I’ve just been to war.
And it´s not over yet.

For the past five week I’ve been directing a feature film in Spain, along the Camino de Santiago. The film is called The Way, My Way, based on my Camino memoir of the same name.

I’m heading back home for a further period of shooting in Australia next week. Then comes months and months of post production. Then comes months and months of marketing and publicity.

It´s taken me nearly seven years working on this project to get to where I am right now, and probably more than forty different drafts of the script. I’ve lost count.

I’ve had constant rejections – from actors, from distributors, from financiers, from functionaries in government film offices who weren’t even born when I made my first movie.

They all, for their own reasons, said no.
For some, it was too much a risk.
For some, they didn’t believe in me.
For some, they saw me as a filmmaker that once showed talent, but that talent left the building a long time ago. Thank you and goodnight.

If this were a war and each rejection were a bullet, my body would be riddled by now. It would be lying in the mud in the trenches, a bloody mess. It would be so shredded they’d need my dog tags to identify me.

But somehow I’ve managed to pick myself up after each mortal wounding, and I’ve picked up my weapon, put my armour back on, and I’ve gone back to war, to fight yet another battle, to face further bullets, further assaults, further indignities.

What is my weapon?
My weapon is my vision.
I see the film already made.
There can be no more powerful weapon.

What is my armour?
My armour is my implaccable determination.
It´s my shield, it´s my suit of kevlar, it deflects most of the ordinance.

Most, not all.

Some of it somehow manages to get through the layers of protection I’ve built up around me over the years, over the decades of fighting, and it wounds me. It hurts, and it leaves scar tissue.

Each war, each movie, extracts its toll.
But the fight is worth it.

This latest film – my fourteenth feature film as writer/producer/director, my fifteenth as writer/director, my sixteenth as director only – was also a war, and the war will be ongoing until way after its release, sometime next year.

Who am I fighting?
My most powerful and cunning of enemies is myself.

My fears.
My willingness to compromise.
My unwillingness to compromise.
My loss of vision.
My sheer exhaustion.
My creative inadequacies.
My empathy.

To be a good film director you have to be a bastard at times.

But this is war, fuckit.

I have one chance in my life to make this film – a film that will last – and I’m going to do everything I possibly can to make it the best film it possibly can be.

I fight other enemies too.

The budget.
There’s never enough money.
The weather.
There’s never enough days of light. Beautiful light.
There’s never enough days of storm and thunder. There’s always too much ordinariness. That’s one of my biggest enemies – weather and light that’s ordinary.
Time.
There’s simply never enough time to do what I really want to do:
People.
Invariably in a war situation, people show their true colours. Some shine, some disappoint. That’s human nature.

I’m never alone when I go to war.

I’m surrounded by highly talented, highly experienced veterans, and sometimes rookies too, who share the vision and in their own highly specialised way join me in this particular battle.

For me they are a source of joy and wonderment and they save my life every day.
Every day I look around me and I quietly say thank you. Today you saved my life.

By my side is Jennifer.
She believes when I lose faith.
She takes risks when I’m too scared to.
She sees it done when my exhaustion clouds my view.
She cops the flak so that I can keep fighting.

Without her, I wouldn’t have the strength to pull myself up out of the bloodied muddy trenches and get back out there to face another day.

Making a movie is like going to war.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

Whatever the outcome, it´s a privilege to have the opportunity to fight for a vision that can hopefully have a positive and uplifting impact around the world.