NY SAG Screening (Screen Actor's Guild)
has a monthly SAG Foundation event, where for one night they introduce an up and coming filmmaker’s work affiliated with SAG to SAG actors. The evening in NY started fine until I walked into the room to sit down. Little did I know that the room would be a full house! I was nervous as hell because everyone in the room except for about 6 of them were complete strangers. It was a very diversed crowd filled with Asians, Blacks, Whites, and Latinos. What would be their reaction to my work? Would they hate it? Like it? These were my fellow SAG members and I felt that if anyone would give me honest feedback, it would be them. In the end, they were very enthusastic and had so many questions for me. They really enjoyed the film and afterwards people were still asking questions. A couple of them emailed me the next day to tell me that they were still talking about the film and thinking about the events that unfolded before them. It was at the moment that I felt that I did my job, call me filmmaker, actor, whatever, I just wanted to tell a story and make it look real. It wasn’t the first time I’ve been approached about “Salud” leaving an impact. For me it was now a big accomplishment because afterall isn’t that why filmmakers make films, no?
