happy to include me in their music circle and let me sing along. I would ride over to the university and enjoy the Hari Krishnas dancing on the plaza and laugh at the students streaking down University avenue. There was Wild Man Paul who I loved a million times over and from the eyes of a child, never realized he was injured.
I don’t want to go back though. It’s different. The wildness is gone, and in its place is subdivisions. I guess the same can be said for me.

redu

----I wrote this around this time, last year. I could have written it today.----

What is it about Summertime, that makes me long for the past.

I find myself drawn to water. Not just to the pool for a swim, but I mean big water. To stand at the oceans’ edge and feel the Atlantic rush up to my knees and drag my feet down into the soft sand as the waves rolled back in its gathering-up motion.

Drawn to walk with my brothers to go night fishing off the bridges. Bridges dotted with poor folks who spoke with sharp, crackly southern accents, and sat on their coolers, chilling a six pack or two. Fish guts and old shrimp always sticking to your shoes. Folks always willing to show you their catch or offer ideas on the best bait.

I feel drawn to go out with my father on his boat. To feel the thrill of a new adventure as we pulled away from the boat slip. To sit on the bow and scan the shallows while we navigated during low tide. To swim with the manatee, to catch a sea snake or puffer fish or who knows what. To see sharks circle the boat. To be so far out you can’t see land or anybody else, but the dolphins who came to play or the Frigate birds gliding so high they would disappear from sight.

I would give anything to see my father strong and at the helm again, so that I could watch him as looked out upon the water. So I could look at his wonderful face and for just a little while longer, wonder at what he was thinking.

Beach time

This week a few of my girlfriends and I took the kids and headed to the beach. I've known these friends for years, and we've been watching our kids grow up together. And our kids are very good friends with each other if not, in several cases, best friends. A friend of mine thought our children play differently with each other, than they do with friends from school, because they've known each other since they were babies. After watching them play together on the beach, I have to agree. There seems to be a comfortableness with each other, a protectiveness with each other, an old type of friendship, but in a very young person.

Kids are life, over and over again.

suicide awareness

I'm working on a project about suicide awareness. I'm finding out more about this topic than I have ever really wanted. Not just statistics, but peoples stories. It seems everyone has a story. Usually a silent story that comes out with a bit of digging, but all are powerful and raw. With every story, I am touched and moved and cry. Not just for the people who complete a suicide, but for the families left behind. When a person, takes their life, they are really taking it away from those who love them. What is left is the shattered remains of others. It is devastation in every sense of the word.

I look at my kids and wonder what did I do before I had them. What did I do with all that time. I can only conclude I must have been a very selfish person and probably only thought of myself. Well, at least until I got married. Then I probably only thought about "us." But really...

the slab

When I first heard about The Slab, I thought it was a piece of meat or something, but it's really a place in the Texas hill country where a river flows over a huge piece of granite (hence the name - slab) Lo and I piled the kids in the van and went on a road trip to check it out and I am happy to report, we had a blast. It's not run by anybody, it just sort of exists. And the kids played on the areas where the rock has been formed over thousands of years, by the forces of nature, into smooth water shoots and slides. My kids, wondrous new life on this planet and the ancient, weathered granite. Gave me pause.