By Dusan Sekulovic, Pussyfoot filmmaker
(October 2008)

I'm in film. I keep telling myself that, since I've actually made one and people have sat down and watched it. In real theaters, too. But why am I doing it? How did I get here? My inspiration was much like a lot of people's: being in New York and being in my mid-twenties - no surprise there. Had all the usual doubts, too. Am I experienced enough to do this? No. What will happen if I fail - move back in with mom and dad? Is this a good time to be doing this? Who knows? But why chuck it in just because of an article in the WSJ confirming that the film market is choking? Filmmaking is risk-taking, and when you take risks there is always a surprise waiting for you.

I grew up with Woody Allen movies; I knew New York through his eyes before I really opened mine. So when I landed here seven years ago, I decided to live it like a Woody Allen movie. I remember not long afterward I was brushing my teeth in an overpriced dump of a sublet in SoHo (it had a Scarface poster on the wall; how could I resist?), when I heard the scream of a jet engine loud, close, directly above me. Well, I couldn't remember a Woody Allen movie where a plane was flown into a building. Suddenly, for a tourist with a funny name like Dusan Sekulovic, from a country that was bombed a few years back, it was not that easy to get a visa.

But I did get a job that got me in legally; I did save some money; and, three years later, I did make my movie. Now here I am, and Pussyfoot is finished - just as the film market has reached saturation point and the economy is tanking. So what am I doing about it? I am in pre-production with my second film, this time for $2 million, shooting fall 2009.

I shot Pussyfoot for $75,000, raised most of the money on the Internet with my pussyfootmovie.com website by selling screen credits by size - small ones for $35 and big, fat ones for $900. The rest of the money was generously donated by Visa and AMEX. I did everything myself, since I could not afford to pay people: I wrote it, directed it, edited it and acted in it. And what did I learn from this? NEVER do it this way again.

To try and sell it, I went to the Berlin Film Festival and, like a classic first-timer, I was running round peddling Pussyfoot with no idea what I was doing. But I learned, so that when I went to Cannes a few months later, I decided to sit down and have a long conversation directly with a DVD copy of the movie. I told Pussyfoot that he was a big kid now and it was time for him to move out. The DVD case spoke back; he told me it was unfair, that he hadn't been screened in a single festival yet, and there were no jobs out there for first-time films. "It's a saturated market, Dusan," he screamed at me.

Pussyfoot is now playing at its third festival, the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival. The other day I sat in a dark room by myself as the movie was being laid off to a HDcam tape on its way to Florida, and, as I watched it for the nth time, I thought, "Is this what I intended to do? Is this the way I wanted it to be?" Not exactly, but I liked what I saw. I was pleasantly surprised.

It's never a bad time to do what you love. The worst that can happen is that you have to move back in with mom and dad. Either way, it will be a surprise. -MPM

Pussyfoot is screening at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival on Sunday, Oct. 19, 4:45pm. A Q&A with Dusan Sekulovic will follow - less rambling, I hope, than this article.

CINEMA PARADISO, 503 SE 6 Street, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

For tickets, click HERE or call 954.525.FILM (3456).

Synopsis:
Pussyfoot tells the story of a bristly faced resident alien, Irwin Pelkalvski, and his friends as they face their second coming-of-age in New York City. For Irwin, there are "women" and then there are "girls": Women want to get married and girls just want to have fun. For the single Anny, there are three types of men: married, gay and idiots. Polish polka bars, confusing self-help books and a mythical hooker who never sleeps with her clients confound the friends' American journey. Of course, life never turns out the way you expect it.

Images courtesy of the filmmaker.