Being in the film industry, I suspect, any part of the film industry, requires a large amount of fearlessness. As a writer, producer, director and actor especially you have to be willing to put out there, all those vulnerabilities we're much more inclined to hide. It is from this place, that I wrote the following last night:
Home sick and tormented by allergies, I’ve had little else to do but ponder and think and brew up crazy ideas. I started fantasizing this evening about what I could do to get people to notice me, to notice this story, this film, Ekstasis, that I'm dying to make. What grand gesture can I make... skydive off a bridge, perhaps? Jog across the country like Forrest Gump? Have a Gandhi fast where I refuse to eat until we get the money to make the movie? This last one proved the most unrealistic considering, with my blood sugar issue, I probably wouldn’t last more than 12 hours. So what can I do, I kept asking myself. Then it came to me... I can write. I can tell people how my unextraordinary existence has kept alive an extraordinary dream, a dream I think we all carry, of living our lives doing something we love.
Since I was little, I always felt different... not exactly special and not exactly cursed but somewhere in between. After my father abandoned my Mom and I when I was 3, leaving us with nothing more than a pool table and a puppy I had to give up because they didn't allow pets at the apartments we would have to move into, I can only imagine the anxiety my Mom must have felt - raising a child on a secretary's income while dealing with an increasingly debilitating disease, Multiple Sclerosis. I was ten years old when my stellar example of a father claimed I wasn't even his child, the stress of which caused my Mom to never walk again. My Grandma and I took care of her from that point on and there was more to worry about than what I wanted. I fell through the cracks of other people's lives and so I dreamed. It was my escape. I would make up stories and fantasies; I would live out other lives – glamorous, exciting lives. I was Barbie in a blue fur coat and a badass RV. I was Madonna in the Material Girl video. I was Jesse's girl. I was anyone and everyone but who I really was. And for some reason, I just always had faith that my dreams would one day come true, faith that something was going turn out right for me, even if it took a miracle.
I'm now 38-years-old and I still live in an apartment, unmarried, no kids, and although my life has taken many unexpected and uneventful twists and turns, I still believe in that miracle. Every dream I’ve had I’ve followed through to the bitter end… I've started and failed at more businesses than I’d like to admit. I’ve shopped around short stories, novels, scripts and children’s books ad nauseam but to no avail. My family thinks I'm nuts. I’ve been told I should just "grow up" and find a job with good insurance. Isn't that what everyone does? People don’t really believe in dreams these days, or so it seems – it’s not tangible, it’s not realistic, it doesn’t come with a 401K. Often times, when I ask people what it is they're passionate about, I’m met with a blank, empty stare. They’ve lost that spark, they’ve become the American Zombie and it's fear of becoming this that drives me on because I know that if you're not fully living, you're partially dying and the moment you give up on your dreams, you might as well pack your bags for the Underworld. I promised myself a long time ago, I’d go out fighting, if I live to be 100-years-old.
This time, this dream, of making a feature film – a story I wrote from the heart, from the pain of losing my Mom, has evolved into something special, not just to me, but to a group of amazing and talented folks who have been a part of this project for over a year now, and to our growing number of supporters. Ekstasis seems to really affect almost everyone who reads it, I think, because losing someone you love, knowing you would trade your life for even one more day, even minute, with that person, is something many of us have already experienced. It’s the kind of loss that eludes no one. So this dream has grown, and it feels so close now, just a breath away, like a snowflake on your tongue. It just seems so silly that something like money could keep us from it, especially when I know, just know in the depths of my soul, that if we could just get this script out there, that the right people would see the magic in this story, and the commitment our production team has in this project, and this dream would so seamlessly become reality.
Or maybe I should take another look at the Gandhi thing…
Kimberly Suta
