Sometime in the next week, the film will cross the $1m mark.
I asked veteran screen pundit Paul Brennan why it’s doing so well – and I posted his response earlier. But there’s another reason –
We have a very smart, very committed distributor in Marc Wooldridge and his team at Maslow Entertainment.
Marc and his partner Karen saw an advanced cut of the film. They liked it but they had a few quibbles. Jennifer and I fixed those quibbles. Immediately the film played better.
Seen the trailer? If you haven’t, here it is. This is Marc’s work –
Marc has approached the distribution and marketing of this film with passion and full commitment. He’s discovered the whole world of the Camino, a world that initially he knew nothing about – but he very quickly immersed himself in it.
It was always our strategy to ensure that the film worked for the core Camino audience, and then hope that word of mouth would bring non-pilgrims to the cinema.
To that end, Marc sought the support of The Australian Friends of the Camino and Janet Leitch, who swung her endorsement behind the film. Similarly, Marc bought Camino legend Johnnie Walker out from Santiago in Spain to do advance Q&A screenings here in Australia.
John’s unwavering support has been crucial in this film’s success as well.
Jennifer and I are very fortunate that the film landed in Marc’s hands. Just as we have handcrafted this movie, Marc and his team have handcrafted the distribution and marketing.
We’ve brought Marc on as an Executive Producer and in that capacity he will work with Simon Crowe, our foreign sales agent based in the UK, to oversee the international rollout. And if the response overseas is anything like it is in Australia, we have exciting times ahead of us.
By the end of the first week up to Friday 24th, The Way, My Way had a box office gross of nearly $750,000 – from Australia and New Zealand.
That’s phenomenal.
I asked Paul Brennan, highly respected film industry veteran on the exhibition side of things, why is it working so well. Here’s what he wrote back:
THE WAY MY WAY is one of those rare events in screen success in that the feature is appealing to enthusiastic baby boomer audiences who still like to attend the cinema as well as the cinema owners and programmers who delight in screening to crowded sessions, especially Sunday to Friday in what would normally be considered off peak times.
Seeing THE WAY MY WAY is an elating passive emotional cinema experience which celebrates the humorous human condition for educated adults still wishing to be included in social life. It is also an inspiring sports film…it might be walking and learning and feeling, and that experience for mature adults is a valid part of their healthy lives.
THE WAY MY WAY validates how older people still see themselves, and especially the ache and repair of relationships. Even with their own body. By experiencing the journey as a screen vision, it certainly uplifts the viewer to participate in nature, effort and emotion to the point of heartfelt release by the 100th minute.
Few films pass from maker to viewer with enthusiastic intergenerational audience result. Anyone from 25 to 85 can see themselves on screen, and often wish parents and relatives to reconnect. The word of mouth, essential for return visits and good conversation is a solid strike rate. Many viewers return, bringing neighbours and family with them. And on attendance multiplies.
While mainstream blockbusters and exhausting cinema crowds dominate evenings and Saturdays, THE WAY MY WAY is the humble blockbuster providing profitable sessions at the counterbalance times of matinees and weekdays, a schedule which sees both ticket-buyer and cinema owner delighted at the access and the experience.
THE WAY MY WAY is not competing with any movie in the market; it is the competition itself in a parallel orbit. And everyone is happy. Hiking businesses would cheer and promote both the topic and the supply materials as working examples of their business aesthetic.
Similar rare unique release titles would be AS IT IS IN HEAVEN and THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN.
Today Jennifer and I head back home, after six weeks on the road traveling around the country, and going to Croatia, to promote our film, The Way, My Way.
The first several weeks were with the legendary Johnnie Walker, and that was a very special time for Jennifer and me. There is absolutely no doubt that his presence at all those screenings, including the one in Croatia, has contributed materially to the success of this film.
So many of these screenings were sellouts. The response has been somewhat overwhelming.
Thanks to distributor Marc Wooldridge and his team at Maslow Entertainment for handling the film with such skill and hands-on care.
And thanks to you too – all those who have supported the film, and Jennifer and myself. We are both deeply appreciative.
We need that support to continue though. The film has only been in general release for four days. We want this film to have a long life, so please – those of you who are supporting the film – please continue to do what you’re doing.
We are hoping that out of the screening at the Cannes Film Festival that we’ll be soon bringing distributors from other territories on board swiftly. It would be great to have this film in cinemas around the world later this year.
In the meantime, this morning we drive back home to Mudgee to slip back into our routine – the lawn will need mowing, we’ll have to put electric blankets on the beds, that sort of thing.
This last six weeks has been a blast. We’ve met so many wonderful people. We’ve made many new friends, we’ve renewed old friendships.
Yes, it’s been exhausting at times, and the schedule was unrelenting, but man o man, did Jen and I have fun!
Yesterday, awe finished the movie. The Way, My Way. Tomorrow we have our first advance screening. Talk about cutting it fine!
But we did it, thanks to Post Production Supervisor Rishi Shukla, Wayne and Libby Pashley and their team at Big Bang Sound Design, Rob at ZigZag Post and Rodney at JORR. They all worked unbelievably hard to get this film ready for this coming spate of advance screenings, before the movie opens nationwide on May 16th.
Johnnie Walker, variously described as Camino royalty and Camino legend, arrived in Sydney Friday morning. He will be attending all the screenings across the country over the next ten days, doing Q&As with Jennifer and myself, and Chris Haywood for a few sessions too.
This freight train leaves the station tomorrow. The schedule is:
Tuesday 16 / Mount Vic Flicks / Blue Mountains / NSW
Wednesday 17 / Opening Night film, Gold Coast Film Festival / Qld
Sunday 21 / Nova Carlton, evening / Melbourne / Vic
Monday 22 / The Sun cinema Yarraville / Melbourne / Vic
Tuesday 23 / Nova East End cinema / Adelaide / South Australia
Wednesday 24 / Luna cinema, Leederville / Perth West Australia
Thursday 25 / The Windsor / Perth / West Australia
Friday 26 / John, Jennifer and I fly to Croatia to attend a gala screening at a conference of European Camino leaders from 17 countries, in Pula Croatia on May 3rd.
It’s a pretty gruelling schedule, right?
But Johnnie is deeply committed to promoting the film, which he says is the most authentic movie made about the Camino.
If I’m a bit uncommunicative on social media for the next two weeks, this is why!
What I’m most looking forward to is sitting with audiences and seeing how they react to the movie. And I’m looking forward to the Q&As too.
Gruelling, yes – but huge fun! After eight years working on this film, tomorrow it finally steps out into the light.
Chris Haywood (playing the role of Bill) and Johnnie Walker on location at O Cebreiro on the Camino.
I’m currently reading a Sci-Fi trilogy called Three Body Problem, written by Chinese author Cixin Liu. The series is called Remembrance of Earth’s Past. The Netflix series starts on March 21st.
The trilogy has been hugely popular worldwide – the first book won the Hugo Award for Best Sci-Fi or Fantasy novel. I’m now partway through the third book, Death’s End. I was hoping to have read all three books by the time the series started, but I won’t finish this final 600+ page book in time.
These books are dense and complex, and huge in their ideas. I haven’t read anything like them. And what makes them so fascinating is that there is really no central character – the books are about humanity.
Civilisations.
This is not a spoiler – but one of the premises is: How would humanity respond if it knew it was going to be destroyed by an alien force in four hundred years?
Four hundred years.
In reading these books, what I’ve discovered is that perspective changes everything. Time changes everything. Distance – space – changes everything.
When you’re immediate and up front and personal, you have a different perspective to if you’re on another planet, for instance, and you’re dealing with something that’s not only light-years away, but millennia away.
I find these fascinating concepts.
And the reason I’m putting this in a blog is that in reading these books, I remember someone once telling me that they had an out of body experience where Lao Tzu came to this person and took her by the hand and took her out of her house, up, up, out of her street, up, up, out of her suburb, up, up, further up, out of her city, and then out into space so that she could look down on the planet, Planet Earth, and see her life, her problems, her dramas, from this cosmic perspective.
And Lao Tzu said to her: See? All your troubles and dramas don’t really matter when you see them from this perspective.
I’ve been remembering that while I read these books. Because goodness knows we have problems in the world right now – as indeed we always have. And yet seen from the Lao Tzu cosmic perspective, they’re really quite insignificant.
Now I know a lot of you are going pile on top of me and say: How’s what’s happening in Gaza insignificant? How’s what’s happening in Ukraine insignificant? How’s what’s happening with the coming US elections insignificant?
What I’m talking about – and I’ve had blowback from this before – is trying to find a perspective of neutrality. That’s what I aspire to – neutrality. Non-attachment, if you like.
There’s a new film opening in the US next month. It’s called Civil War, and it’s made by an acclaimed British filmmaker, Alex Garland. It’s just premiered at the SXSW Festival, and caused a stir. A good stir. Some have called it a masterpiece. It’s set in a near-dystopian future in which the US has broken out in civil war.
In a press conference after the screening, the filmmaker said: Why are we talking and not listening? Why are we shutting conversation down? Left and Right are ideological arguments, that’s all they are. They’re not right or wrong. They’re not good or bad. We have reached a point where we vilify the other side, we’ve ratcheted up the rhetoric into an ethical debate which makes it easier to see the other side as evil – and once someone is seen as morally wrong, as evil, then their opponents can justify all sorts of extreme measures to stop them.
Step up and away, is what I’m saying. With perspective, you can see that ultimately it really doesn’t matter. You think it does, you believe passionately it does, but with the cosmic perspective of Lao Tzu, it’s all really insignificant.
I’m sitting there watching the Oscars, right? And all these people get up and make their speeches. And most of the speeches are full of Hollywood Humble.
And I start to think –
There is no best picture. There is no best actor, or actress. There is no best screenplay, or cinematography, or editing. No best music, or design, No best director.
There is only truth, and beauty, and art.
And binding it altogether – the truth, the beauty, the art, is love.
We need winners, don’t we. It makes things easier for us. Complicit with winners, and losers, is Judgement. And complicit with Judgement is Separation.
And separation is splitting us apart. Splitting the world apart.
I might have liked some films more than others – but I can’t say one film is better than another. One director is better than another? One actor, or actress, or cinematographer or sound designer, or music composer is better than another?
They all expressed their art through truth and beauty – and love.
When looked at this way there are no winners. There are no losers. There is merely the work. And if that work is art, then we are all winners.
So the Oscars are now done and dusted for another year.
Jimmy Kimmel was suitably lame and inoffensive. Where’s Ricky Gervais when you need him?
So how did I fare with my predictions? Not as well as previous years. I made the mistake of letting my personal likes/dislikes get in the way of my critical thinking.
So here’s my report card: I got 11 out of 20. That’s because I disliked Poor Things so much. Even though I predicted Oppenheimer would win Best Sound, principally because it was such a loud movie, I’m really thrilled that The Zone of Interest got the award. The film used sound in such an horrific way. Also, Christopher Nolan has a habit of making his movies so that you can barely understand what the characters are saying. His dialogues are almost inaudible.
I’m also delighted that American Fiction won the adapted screenplay award. It was a very clever script. And equally so Anatomy of a Fall, winning for best original screenplay.
So, here’s what I got right, and wrong.
Best Picture Oppenheimer / YES
Best Director Christopher Nolan / YES
Best Actor Cillian Murphy / YES
Best Actress / YES Emma Stone
Best Supporting Actor / YES Robert Downey Jr
Best Supporting Actress / NO America Ferrera
Best Original Screenplay / YES Anatomy of a Fall
Best Adapted Screenplay / NO Oppenheimer
Best International Film / YES The Zone of Interest
I want to write about something that’s fascinated me for some time – What I call a person’s Highwater Mark.
What’s a person’s Highwater Mark? It’s the zenith of their life’s achievement. It’s the point beyond which they never reach.
Most of us achieve our Highwater Mark in our 40s. Some earlier, some later.
What’s my Highwater Mark? Making small personal films and writing novels.
George Miller’s Highwater Mark is making big spectacular action movies. Bill Gates’s Highwater Mark is creating Microsoft. Volodymyr Zelensky’s Highwater Mark is being President of Ukraine. Paul Selig’s Highwater Mark is channeling books. Nicole Kidman’s Highwater Mark is being an A-List actress.
A person’s Highwater Mark has nothing to do with success. Success comes and goes. It has nothing to do with achieving more. Most of us normally achieve more within the limitations of our Highwater Mark.
George Miller will no doubt make more big budget action movies. Bill Gates will continue with his philanthropic work. Zelensky will always be defined by being President of Ukraine. Paul Selig will continue to channel books, and he most probably will do other things too, but his channelled work will be his Highwater Mark. Same with Nicole Kidman. Her Highwater Mark will be her status as an extraordinary actress.
Me? I’m still lapping at my Highwater Mark but I doubt that I’ll push further up the beach. It’s not like I’m going to direct a Marvel movie.
A person’s Highwater Mark is that place on the beach where the Spring Tide reaches. Subsequent tides won’t ever reach that far.
We each inevitably find the Highwater Mark in our lives, most of us without ever realising it. This is as far as we’re ever going to go. It’s this far and no further.
And as we get older, we normally recede from our Highwater Mark. Very few of us take our Highwater Mark further up the beach.
But it’s possible. It’s possible to unlock further potential within us. But first we have to acknowledge that we have that potential.
As we get older, we get tired. Or worse still, complacent. Or even worse still, we get damaged. Damaged by the vicissitudes of life. We don’t seek to over-reach. We live too much in the past.
But it’s possible to establish a new Highwater Mark. To unlock that unlimited potential. We just dream bigger dreams. Further up the beach…
Each year, as many of you who follow this blog might know, I make my Oscar predictions. I’m normally pretty good, with a strike rate usually in the mid 90% range.
Living in Mudgee as I do, where there is no cinema, it’s difficult getting to see movies. And for a good deal of 2023 I was overseas, shooting my own movie – The Way, My Way.
That said, I have seen a good many – and I read the trades each day – The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline Hollywood, IndieWire, Variety, Screen Daily – enough to keep on top of things.
There are some totally outrageous films in the Oscar short list this year. They are:
Barbie
Poor Things
Saltburn
Zone of Interest
Now, I walked out of Poor Things after about thirty minutes. I thought it was pretentious. I wasn’t engaged at all with any of the characters. I acknowledged that Emma Stone was working her chops off for an Oscar, which she most probably will win, and I was in awe of the production design etc – but the story didn’t hold me, nor did I find any of the characters in any way relatable. It was just a highly talented filmmaker strutting his stuff… and that’s not enough to keep me in a cinema.
Barbie I thought was outrageous in a good way. I was engaged from the get-go, I thought it said some important and profound things about gender politics and male toxicity, and the style and direction of the film was totally original. And the script was amazing.
I was shocked when Greta Gerwig missed out on a Best Director nomination, equally Margot Robbie for Best Actress. That staggered me.
Saltburn I also loved, again for its boldness. Once again, a totally outrageous film that smacked you in the face constantly with its bracing storytelling and images.
And then there’s The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s supremely clever take on Auschwitz. An exquisite use of cinema. Use of sound, use of nuance, use of restraint. For me, hands down, the best film of the year. Along with Anatomy of a Fall – both starring Sandra Hüller, giving extraordinary performances in each film. A tie for me for best film.
Coming close behind is American Fiction – a beautiful performance by Jeffrey Wright, and a very smart script.
I saw Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer on its opening day. I was utterly underwhelmed. It’s not that I hated the film, I just thought Nolan could have done so much better. I was expecting cinema – instead I got talking heads most of the time.
Why shoot on 70mm film?
And for me, the four act structure didn’t work at all. The film ended with the detonation, which by the way was exceptional cinema. But the 40 mins or so after that was just an all-too-obvious Oscar grab for Robert Downey Jr – who was amazing and will no doubt get the Oscar – but it didn’t serve the film. Which was way too long. But hey, it’s made over $1b at the box office and will snag all the major Academy Awards this year – so what do I know?
Talking about super long films – Killers of the Flower Moon really tested the bladder. Said to be Scorsese’s “masterpiece” by Spielberg, it doesn’t come close to Raging Bull. Not by a mile.
Back to the Oscars. Okay, so here are my predictions. This is my list:
Best Picture Oppenheimer
Best Director Christopher Nolan
Best Actor Cillian Murphy
Best Actress Emma Stone
Best Supporting Actor Robert Downey Jr
Best Supporting Actress America Ferrera
Best Original Screenplay Anatomy of a Fall
Best Adapted Screenplay Oppenheimer
Best International Film The Zone of Interest
Best Cinematography Oppenheimer
Best Film Editing Oppenheimer
Best Sound: Oppenheimer
Best Production Design Barbie
Visual Effects The Creator
Original Score Poor Things
Original Song Barbie
Best Costume Design Barbie
Best Makeup & Hair Maestro
Best Documentary Bobi Wine
Best Animated Feature The Boy and the Heron
So on Sunday night US time, Monday late morning Australian time, we’ll know the results. We’ll find out whether the film that underwhelmed me the most gets the majority of gongs, or whether some of these very brave and outrageous films snag a few.
All up, 2023 was a really good year for bold cinema.
As readers of this blog know, each year around this time I do an an “audit” of what I achieved this year pegged against what I hoped to achieve this time last year. And I outline what I hope to achieve in the coming year.
This year was all about the movie adaptation of my Camino memoir, The Way, My Way.
After nearly eight years in development, and something like forty drafts of the screenplay, the movie finally got shot.
We shot along the length of the Camino, from St Jean Pied de Port on the French side of the Pyrenees, right the way through to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, in the far western region of Spain.
We shot with a small crew, so as to keep a tiny footprint on the Camino, and of the twenty roles in the movie, only four were played by professional actors – the rest were pilgrims.
I made this decision because I wanted the film to be truly authentic to the spirit of the Camino.
Post production has been lengthy – we’re now at 28 weeks and we’re still not done. But the film now has a distributor, a wonderful distributor – (details to come early next year) – and it looks like a mid-May theatrical release in Australia, later in the year for the rest of the world.
Jennifer and I are very excited that the film has landed in the right hands.
In amongst all this I pre-released a new novel, The Golden Bridge. It’s been picked up by a publisher and will be getting a proper launch next year, then available in bookstores, but right at the moment it’s available on Amazon here:
On a personal note, making the movie took the stuffing out of me this year. And it’s my own stupid fault. I didn’t eat well, (or rather, I ate too well!) I let my exercise slip, I didn’t sleep enough, I really didn’t look after myself as well as I should have.
I prioritised my film over my well-being.
This year I turned 70, and in August I celebrated (if that’s the word) five years since being diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease – although I’d become aware of symptoms some twelve months prior to diagnosis. So I’ve had this incurable degenerative brain disease for more than six years now.
Making a movie on location – as writer, producer and director – is not easy at the best of times, but when you’ve got Parkinson’s disease, let me tell you it was tough.
I tried not to let it show.
So audit time: How did I fare with what I said I’d do this year, compared to what I actually did do? I said that this year I’d:
Market Facing Fear throughout the US and in other territories. Yes, I did it.
Have a new book, The Judith Sessions, published. Didn’t happen – for reasons beyond my control. And it won’t ever happen.
Have a second new book published, a fictional work called The Golden Bridge. Did it.
Shoot and edit The Way My Way – a feature film based on my memoir of the same title. Did it.
Shoot the third film in my Personal Guidance System series, this film called I Hope. Partly done. Shot about 25hrs of material.
Launch a website aimed at helping people understand and deal with fear. Nup. Didn’t get around to it.
So my strike rate wasn’t too bad.
What do I hope to achieve this coming year, in 2024?
Release The Way, My Way theatrically in Australia and other territories world wide.
Release Facing Fear online globally.
Publish a ten year anniversary edition of The Way, My Way.
Publish a book of my Camino blog posts, called The Way, My Way – posts from a blog that became a book that became a film.
Complete the filming of Hope – the third in the series which includes PGS Intuition and Facing Fear.
Further development of my elephant film, tentatively titled Elephant Mountain.
Write the screenplay to the sequel of The Way, My Way – titled The Way, Their Way.
Begin writing another novel – a metaphysical thriller.
That’s a lot to chew off, and any one of those goals would be an achievement in itself – but I like to set myself lofty targets.
We’ll see how I go.
Again on a personal note, I’ve started taking back control of my body.
I’ve rejoined my local gym and I’m doing 30-45 mins cardio, 45 mins weights and core-strengthening exercises 4-5 times a week. I’ve also gone back to my Nordic walking, 2-3 times a week.
This last Sunday I walked 8kms at 4.35kms/hr. That for me was a big deal. Through most of this year I was incapable of walking more than 2km at a stretch without getting knocked up.
One of the biggest downsides for me with Parkinson’s is that it severely impacts your ability to walk. I’m fighting this, and I’m finding that Nordic walking is helping greatly.
I’m intermittent fasting as a matter of course – not eating before 1pm – 2pm. And I’ve taken red meat, alcohol, dairy and processed carbs out of my diet. I’m working on sugar and salt, but I’m not there yet.
Already I’m starting to feel the benefits of this return to a routine of exercise and mindful eating. With less travel anticipated this year, I should be able to bring my physical wellness back into line.
I have no plans to retire.
I have too much to do.
I’m not letting this condition I have stop me, much less slow me down. I feel that finally I have some semblance of command of my craft, and I have things I want to say.
This past ten years of my life, post Camino, has been a huge learning period for me – the Parkinson’s being a key part of that learning – and now I feel I need to put what whispers of wisdom I might have accumulated into service.
PGS - The Way 
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