L I N K S :
Dear
FiLM Club Members,
After five years of trying to get a second film made (my first film, Angela,
got prizes and some great reviews, but lasted just a few weeks in theaters),
living through countless rejections and, worse, films collapsing after
being financed, in one case days before shooting, I sat down and decided
I was wasting my life writing films that were never going to see the light
of day.
I was desperate to tell stories. So I started writing short stories. I didn't even think I would get them published – I just knew I would go insane if I didn't get these characters out of my head. I wrote for two years, had my first child, did in fact find a publisher, and then, miraculously, my old friend Gary Winick called me and asked if I had a script for a mini DV film to be shot in 16 days. None of my own scripts were right for that schedule or in fact for mini DV. But I sent him two of the stories. He loved them, suggested I turn the film into a trilogy, and that is how I came back to film making.
I wrote the script in two months, in a state of intense joy. The characters in this film spring from some deep part of me, and yet the most exciting thing for me is imagining you – the audience – seeing yourselves in these women's sometimes funny, sometimes lost, sometimes desperate lives. This is a film about character, about how it is formed, how it works to shape our fates – yet how it is still possible to alter the course of our lives through the choices we make. I think of this movie as three feature films with the boring parts cut out. I hope with all my heart that you go see it. It still feels like a miracle that you have the opportunity to.
Thank you,
Rebecca Miller
Writer, director