For Swanberg, it's too many "Nights and Weekends"
by Joe Swanberg
I am feeling the effects of Festival Fatigue. I have been traveling almost non-stop for over two years, with four different films. But it's impossible for me to pass up a free trip to a country I have never visited, so on June 9th I boarded a plane bound for Portugal, for the 24th Festoia International Film Festival, in the town of Setubal. "Hannah Takes the Stairs" was programmed in the competitive "American Independents" section.
Upon arriving, I had lunch with a few of the other American Independents filmmakers who were on my flight. I had never heard of any of their films, and they hadn't heard of mine. That fact made me equally proud and nervous to be an American Independent filmmaker, working in a country that produces so many films and filmmakers, and has so many festivals and screens, that it's possible for several of these filmmakers to have festival and theatrical success without any idea that the others even exist.
Many countries represented at the Festival only produce a few films a year, often by filmmakers who have already succeeded with previous efforts, and here we were, sitting in the sun eating grilled fish, probably representing less than .01% of the features made in
That night I saw a terrible co-production from Israel/Belgium/Canada/France/Germany featuring two ridiculous scenes involving guns that only seem to show up in these crummy political/cultural/family issue movies. Kent Osborne, the actor and co-writer of my film, was there with me, and we went to bed that night laughing about how ridiculous the whole thing was. It won two awards a few days later. Go figure.
I will admit that I used to be somewhat embarrassed to show my tiny movies at European festivals like this. I felt like a con artist, like I had somehow tricked someone into giving me an invitation to a party I did not belong at. I was tired of receiving a certain look from well-dressed European filmmakers (a mix of pity, envy and disbelief) when I told them about my budget or working method. I've always had a hard time explaining the films, but they seem especially foreign in these environments of government funded "art" films.
But I'm officially over it. I stood in front of my relatively small audience, consisting of a few Portuguese people, a few new friends from various countries, and a few of my fellow "American Independents" directors, and I proudly introduced my film. There are no guns, no superfluous confrontations between estranged fathers and sons and no swelling pieces of music designed to make you feel a certain way. In the context of everything else I saw at the Festival, that felt downright political.
Joe Swanberg wrote and directed "Hannah Takes the Stairs" which premiered at SXSW.
Photo by Kent Osborne.
Michael Jones is the film festival editor at Variety.com. 
