I land in Dallas expecting cowboys. Instead, I find myself speeding through a city twice Vancouver's size in an Uber, past freeway after freeway beneath enormous skies—more gyms and tanning salons than I’ve ever seen in one place. I check into a luxurious hotel, course-correcting from my previous festival excursion. The beef jerky in the lobby costs $45.
I shower and freshen up before heading down to the DIFF filmmakers' lounge. I see a few other filmmakers lurking by the open bar. We talk about everything we do besides making films. Some are journalists; others work in commercials or theatre. I'm half-listening, hanging in there. I never feel settled on the first day of travelling.
The next morning, I find a yoga studio a few blocks from my hotel, hoping to bring myself back to earth. This is like no yoga I’ve ever experienced—a room of 50 women in black tights and bralettes, with tiny weights. The lead woman floats around, apologizing for talking into a crackly speaker; the music is loud. They're fixing the speaker next week. This yoga class is not relaxing. I wonder if all yoga will be like this in the future. It makes me sad. I'm also sad because I forgot to pack my gym strip, so I'm wearing my pyjamas in a room full of Stepford Wives.
Later that afternoon, my film is shown in the relationships program. I sit in the back of the theatre. A few people approach me after the screening and say how much they liked the film. With the screening over, I feel lighter.
Next, I head to the press room for the red carpet event, where reporters wait with cameras and lights. Friendly ushers shepherd me between interview stations. People tuck their hair back, apply lipstick, and step into the blinding lights. (When the clip comes out, the headline reads “Writer-Director Anika Yuzak Has Hope,” which makes me laugh.)
Back at the snack table, I meet some friendly filmmakers from the Pacific Northwest. We talk about climate change and Elon Musk. About how comfortable we've become leaving one another behind, and billionaires preparing for a future that doesn't include the rest of us. It's refreshing to meet artists who care so much about the world and the people in it.
And then we're released into the balmy Texas night, wandering between screenings and the filmmakers' lounge. Fast friends, happy to be the people we've longed to become.
Before leaving Vancouver, I tie up all my loose ends, and as I speed past the Bigfoot museums and small-town attractions toward the Port Townsend Film Festival, I realize how tired I am. Part of me wonders why I go to all this trouble of trying to make movies at all. Still, another part of me has been dreaming of this moment: showing my short film, Some Girl, on the festival circuit.
Before dusk, I check into my dusty waterfront motel. It’s a little depressing. I wonder if I should have treated myself to something more luxurious.
I decide to walk the 30 minutes into town to see a satire about school shootings, Run Amok. I tuck myself into the back of the theatre, and before long I’m laugh-crying. The film explores the fallout of violence and the path to healing. I leave uplifted.
As I head back to my hotel, I notice a group of young filmmakers from LA. Stylish and fast-talking, self-possessed and confident. I can see in them what I see in myself: the striving, the desire to be seen, the performance of being a filmmaker.
The next morning, I attend my own screening. My film is paired with a beautiful Finnish film about mortality called Don’t Ruin the Dinner Party by Talking About Death. Pia Andel, the Finnish filmmaker, is peaceful, sophisticated, well-spoken and kind. Everyone in her films has real bodies. I’m in good company.
I befriend her at the after-party. I ask if she wants her film to reach a broader audience, and she shrugs. She says she still has a couple of films in her. She’s 61.
The young LA filmmakers are there too, and before long we all move to another bar across the street. We talk about dating in LA, which turns out to be exactly like dating in Vancouver. Everyone wants love, but we’re suspicious of marriage, and the seemingly endless catalogue of people on dating apps doesn’t help.
The next day, at the second screening of my film, I’m more comfortable. Pia is a friend now. It’s a small, intimate audience this time, and there’s lots to talk about. Women share how much they relate to the film. Someone says they’d like to see it shown in schools to start a conversation with young men. I hadn't imagined that possibility. This must be why I'm trying to make movies.
Then I’m back on the road. When I get back to my apartment, I scroll for a bit without unpacking. I happen on a clip of Jessica Lange talking about existential sadness. She says her sadness has informed her acting and photography. I think I feel the same way. And it’s nice to be home in my own bed.
I’ve been working as a cast assistant for the last few months, and somewhere between sourcing trailers and snacks and delivering scripts, I’ve been chipping away at my screenplay.
I pitched the concept to a producer recently. She wants to read it.
There’s something intoxicating about the movie business—the sense that anything can happen at any moment. A conversation, a glance, a favour, and suddenly your life tilts in a new direction. It has a kind of circus energy. I enjoy the controlled chaos, the intensity. After a while, you start to see what it asks of people.
The stars spend their days exhausting themselves being wonderful. I don’t blame them for being tired. The flip side of being so wanted is… being so wanted. Some of them are so famous their assistants have assistants, and their fluffers have fluffers.
(A fluffer, I learned, is a term for someone who organizes discreet sexual encounters in exchange for the possibility of an associate producer credit.)
And days on a film set can be absurd. But in the middle of it—something in me has settled.
Not because I’ve arrived. Not because I’ve made it.
But because I want to be here. And I like the work.
There’s a kind of comfort, too, in being part of a temporary family—producers and production assistants, talented technicians, icons, breakout stars, executive producers, stand-ins, cooks, nepo babies—the power, the care, the laughter, the prestige, the failures, the entitlement, the ego…
I wonder if underneath it all, we’re just people trying to have an experience.
We’ve decided this matters to us.
And so it does.
Lately, that’s included finishing my own film.
Some Girl is playing this weekend at the Portland Panorama Film Festival.
If you’re in the area, I’d love to see you.
