My Encounter With Mandeep

It has been a long, long time since I've written a real blog. Since the pandemic days, in fact. But this warrants it. So there I was, going about my usual afternoon busywork at the AVN compound, when I hear a call from downstairs: "Hello?" I thought I heard my co-worker moving in that direction to see what was up, but then a few minutes later: "Hello?" Looked like it was gonna be up to me. So down the stairs I plodded, and immediately found myself face-to-face with a short, pudgy, balding man seemingly of Indian descent, whom I will call "Mandeep" for the purposes of discretion.  "Hello sir, is there somebody I can talk to here? This is the AVN?" he asked me. "Well yes, what do you need?" I asked. "I have traveled so far, I just need to talk with somebody who can help me," he implored. "OK ... what's happening? What's your question?" I persisted. "I want to find out how can I get into the industry?...
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Lady Headed to Cannes to Start Lady Revolution

So I've been informed there's this actress/directress named Sheila Hart who got a short film into Cannes and is hoping with her trip there to "start a revolution" of propelling the entertainment industry to "include more women when it comes to directing and producing films."

Her film, Journey to Abaddon, is about a young woman in the Dark Ages named Willow who finds out her family is not really her family and goes on a quest to track down her actual familial roots. Hart sees the tale as an allegorical
metaphor conveying the message that "every woman has a destiny purpose beyond what she can imagine. Every woman has the potential to join in the epic adventure to save the world."

Presumably, then, what we're meant to infer here is that making movies is an "epic adventure" through which every woman might "save the world." And Journey to Abaddon ought to be just the thing to either encourage more woman to embark upon the world saving epic adventure that is moviemaking or cause Hollywood to realize it's not hiring enough women to direct and/or produce movies. I'm not sure which.

Of course, you'd think Kathryn Bigelow winning the Oscar for Best Director in 2008 might have already gone much further toward getting this "revolution" underway than Journey to Abaddon ever will. And you might wonder just how underrepresented woman really are in the directing/producing game, considering the success not only of Bigelow but, oh, Penny Marshall, Penelope Spheeris, Sofia Coppola, Jane Campion, Betty Thomas, Nora Ephron, Nancy Meyers, Lake Bell, Sarah Polley, Mary Harron, Nicole Holofcener, Julie Delpy, Amy Heckerling, Julie Taymor, Catherine Hardwicke, Mira Nair and many other people without penises.

To be fair, there are only two films out of 18 in the main competition at Cannes this year directed by women. And I'm sure Journey to Abaddon is a fine piece of girl power cinema that will help even out the overall playing field for the ladies there.

But let's not get crazy with the revolution talk ... France is no place for that!

Pictured: Grace Fulton as Willow in Journey to Abaddon.

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