![Director’s Diary Part 1 - We Only Want Rom-coms! 2 Director’s Diary Part 1 - We Only Want Rom-coms! 2](https://www.provideocoalition.com/wp-content/uploads/Picture12.png)
Prelude…
It’s December 2023 in the UK and I’m doing everything I can to stay warm as I traipse back and forth in the bitter wind between the two venues that CONTENT LONDON is holding court. My main takeaways are:
- Every broadcaster in the universe has announced that they don’t want ‘anything serious’. The world is in a terrible state and audiences only want escapist fluff like romantic comedies, Holiday movies and anything light and frothy.
- The head of Sony Corp has just told us that he knows we’re happy that the strikes are over, but we need to fasten our seatbelts because the acquisition situation is going to be dire for another 3 – 4 years. Don’t worry, he said with his gleaming white teeth and thousands of dollars worth of beautiful suit: your job as creators is to continue to make the great shows we’re all known for and that eventually we will find a home for them. Hmmmm we all pondered in the beautifully decorated theater we were sitting in….and how are we supposed to do that without money? Up went my hand (of course) to ask if the broadcasters’ audiences say they want light rom-coms now, who knows what they will want in the two years it will take us to get those escapist delights onto the screen? He chuckled (of course) and answered in his ever so smooth way, that we shouldn’t worry about what the broadcasters say they want – we should just dedicate ourselves to telling the best stories we can and they will find a home. Again, no mention about how we are to put food on our tables and pay our rents until that time.
![Director’s Diary Part 1 - We Only Want Rom-coms! 3 Director’s Diary Part 1 - We Only Want Rom-coms! 3](https://www.provideocoalition.com/wp-content/uploads/Picture1-1.png)
It didn’t help that as the co-director, co-writer, co-producer with Ryan Singh of RAY OF HOPE (www.rayofhopedoc.com), I was close to the finish line editing a beautiful and very serious film about the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka. Hmmm, I pondered. I guess our very human story of war, courage, stamina, and resilience in the face of insane danger just isn’t going to go anywhere at this moment.
Not unusual in the world of independent filmmaking. This was my fifth feature documentary, in the company of beloved films which have been very well-received and award-winning, and some have even made their costs back. I had made my living as a single mom writing/producing/directing unscripted TV shows like Ice Road Truckers, Storage Wars, Four Weddings, (you get the picture) for years. My independent films were always passion projects and my goal was to tell the best story possible while pouring the best of my skills into the process.
No different this time. We’d do our very best work, release the film, and hope for the best, all while being assured that our film wouldn’t go anywhere.
Also, this wasn’t a new refrain. From the moment Ryan approached me about potentially getting involved, choruses around the globe from my agent, to broadcasters, funding sources, and my own reticence to get involved in such a risky project were all singing/shouting the same words: DON’T DO IT! IT’S CRAZY! NO ONE WILL WANT TO SEE IT! YOU’LL GO BROKE!
Three years earlier…
It’s 2020, at the height of the Pandemic. Flying in and out of Canada meant spending two weeks in quarantine without access to human beings, ordering in groceries which were furtively left on your doorstep, spending a lot of time on zoom, exercising in a fenced in yard, and dancing around the Air BnB until Day 14 when an approved Covid self-test was delivered and applied while on zoom with a certified nurse who talked you through the process. The vial was then put into a specially marked package, left outside on the doorstep to be picked up and taken to a testing lab. 24-48 hours later, you were notified as to whether you could leave or not. (was it all a dream???).
In the middle of Week 2, I got a phone call from my colleague Ryan Singh to remind me that he had footage of a wild adventure he had shot 7 years prior when he went to Sri Lanka with a Tamil-Canadian Member of Parliament. They had been followed by the police, apparently put under house arrest, and it was all in all, absolutely terrifying. He had been sitting with this footage all these years and couldn’t find a place to use it or find an interested broadcaster. No one knew anything about the story, it was too far away, not relevant, etc. (usual rejections).
Hmmm, I thought: I remembered learning about some kind of civil war in Sri Lanka when I was little and growing up in a very news-aware family on the west coast of Canada. I heard about something called Tamil Tigers (were they real tigers?), bombing….and then…that was it. I stopped hearing about it. For years. In fact, it completely fell off my radar. Until now. This conversation with Ryan that was about to change the course of my life.
Tell me more, I said. Who is this woman? What is her story? Her name is Rathika Sitsabaiesan, he said. She fled from Sri Lanka with her family when she was 5 years old, went through incredible hardships, finally settling into their new community far away in Canada, and went on to become the first female Tamil-Canadian Member of Parliament in history.
Again with the hmmms, I said, she sounds fascinating. And I bet there’s a story there. Oh yes, he said, it’s there, and I want to tell it. Would you like to be involved? More hmmms. Next question all filmmakers will recognize: Do you have any funding? A firm no accompanied by “I’m going to do it anyway – it’s a story I need to tell”.
Call me crazy, call me nuts, call me anything you want, but there was no way I could say no to this project.
But how could it happen with us all in lockdown and no funding being granted anywhere for anything…? Remember at that time, we had no idea how long the Pandemic was going to last.
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