Three times a year, my brothers and I celebrate each of our respective birthdays together at Matt’s – the dive bar home of the Juicy Lucy (the Juicy Lucy is probably Minnesota’s biggest claim to fame behind Prince). We spend the meal talking about the past year, and the year ahead. Last year, while avoiding hot cheese burns from the molten burgers, my family and I were about to embark on a 2 month trip to Ireland… and this year, we are about to travel for a similar “filmmaker in residence” to Nova Scotia. In between, there was a 6 week shoot in Mexico City (we are using those films to make a longer piece that will be submitted to film festivals) and the Immigrant Family Dinner Project that many of you supported (we are almost done with 2 of the 5 films promised, and will begin releasing them this fall).
We leave tomorrow and just started packing this morning… that feels good. Our first big trip as a family to Colorado involved weeks of thinking about, planning, packing, stressing, re-packing etc. But after going away for three extended film shoots, the edge is gone and we can just be excited about spending some time in a new place. The only down side of this trip is that our dog Frankie is staying behind and that Hunter is only coming for a week this time.
Why Nova Scotia? If you’re asking, you probably haven’t been. I went for a wedding years ago and my memories involve Lobster, fish shacks, crystal clear and freezing cold (i like that) ocean, crazy tides and the nicest people I’ve come across (they say hi to strangers from the other side of the street).
We are going to be making five films and a montage during our stay, also we’ll be back on the instagram, blog and twitter train, so follow along if you are into that. Also, I’m sure there will be lots of pictures of the seafood James and I are eating (sorry Mirra).
