Day before Thanksgiving

I am sitting at the Austin airport as I write this, about to leave for Colorado to visit my brother in Denver for Thanksgiving. While I am waiting, I’m busily trying to write posts and generate buzz about our Academy qualified film, My Heart – Ya Albi. Academy qualified. It doesn’t seem real. I remember a few years ago watching the Academy nominated films in the movie theater and thinking that my filmmaking was still a long way from the caliber of those films. Yet, here I am in the airport in 2017, only a few years later, trying to promote our film that could potentially be nominated for an Oscar. It is quite surreal.

To provide a little perspective, in 2012 a few days before graduating from the MBA program at the University of Texas at Austin, I was sitting in my roommate, Suma’s, bedroom, sobbing because I was scared. Unlike many of my colleagues, I did not interview for a six-figure job or have a guaranteed signing bonus. In fact, the only plan I had was that I would move into Suma’s dining room and that I was going to start Moth to Flame, figure it out, and live my dream of making films. I was scared that I would be broke and homeless, that this path so filled with uncertainty would only lead to failure. I am so glad that I took the leap.

I am getting quite emotional writing this… because even if we do not get nominated or even make the short list ever again… what a journey and learning experience it has been. And I know in my heart, if not this time… it can and will happen in the future. The degrees of separation between me and those life goals are closing. I can feel it. It is only a matter of time. I am living my dream and I know with all my heart that is what I am mean to do.

I am so thankful for the opportunities I have and the people who continue to support my work and dream. I am so thankful that I am sitting in this airport writing about how close we are to getting that Oscar.