October 10, Thursday - Arrival

New Orleans Film and Video Fest has kindly arranged airport pick-up for fest guests. I am accompanied to town by Michele of Arkansas, a lively entertaining fest volunteer and member of New Orleans' Women in Film. She drives a gold Cadillac. With us in the car are new acquaintances Aaron Reed, producer and writer of THE NEXT STEP; Christian Fager the film's director; Marga, bright spirited Spanish wife of actor Taylor Nicols (METROPOLITAN, BARCELONA) - he has a role in THE NEXT STEP, and their friend director David Semel. It is warm and breezy along route 61 on the 25 minute ride into town and we are having fun. We are tempted, but do not stop, for "Hurricane" drinks which Michele has been telling us about.

Festival lodging is at the Westin Canal Place, a fine hostelry with rooms overlooking the Mississippi and the small patch of green park alongside. Day and night one can view assorted river activities - mainly freight liners, tug boats and steamboats. The lobby and furnishings in the hotel are reminiscent of Ritz Carltons. Service is good.

7:00 p.m. Festival Welcome Cocktail Party. Take taxi with THE NEXT STEP group to the Lighthouse Gallery, an old lighthouse converted into a contemporary glassworks showroom. Festival sponsors, and other supporters gladhand New Orleans style in the spacious setting. Warm welcomes from the Mayor's office and Kimberly Carbo, Director of the New Orleans Film and Video Commission. An abundance of crab dishes, pate, soups and bread puddings provided by a few prominent local eateries. The weather is spectacular outside - in the 70s and it is not raining.

8:30 p.m. Private Sit-Down Dinner. Taxi to 150 year old home in the Garden District for a gathering of 20 or so novelists, screenwriters, filmmakers. Candlelight, original thinkers to talk with, fabulous-looking decrepit shutters and creaking wood floors winding through wide southern corridors, a Nicaraguan meal. Like being part of a movie, surreal, a feeling of being transported to an exotic place, too good to be true.

Friday, October 11

Festival begins in evening. Day for phone calls, meetings and visiting. Begin with chicory coffee, o.j., and beignets served by Vietnamese waitresses at the French Quarter's famous Cafe du Monde. Cost $3.25. The price doesn't begin to pay for the atmosphere or the flavors. If you haven't experienced this before, do it at least once. Then walk through the French Market alongside, visit Ursulines Convent (oldest building in city), walk the Esplanade, weave in and out of the Vieux Carre streets and alleys noting architecture, hidden slave quarters of the past, voodoo shops, more good hotels, restaurants and their window menus for future reference, antiquarian and second hand bookstores (there are 16 in this section of the city), and the live music performed on the streets - bluegrass to jazz. Bits of Martinique, St. Barts, Haiti and the Spanish Caribbean. Interesting.

6:00 p.m. Sundance Channel party at the Westin hosted by Executive Director of Publicity and Promotion, Sarah Eaton

Meet Adelaide, Australia based director-writer Scott Hicks and actor Geoffrey Rush who are at the festival premiere of their film SHINE, a film about which Steven Spielberg is known to have said, "This is a film I wish I'd made myself," and which left grown men crying at the Sundance Festival in January. For those of you who don't recall, there was a brouhaha over distribution rights because Pandora sold the film to Fine Line and not to Miramax at that fest. The film, which was developed over a period of 10 years, opened in Los Angeles this week. It is loosely based on the life of an Australian child prodigy pianist who disappeared into oblivion for a while and then made a unique comeback. A stellar performance by Rush who is one of Australia's most revered stage actors, with Lynn Redgrave and Sir John Gielgud in cameos. Hicks is reading scripts to determine what his next directing project will be. Rush, who is enormously articulate, will undoubtedly be asked to appear in more movies as a result of this film. For those of you tracking "new" talent for your projects, both Hicks and Rush are represented by CAA.

7:00 p.m. Festival Premiere of SHINE.

9:30 p.m. BEAUTIFUL THING. Sony Pictures Classics release. Voted most popular audience film at Toronto Film Festival in September. A working class tale about homosexuality which is smart, wry and touching. A film which affirms it's okay to be who you are. Directed by Hettie Macdonald.

11:15 p.m. THE NEXT STEP. A dance drama, with Rick Negron and Kristin Moreau in lead roles, which focuses on the short career span of the professional dancer and the scarcity of heterosexual male dancers. Distributed by Filmopolis.