Lviv III

You thought we were gone for good, didn't you? I guess we needed a break from the blog and didn't even know it.  We've been back in Seattle since the 6th. It's been a crazy week of unpacking (not just our suitcases but our entire condo-- all our belongings were in moving boxes while we were away). We've been busy visiting people we love that we've neglected for half a year, getting cell phone service, forwarding and reading mail, doing laundry, filling an empty fridge, running errands of all sorts, sending off our first packages from our new shop Handle With Care... and despite our long to-do list at home, we took off on a weekend trip to Idaho to see my (Julia's) side of the family. More on all this later.

We're finally back with a travel post! This post is heavy on the history, but I figured our Ukrainian friends/readers would really appreciate it. 

The city of Lviv is the biggest city on the western side of the country (near the Polish border), and thus has a very European feel.  It was founded by Prince Danylo of Galicia (a former region between Ukraine and Poland) in the 13th century. He named the city after his son, Lev (which means "Lion" in Ukrainian)-- thus it's also known as the Lion City. You may have picked up on this through our recent photos. There are lions everywhere. The lion theme is present on gates, statues, and cafes (the House of Legends we mentioned earlier has a quirky "Lion Room" that's a must-visit).  Since Prince Danylo's reign, Lviv has been a major city of Poland and of Austria-Hungary (ruled by the Hapsburgs, a family we learned about during our time in Vienna and Budapest). Lviv was once part of the USSR, was occupied by the Germans during WWII, and is now an important city in the country of Ukraine, which gained it's independence in 1991. You can see it had a lot of influences from many different cultures, and that's probably why it appealed so much to us. 

Lviv is widely known as the cultural city of Ukraine. It's popular for it's philharmonic orchestra,  opera/ballet house, and many art galleries. We were so glad to catch a musical at the Lviv Theater of Opera & Ballet, which we'll share with you later. If you're into the arts, you will be amazed at how affordable it is to enjoy in Lviv.  Lviv has more than 100 festivals annually, 60 museums, and 100 churches! We loved the atmosphere of Ukrainian pride among narrow cobbled streets, historic buildings, art culture, cozy cafes and restaurants, and delicious homey food. 

The people who live in Lviv are true nationalists and everyone speaks very pure Ukrainian, whereas other major cities of Ukraine (like the capital city Kiev) still have a ton of Russian-speakers left over from the Soviet Union. If you say something in Russian while in Lviv, it's likely you'll be corrected in Ukrainian! I was pretty embarrassed by my accent and poor Ukrainian. 33% of Lviv's residents consider themselves to be followers of Bandera (link in Ukrainain), a controversial figure who was the leader of the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement. Today, some people in Ukraine hate him and still fear his followers called "Banderevtsi" (who are mostly in Lviv). Others praise him as a Ukrainian hero. It seems like Ukrainians can't seem to agree who are the good guys and who are the bad guys to this day. 

If you visit Ukraine, you absolutely have to make a stop in this city to witness the true Ukrainian culture and spirit.

* Julia

[History Sources: Wikipedia, GT, and a walking tour we loved and very highly recommend by InLviv]

A Haute Birthday Celebration!

When I decided to meet a small group of friends for an intimate birthday celebration at the beautiful St. Regis Hotel in Atlanta… I didn’t imagine that I would have so much fun! It was like an evening of girlfriends meet Sex and the City!

You just never know how much you’ll learn about your friends and yourself when you open up and share your past, present and future. Now, while what we discussed at the St. Regis stays within the walls of the wine room, I can tell you that we laughed so hard—we cried!

 

We also shared our stories and secrets to our individual success and what we’d like to tackle next. Each one of the girls has decided to try something new in 2011… as smart women we’re always shifting and growing as our journey through life becomes more focused.

Our girls just having fun interaction caught the attention of a number of people who were in the hotel meeting friends or having a drink because a few of them came over to say hello to us. Our positive energy was infectious… and so was our Hauteness. We even had our own security detail!

As I ring in another birthday… I’ve never felt more alive or fabulous than I do right now. It’s true… I seem to get better with age. I’m stronger, wiser and more open than I’ve ever been. My relationships are sound and my circle of friends inspire and empower me every day. I’m so grateful to have the love of friends and family in a world where so many people have lost hope, faith and themselves.

But I’m not ready to wrap my birthday celebrations; I still have engagements in New York City and Miami!

How will you celebrate your birthday?

Appearing in the Haute Photos: Monique Eddleton @GoldnParachutes, Mattie James @Mattieologie, Tammie Reed @TalkingwithTami, and Jayda Cabbell @JaydaCabbell

The Loneliness of the long distance filmmaker

You've begun to see the amount of things I'm doing to make Ghostkeeper 2 a reality this year. There's one thing I didn't mention.

Most of what I'm doing, I'm doing by myself.

I've always been a one-man band of sorts, since I have good knowledge of almost every aspect of filmmaking, I am able to put together  reasonable package. In fact, I actually wrote 3 Private Offering Prospectus' which passed the necessary Securities Commission examination.  I simply got a stack of Private Offerings and cut and paste, in the process learning a hell of a lot as to why lawyers make things so complicated.

More words mean more money. You can say it in 2 pages like my distributor or 30 pages like a contract from Disney.

But for now, I'm on my own, putting together the proposal, doing a rewrite on my screenplay this week and working with a graphic artist on some artwork for the proposal. You can see my Travel Day proposal under Materials on the right side of the blog. I was helped a great deal by Shirley and her abilities with images.

So every day for me is a variety of emails, refining the proposal which I hope to have out by early next week, working over the budget again using Movie Magic Budgeting software and coming up with an Internet campaign to promote both the release of Ghostkeeper 1980 and production of Ghostkeeper 2.

I would love to have help, especially on the money side, and I do have two producers hunting around for money, but developing a movie is expensive and I simply can't afford to do it that way. So I learn and push forward.

And mostly, the others who will be working on the film, just wait.

I don't like waiting, so I guess that's why I take a lot of jobs on, and do the best I can. Someone will come along and tell me my budget is off, so I tell him to fix it. Simple.

But as Norman Jewison said about Cher after she thanked her hairdresser after winning the Oscar for Moonstruck... "I didn't do it ALL by myself."

I am working with the artist, and paying him his rate, and I have friends who look over my script, my proposal and a hundred other things.

But ultimately, nobody really cares if I do this movie or not. And that's the truth. It won't be any great loss if it doesn't get made. I know that every morning and at the end of every day. And there are some who really would like to see me fail.

But that's the movie business. There's passion and then there's passion, I always disliked that term, I prefer stubborness, that's what drives me. Someone told me "never give up on your computer when it's broken, have the computer give up on you." And I follow that advice on everything.

It didn't work quite well on Travel Day, the movie I tried to finance in 2009 and there were a lot of reasons. But I haven't forgotten it, in fact sent it to a producer last month in Canada who might consider it.

Probably none of you have ever seen Ghostkeeper and for that I posted a 13  minute trailer in the Materials section here, it'll take you to a YouTube version that I edited some time ago and is basically a 13 minute version of the movie.

Have a look. Tell me what you think.