WHO, WHAT, WHEN (Dela)WHERE
Tuesday, March 29, 2016 at 05:23AM 
Beautiful Penn Cinemas. So so lucky to be here. I've had films play in all sorts of venues, some small and with just a few wood chairs some with bleachers and so thankful for those venues too...and playing here in this spot and this view, I know we're lucky and I know how special it is.
You'd think that would be all the information needed, right? Nah. Of course not, Delaware has really played a supporting role in this career, especially the "independent" side of the filmmaking. The first attempt I'd ever made at getting behind the camera (thanks to Calvin Hill... I will forever say thanks to Calvin Hill for getting me behind that camera for the first time and throwing a "writer/director" hat on me) was for a very little film that I spent way too much money on called "The Wrong Fortune Cookie".
THE WRONG FORTUNE COOKIE, festivals called the film "cute", never really the review you go for, though speaking of cute, I married my co star in this movie.
Now at this stage in the game, I'd done a couple things wearing the "acting" hat, which was basically "go, do a good job then someone else does all the test of work to get it out there" with "The Wrong Fortune Cookie" I realized that was ME that was going to have to do all of that work from beginning to end, and it was a whole new thing.
First thing I did was ship that thing off to Sundance where it was rejected in about 14 seconds. Surprisingly enough, Sundance doesn't fall all over themselves for a fairly wholesome, fairly safe little comedy. I'd just missed the cut off for the Wilmington Film Festival (which was eventually won by JJ Garvine's wonderful small little indie "Yearbook". JJ would then be kind enough to employ me me in some way shape or form in each one of his flicks after) and the Philadelphia Film Festival was a while away. Rehoboth Beach Film Festival in beautiful lower coastal Delaware (for real all Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters hangs out there, so you know it's good), and I'd missed that cut off too, but for some reason still called them, spoke with the good gentleman Joe Bilancio, and since I had no time to submit the film, I got in the car and personlly drove it down on a warm, September day. Joe watched the film, right in front of me, and also (thankfully) accepted the film to the festival right in front of me. We'd officially had a release date, we were going to premiere at a film festival. After that day, things seemed just a little easier. "TWFC" ended up playing LA, NY, Germany and even made it out to India. All started in Rehoboth Beach. (Since this fateful day in the early 00's, Joe has been such a good friend and supporter of my and many others's projects over the years)
Since then I've had the great pleasure of seeing some great films made or based in the 302. "Keeping The Peace" by JJ Garvine and Tai Parquet, "All Along" by Bill Page "200 Characters or Less" by Mauro Giuffrida, "Dead To The World" by Matty Martinez (Matt if you're reading this and I hope you are, go make another film, it's time) there has always been some really nice original stuff coming out of the first state. (and apparently a web series I need to check out that's like "The Wire", honestly you could say anything is like "The Wire" and I'll watch it)
So needless to say from that day at Rehoboth Beach,to showing up in a project that won an award for Daps Reinert at Newark Film fest (also co starred Liv Allison from 'The Wrong Fortune Cookie'!), Delaware has always been very kind to me, and it's an absolute honor to bring this little film, that really played to some great audiences in California a fewweeks back, to the Wilmington Waterfront's great audences, for a night of laughs and good times, Hope to see you all there, and if I don't, no worries, we'll be in a town near you very soon!
Take care and be good, Tim