I always feel really nervous and actually sometimes rather sad when I have to sit through a screening of the film with an audience. No matter how hard you try you are continually distracted by anyone who moves or looks uncomfortable or worse still leaves (!) even though in most cases here they're just going to the loo due to the amount of enormous drinks (not to mention food) consummed during screenings!

Yesterday morning pre-screening I was beginning to feel a little like I'd been back on the Bata-ville bus, the combination of parties and jetlag is reproducing the eye-bag and blisters combo I've previously only experienced on the trip. We had a pretty good audience turn out and they seemed to laugh in all the right places - although how much of the Maryport dialogue came across remains a mystery. It was quite odd to watch something we've made so intimately with people from Britain in the US ... it makes you really aware of how specific to Britain but more importantly the current regeneration climate in Britain the film is. I found myself trying to imagine watching something about a village in Texas and how I'd see that. It somehow felt more anthropological than when I've seen it with a UK audience ... where there's always a real intimacy with the film and the characters. I'm certainly not saying that the audience didn't enjoy it or find it interesting but it did maybe feel less intimate.

That said Lya from the festival has been such a fan of the project that it has obviously touched her in some way that can cross a UK/US divide ... hopefully we'll get to catch her again before we leave as now we've seen it here there are lots more questions I'd like to ask her about how it comes across away from 'home'.

Straight afterwards we went into a screening of Danielson: a Family Movie and I felt a palpable sense of relaxing into the film and enjoying someone else's hard work! It's a hard won film made from 4 years of footage following the fascinating Danielson Family ... I actually can't wait to get back and do some more surfing on the film's site but also Danielson's own site - hand crafted artworks as well as songs. The director is our new festival friend and we talked most of the evening until Sleator Kinney cut through all conversation with an impressively wild set.