Brian and Jocelyn Rish at Charleston International Film FestivalAnother year, another fantastic festival by the folks running the Charleston International Film Festival!  Since we had such a great time at this festival last year, we were thrilled to find out High Heels and Hoodoo would have its very first screening at CIFF.  The sneak peek of our work-in-progress was this past Saturday morning in a block with the five other Indie Grant winning films, and it went great.

High Heels and Hoodoo was the first film shown in the block, and we were very nervous.  We’d shown it to a few family members and our expert advisors had given it a thumbs up, but it’s a completely different feeling when showing it to strangers.  We held our breath as the lights went down.  Within the first thirty seconds, people were laughing (and it was at a point where they were supposed to laugh), and the audience continued to give all the expected responses.  When the credits rolled eight minutes later, we heaved huge sighs of relief at the applause. 

Indie Grant filmmakers at CIFFThen we were able to sit back and relax as we watched what our fellow grant winners had been up to: the film noir Scattered City, the dramedy Jazz Hands, the comedy The Lot, the creepy animation supine: a dream; and the drama We Can’t Help You.  Such wonderful variety in the films, and so fun to finally see them on the big screen.  At the end of the screening, four of the films had representatives there for the Q&A, and we took turns answering insightful questions from the audience.

Afterwards, many audience members came up and told us how much they enjoyed High Heels and Hoodoo – hopefully when we get the comment cards, they will say the same thing!  We were also pleasantly surprised that a few people told us they came specifically because they heard us on the radio – how cool!

During the rest of the festival, we took full advantage of our all-access passes and watched other blocks of short films.  It’s so amazing to see the different things filmmakers are attempting with shorts, and it inspires us to go out and make more movies.

Thank you to CIFF for including the Indie Grant films in your festival and for putting on such an amazing event!

2nd photo credit to Ron Krauskopf with CIFF.