Burden of Dreams

When even the Icelandic yellow press reports on who Gerry is talking to in a club in Hollywood, I know that he has finally made it big. The afternoon paper DV said that Gerard Butler, who played King Leonidas after he played Beowulf, had been seen in intense conversation with Miranda Kerr, Orlando Bloom’s girlfriend, and clearly trying to chat her up. Butler of course clarified that they were just talking business. I find this quite interesting because for the longest time the Icelandic media didn’t make the connection. Guess they all watched Wrath of Gods when it was broadcast on Icelandic State TV and finally realized who he was. The article is here.

I finally received my DVD this week, and believe me, I pre-ordered. I have no idea why it took so long to get from Canada to Iceland, but I know that Icelandic Customs held it for a few days. They wanted me to
pay a percentage of the purchase price. I had to convince them that I didn’t have to pay for this DVD. Finally I just told them to open the package to see my name on it: “a film by Jon Gustafsson”. They finally gave in and stopped claiming that I had bought this one on eBay.

This week I got a message from a woman in the UK who ordered a long time ago and hadn’t received her copy yet. After some research we found out that there had been some labor action within Royal Mail, and as a result they are seriously backlogged. Since I hadn’t yet opened my copy, I decided to mail it to this woman in the UK, hoping that it would get to her sooner. So now I don’t have a copy for myself, but that’s ok… I’ve seen it a couple of times already.

We seem to be having a big problem with mail going to Australia, and we are very sorry for those who still haven’t received their copies. Brazil also seems to take a long time but the Philippines seem to be catching up. Today we also found out that Royal Mail in the UK is staging another strike next week, so this will affect some deliveries for sure. It’s frustrating, but we don’t have any control over the mail services in all these different countries. Yesterday WRATH played at the Perth Revelation International Film Festival in Australia. This morning I got a message from a supporter who was at the screening. She wrote: “As we went to collect our tickets the guy at the counter said that of all the Revelation Film Festival movies he had seen this was by far the best, as you can imagine that put a huge smile on my face.” Little comments like this one mean as much to me as winning an award, so thanks.

Next week I’m heading to the Stony Brook Film Festival on Long Island. If any of you are in the area I would love to see you at the screening. It’s on July 25th at 7pm. After that I am heading to California to attend a screening at the WineCountry Film Festival in Sonoma (don’t have the screening date confirmed yet). I’m also looking forward to getting to spend a couple of days with friends in LA.

By the way, did you all see this clip about Gerry’s new film, directed by Guy Ritchie (Madonna’s husband). Here is the link: http://www.worstpreviews.com/trailer.php?id=972&item=0

I’m blown away. The Oxford International Film Festival received around 500 submissions from 36 countries, and they chose WRATH to be their Opening Night Gala film. Not bad for a little film shot on an old MiniDV camera… the first ever MiniDV camera to be produced by Sony. When I started shooting it I had nothing but that old Sony camera, 50 tapes (at $4 each), and two batteries that lasted for less than an hour each. I’ve had people trying to stop the film, and others adding their support to make sure that it would survive (not mentioning any names, but thanks GB).