My comedy short Say What Now? finished its film festival run with 16 awards including 6 Best actor, 2 Best Actress and 8 Best Short Film in places ranging from the New York all the way to India!
Quick Backstory: In 2020, at the height of the Covid lockdowns, I decided to spend some of my time at home creating shorts and online skits. One of these skits, namely a comedy one I did with my talented friend Pauline ended up doing pretty well on Instagram. This is when another friend, Katisha, suggested I submit it to actual film festivals which I had not done before! Low and behold, after signing up on FilmFreeway.com and sending SWN? into the festival ether to be judged, I was extremely (and pleasantly) surprised to see it was being officially selected.... but wait.. then being chosen as a semi-finalist?.. whoa what the hell--- SELECTED AS A FINALIST (say what now??) When I received the first win, I was understandably shocked, but also extremely thankful. It must be noted there were quite a few festivals that we were not selected for, and it took about five or six rejections before we saw our first selection! Overall, I would say this was an incredible first experience. I look forward to the next one.
The Takeaway: Keep creating. Keep doing what you love and know that you are enough. I doubted for the longest while that I could ever create anything that would be officially selected let alone win awards - our art is more valuable than we think we are.
