Just to clarify from yesterday’s post announcing the release of The Way, My Way in the US and Canada –
There was some confusion with my Australian date format – in our country, 3rd of February 2025 is 3/2/2025. So I’ve re-posted the schedule below and put date and month: 3 Feb 2025.
Also, this schedule is for the Q&A tour only. The film will be released from March 7th in every town and city where there’s an active chapter of the American Pilgrims on the Camino.
Unfortunately we physically can’t visit every town and city on our Q&A tour, much as we’d love to! As it is, Jennifer and I will be spending nearly 8 weeks on the road, rarely spending more than one night in each place we visit.
It’s a punishing schedule we’ve set ourselves – but we really want to personally visit as many screenings as possible and meet as many pilgrims as possible – and from New York on, we’ll be joined by Johnnie Walker, who has been such a strong supporter of this work from script stage on.
Yes, Johnnie read early drafts of the screenplay and provided us with valuable feedback. I also showed him early Work-in-Progress cuts of the movie and again he gave helpful notes.
Anyway, below is the schedule – same as posted yesterday but with the date format different – and the US poster. March 7th it will be coming to a cinema near you!
And by the way, this movie won’t be coming to Netflix anytime soon.
In Australia, there’s been an 8 month window between theatrical release and Netflix. In the US and Canada it might well be longer. It’s very much a cinematic big-screen experience.
I can finally announce that my Camino movie, The Way, My Way, is coming to cinemas in the US and Canada.
It opens wide on March 7th.
The film will be distributed in the US by Outsider Pictures, and in Canada by A-Z Films. The film will play in every city or town that has a chapter of the American Pilgrims on the Camino.
Jennifer and I will be doing 7 weeks solid of special Q&A screenings throughout the US and Canada, starting in Phoenix / Scottsdale on January 31st. We’ll be joined halfway through this Q&A tour by Camino legend Johnnie Walker.
The film will have its official premiere in Los Angeles on March 7th. Johnnie Walker, Jennifer and I will do a Q&A after the screening.
The Way, My Way was released theatrically in May in Australia and New Zealand, and was described by many film pundits as “the surprise hit of the year.” It took nearly $2.5m at the Australian and New Zealand Box Office, making it the 4th highest grossing Australian film of the year, behind Mad Max Furiosa, Force of Nature (The Dry 2) and Runt.
The film ran in some cinemas for 20 weeks.
It took us some time to find exactly the right distributors for the US and Canada, but we believe that Paul Hudson, head of Outsider Pictures and Antoine Zeind at A-Z, will nurture the film and handle it with the kind of handcrafted boutique approach that Marc Wooldridge, head of Maslow Entertainment, used so successfully in Australia and New Zealand.
Marc, as an Executive Producer of the film, will be actively overseeing the release.
Please find below the itinerary for the Q&A tour. This represents a minimum of 47 screenings in 50 cities in 53 days. It’s a brutal schedule, to be sure – but Jennifer and I are up for it! We’re so looking forward to meeting our longstanding social media friends in the flesh! And making new friends amongst the North American audiences.
We’ll be joined by Johnnie Walker in late February, and he’ll accompany us doing Q&A screenings in New York, Canada, Washington state, Oregon, and California.
When you go through this itinerary below you might be disappointed that we won’t be coming to your neck of the woods – but we simply can’t go everywhere – and be assured that the film will most probably be released in a cinema near you regardless.
Oh, and just to say – when tickets go on sale for these Q&A screenings, don’t dawdle. If you want to see the movie, get your tickets fast. Because if the response is anything like it was in Australia, sessions will sell out quickly. This isn’t some hokey marketing ploy, I’m serious. We literally had people fighting and yelling and screaming in the foyer of the cinema at a few screenings demanding tickets to shows that had sold-out weeks in advance. It was bizarre!
So here’s the itinerary. Like I say, it’s full on! It might change closer to the time, but this is what we’re working to right now.
As readers of this blog know, each year around this time I do 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 release of The Way, My Way.
We released the film on 100+ screens across Australia and New Zealand on May 16th. The film opened out to about 330 screens and went on to become what many film analysts described as “the surprise hit of the year.”
We ended up playing in cinemas for 20 weeks – at a time when a film is lucky to last three weeks – and we did theatrical Box Office of close to $2.5m in Australia and New Zealand.
For Jennifer and me, this exceeded our expectations well and truly. I would have been cock-a-hoop with a 6 week run and a BO of $1m.
But the film was cleverly and adroitly handled by distributor Maslow Entertainment, headed up by Marc Wooldridge. Marc, along with his associate Alex Taylor, did a superlative job managing the film.
Marc quickly came to understand the Camino ethos and spirit, and it was that understanding that helped him power the film to the result that we got. Marc will be using his unique approach to help distribute the film across the US, commencing in March.
On a personal note, I very much enjoyed working with Marc this year. I quickly came to respect his knowledge and love of cinema, and his belief in the commercial viability of home-grown movies. Plus we laughed a lot. In this business, tough as it is, you’ve gotta have a laugh.
With the Australian release, Jennifer and I did our bit doing Q&A screenings around the country. It was exhausting, but we got to meet our audience on a personal level, which for us was enormously fulfilling. The Q&As also allowed us to witness first hand the impact the film had on many. Some people told us they’d seen the film five and six times.
We were joined for a few weeks on the Q&A tour by Camino legend and Elder Statesman Johnnie Walker – and that time spent with John was one of the highlights of the year for us.
As was later in the year when we screened the film for a large convention of European Camino leaders in Pula, Croatia. John organised the screening – he was there, with Jennifer and me, and we once again witnessed their overwhelmingly positive response to the film.
We got the same reaction, if not more so, when we screened the film later in the year as part of the St James Day celebrations in Santiago, Spain. Once again John set up the screening, held in a grand old theatre in the historic centre of the city. It was glorious, but scary. This was a cinema full of very experienced pilgrims. There could be no more critical audience. But fortunately they loved it.
John later hosted all of us – some of the cast that had attended the screening, and Executive Producer Rudi Wiesmeier and Sales Agent Simon Crowe – to an unforgettable lunch in John’s favourite restaurant in Santiago. John’s generosity and support for this film has been incredible.
In amongst all this I did other things.
Jennifer and I spent a good deal of the second half of the year working on a project to be shot in India, a story based on true events concerning what’s called a double honour killing. Unfortunately that film fell over – the Indian producer we were working with was not able to pull it all together within our timeframe.
So, how did I go with my laundry list of things I wanted to achieve this year? Here’s what I hoped to achieve this time last year, and in bold, what I actually did or did not achieve.
Release The Way, My Way theatrically in Australia and other territories world wide. Done, kind of. We did release the film theatrically in Australia and New Zealand, but not in other territories. That’s happening next year – 2025.
Release Facing Fear online globally. Done.
Publish a ten year anniversary edition of The Way, My Way.Done.I wrote an updated edition with an extra 15,000words and it was published through Arcadia Press.
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.Done – an 80,000 word manuscript that’s in the final stages of publication and will be available on Amazon by Christmas.
Complete the filming of Hope – the third in the series which includes PGS Intuition and Facing Fear.Not done. Couldn’t find the time.
Further development of my elephant film to be shot in India, tentatively titled Elephant Mountain. Done. The film is now called Mother Thunder. Development is continuing.
Write the screenplay to the sequel of The Way, My Way – titled The Way, Their Way.Done, although the film is now called “The Way, Her Way.” I’ve completed the script and Marc and his team at Maslow will be distributing once again.
Begin writing another novel – a metaphysical thriller. Done. Or rather, doing… The book is called “Dead Image,” and I’m 30,000 words into it.
On top of all this I commissioned Dan Mullins, of My Camino Podcast fame, to do the audiobook of The Way, My Way. That will be published on Audible.com by Christmas. And I’ve also begun active development on another movie, a crime-caper movie involving a group of dysfunctional pensioners.It’s a comedy.
As well, I spent time this year writing a non-fiction work detailing how I’ve changed since walking the Camino. The book is called If I can Change, You can Too. I’ve already this year written 15,000 words and will look at completing it this coming year.
So what do I hope to achieve in 2025? This next year is going to be massive. Here’s what I wish to do:
Release The Way, My Way in US and Canada – and support that release with a Q&A tour, from the beginning of February to the end of March.
Release The Way, My Way in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and support that release with a Q&A tour in April.
Screen The Way, My Way to an annual gathering of North American pilgrims in Vancouver in mid May.
Screen The Way, My Way to a convention of Camino leaders in Malta at the end of May.
Walk the Portuguese Camino (for the 3rd time!) in preparation for the shoot of The Way, Her Way.
Release The Way, My Way later in the year in Italy, and support that release.
Shoot The Way, Her Way on the Portuguese Camino in September / October.
Work on the post production of The Way, Her Way.
Write the first draft screenplay of the next movie in my Camino series – called The Way, His Way. (I aim to become the Taylor Sheridan of the Camino! haha)
Complete the writing of my metaphysical thriller, Dead Image.
Complete the writing of my non fiction book, If I can Change, You can Too.
Write a treatment of my dysfunctional pensioner crime-caper screenplay.
Shoot more material for the Hope film.
Seems like a lot? It’s about how you use your time. I try not to waste a moment. I try… But I am, by nature, a lazy man.
Mounting the production of The Way, Her Way in Portugal is once again going to be a big and complex undertaking, but that’s what Jennifer and I do. We’ve shot films on the remote Nullarbor Plains (Kiss or Kill), in Nova Scotia (Two if by Sea), in Papua New Guinea on the Trobriand Islands (In a Savage Land), in New Orleans (Tempted) on a remote Barrier Reef island (Uninhabited), and of course we shot The Way, My Way on the Camino in France and Spain. I seem to love setting my stories in exotic and logistically difficult locations!
On the health front, I end the year in my seventh year since diagnosis of my Parkinson’s disease. This year, with all the traveling and the tension involved in supporting the release of the film, and not being able to keep up my fitness regime, I saw a deterioration in my condition. That said, my neurologist, one of the country’s top Movement Disorders specialists, still rates me his gold-star patient – and hasn’t materially altered my medication for the past two years.
This coming year, I’ll be having cutting-edge stem-cell treatment in the US with one of the world’s leading experts in this field. He’s had spectacular results with Parkinson’s patients. Fingers crossed it slows the progression – it might even go some way to reversing the condition. We’ll see.
So that’s it – I achieved pretty much all of what I set out to achieve this year, plus some. And I’ve set an agenda for next year that would be challenging for someone half my age. But I don’t see age as a barrier. On the country, I feel more energised, and more capable, than at any time in my life.
According to Chat GTP, it takes on average 66 days to break an old habit, or form a new one. That’s a bit over two months.
In my November Challenge, I broke two bad habits and I formed a new one: I took salt and processed sugar out of my eating plans, and I established a routine of going for a walk each day. If I couldn’t walk for whatever reason, I did 45 minutes hard on my indoor bike.
You know when a habit forms when you feel guilty that you’re not doing it. Simple as that.
And you know when you’ve finally kicked a bad habit to the curb when its desire holds no further allure for you.
I knew when I’d broken my addiction to chocolate this past week when I didn’t buy my favourite Toblerone when it was on special. If I’d bought it, I would’ve eaten it.
I didn’t buy it.
I probably need a second month to really cement all this in place, and so I’m continuing my November Challenge into December. And I’m adding one more thing – 45 minutes of weights/yoga/meditation before I go out for my walk.
In the best selling book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear – (I highly recommend it if you haven’t already read it) – the author lays out the four main steps to Behaviour Change:
The Four Laws of Behavior Change:
• Make It Obvious: Identify the cues and ensure they’re visible.
• Make It Attractive: Pair habits with something enjoyable or align them with your identity.
• Make It Easy: Reduce friction; simplify actions to make starting easier.
• Make It Satisfying: Use positive reinforcement to encourage consistency.
3. The Power of Small Changes:
• Focus on improving by just 1% every day. Over time, these small gains compound into significant results.
• Similarly, small errors or negative habits compound in the opposite direction.
4. Identity-Based Habits:
• Rather than focusing solely on outcomes (e.g., losing weight), focus on the kind of person you want to become (e.g., “I am a healthy eater”).
• This shift makes habits align with your self-image, increasing their likelihood of sticking.
5. Habit Stacking:
• Attach a new habit to an existing one to create a chain of actions (e.g., “After I brush my teeth, I will meditate for one minute”).
6. The Role of Environment:
• Shape your surroundings to support your habits. Make good habits easier and bad habits harder by adjusting your environment.
7. The Plateau of Latent Potential:
• Change often appears invisible at first. Progress requires persistence, as results come after crossing a “breakthrough point.”
8. The Goldilocks Rule:
• Habits are most effective when they are in the sweet spot of difficulty—not too hard, not too easy.
For me, the two important factors that make habit changing doable are:
Habit stacking
Making it easy.
Habit stacking means that I can’t go out for my walk if I don”t do my 45 mins of exercise/yoga/meditation first. The exercise/yoga/meditation is stacked onto the walk. I can’t do one without the other. So if I really want to do my walk, then I have to do the exercise/yoga/meditation first.
Making it easy means that 45 mins of exercise/yoga/meditation is broken down into 10 mins intense weights, 20 mins of yoga, 15 mins of meditation.
Now, ten minutes of weights, or pushups or sit-ups or other vigorous exercise, is nothing. Nor is 20 mins of yoga. Once I get into my yoga I find 30 mins slips by without my even noticing. Similarly 15 mins of meditation – usually it strings out to 25-30 mins.
But I have to make this achievable each day – so there’s no point setting goals that aren’t practical for my daily life. 45 mins is something I can do – it’s no big deal.
As I age, I realise how important this is. It’s so easy as you get older to find yourself “rusting up.” You can’t bend like you used to. You can’t swivel to look behind you or check your blind spot while driving like you used to.
Yoga fixes that. It’s the greatest lubricant for rusty bodies that I know.
Next year is going to be huge for Jennifer and me. We’ve got a massive Q&A road tour throughout the US and Canada, and then onto Germany, Austria and Switzerland starting early Feb through to end of May. Then in September we begin production on another film.
We’ll need to be in peak physical condition. This December Challenge will go some way to achieving that – and more importantly, establishing a routine which we can then take with us on the road.
On this, the last day of the November Challenge, I went for a walk in the rain.
It was glorious. I felt great!
I got soaking wet, but it didn’t matter. I felt energised, I felt fit, I felt 10 years younger than my biological age. (Which is 71, by the way.)
What’s my November Challenge? Towards the end of October, I set myself a challenge for November. That I would:
–Take a walk of no less than 45 mins each day. – Put no added salt on my food. – Eat no processed sugar – chocolate, sweets, ice cream etc.
I set myself this challenge because I had, for a long long time, added salt to whatever meal was put in front of me regardless of how the food tasted. It had become a habit I couldn’t break. Similarly, chocolate after dinner at nights. It was not uncommon for Jennifer and me (mainly me!) to demolish a whole block of Whittaker’s whilst watching telly of an evening.
Not good. Good, but not good! Things had to change. Hence, my November Challenge.
Well, the good news is that I’ve broken the salt and sugar / chocolate addictions.
During the month I’ve had no chocolate, no sweets, no ice cream or gelato. None of it. And I’ve not put salt on any of my food, And coming into December, I’ll hold fast to these mandates.
I was in the supermarket yesterday and I noticed that the particular type of Toblerone chocolate that I used to crave – honey and nougat – was half price. I had no desire to buy it. Normally if it’s half price I’d have bought two.
Not yesterday. Nup. No way. And not tomorrow either.
As for my exercise – you’d think a minimum of 45mins walking a day for 30 days straight would be no trouble for a Camino walker such as myself, however because I’m now 6 ½ years into Parkinson’s, walking for any stretch has become difficult. But other than time off whilst I was travelling this month, I managed to keep to my schedule.
Lately I’ve been doing 4.5km walks at an average of just under 5km/hr – which for me with this PD, that’s good going. I used to be able to do 6.25-6.5km/hr before I took on this condition, but hey, I’m also getting older. There’s that too.
Some days during this November challenge I mixed up my walks with sessions on my indoor bike, and that was useful because on the bike I could push more into my cardio zones. There’s no doubt that at the end of this month, I feel way fitter and way healthier than at the start of the month.
I haven’t lost that much weight (see chart below), but that’s okay – this wasn’t about weight loss. This was about taking back control of my mind. Which I’ve done.
So I’m going to continue my November Challenge into December – which will be harder because of Christmas and the holiday period – but I’ve decided I’m going to add one more thing to my list: 45 mins of exercise and meditation before my walk. Ten minutes of weights, twenty minutes of yoga, and mediation for fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes of yoga isn’t much, nor is 15 mins of meditation, but it’s a start.
I’ve found the trick to these challenges is to keep the bar low – make the goals achievable. You can always outperform if you have the time and/or the inclination. Set the goals too large, then it becomes an impediment each day to even try.
They say it takes roughly 66 days to establish a habit. That’s a bit over two months. So if I can continue this through December, come the start of 2025 I’ll be in a good place.
All up, this November challenge has been very worthwhile!
I’m two weeks into my November Challenge, and this is my Report Card. I’d give myself a B+.
The challenge I set myself for the month of November was: –A walk each day of no less than 45 mins. – No added salt on my food. – No processed sugar.
Pretty simple you might think, huh? Well, actually, no. It was damn hard. Salt and sugar have been my two major addictions. I’d put salt on everything. Chocolate was my real weakness.
I needed a circuit breaker. Hence, the November Challenge.
The stats are in the spreadsheet below, but basically last week Jennifer and I drove up to Avoca to attend the Coastal Surge International Film Festival, organised by Glenn Fraser and Amelia Foxton – which was great fun. Then onto Brisbane to see my mum, who’s 97 yrs old. A round trip of 2,200km in five days.
On four of those days I wasn’t able to exercise. What with the long days driving (sometimes 700km+ in a day, with very early starts and socialising at the festival and family get togethers and what-have-you, it simply wasn’t possible.
The good news is though that I’ve gone the full two weeks without adding salt to any of my meals. And I’ve not had any chocolate, no sweets, no ice-cream… except ~
I fell off the wagon twice. Both were social occasions. Once at a family dinner when my sister put out some dessert and it would have been rude of me to refuse!
The other was a dinner hosted by a Camino friend. She’d just come back from walking the Frances and she and her husband put on fabulous spread that included nougat (I’m a sucker for nougat!) and home-made ice-cream.
Did I say I fell off the wagon? I did a high dive off a 25m platform!
Two times I had sugar. And I have to say each day after I felt nauseous. My body couldn’t handle the major sugar hit. It was very interesting.
With the walks, sometimes it wasn’t possible to walk so I did 45mins on the indoor bike. I’ve got a gym quality bike set up in our tv room so I’d watch a Liverpool Premier League game or the next episode of Disclaimer and cycle 45mins.
The bike’s good because I can push myself harder than if I was walking (because of my bung knee) – but there’s nothing better than getting out early on a crisp spring Mudgee morning and starting your day with a brisk walk.
Walking also strengthens tendons and muscles and ligaments that are activated by walking on uneven ground, or up and down hills. I’ve found that the walking has also strengthened my back muscles considerably. I have two metal plates screwed into my spine and I get fairly regular back pain. The walking has helped alleviate the pain.
Overall, the biggest benefit of the two weeks is that I’ve broken the addiction urges. I’ve discovered that having salt, eating sugar, is a choice.
Before this, it wasn’t a choice. I’d sit down to a meal, I’d immediately put salt on my food. Choice never entered into it. That’s just what I did.
Similarly, at night after dinner I’d sit down to watch telly with Jennifer and I’d break out a block of chocolate. Rarely did we finish the night’s viewing with any of that chocolate left.
We devoured it. I devoured it.
That hasn’t happened this past fortnight. I’ve kicked that habit.
I’m only halfway through so we’ll see how I go the next two weeks, but so far it’s been a very worthwhile exercise.
But really, it’s a bit sad I need to go to these extreme lengths, don’t you think?
Did I say I love chocolate? Did I say I was addicted to chocolate? Did I say that not having chocolate for a month would be my biggest challenge?
Last night, Day#1 of my November Challenge, I faced my first real test. I always make Jennifer a cup of tea after dinner, and we usually sit down to watch telly – with a bar (or two) of chocolate with the cup of tea.
Last night I had to hand over a bar (or two) of chocolate to Jennifer with her cup of tea – and not have any myself.
We usually have Whittaker’s chocolate, made in New Zealand – and it’s delicious. Last night’s chocolate was Pear with Manuka Honey. Can you really think of anything more yummy than that?
I can’t. It was difficult. But I met the test. I abstained.
This morning I did my walk again. I did 4.14km in 51mins. A bit faster than yesterday. My knee twinged worryingly for the first km or so, then it settled down.
Interestingly, I dropped 0.7kg over the 24hr period. I’m not altering my eating – going on a diet as such – other than abstaining from added salt and sugar. We’ll see if this is a continual thing.
Tomorrow is a travel day. I’m either going to have to get up early and do my walk before we leave, or do it at the end of the day.
Already though I’m noticing benefits. I feel my back getting stronger, and so too my core muscles. Given that I have two metal plates bolted into the lumbar region of my spine, holding two fractured vertebrae in place, back pain is an ongoing issue for me.
It has been since 1976 when I was a passenger in a film vehicle that crashed into a telegraph pole, putting me in the Spinal Unit of Royal North Shore Hospital for nearly three months. It was touch and go whether I’d be a quadraplegic.
That’s a whole other story.
For now, I’m Day#2 of my November Challenge, and enjoying it!
November is going to be a challenging month for a lot of us, I believe.
The US elections and its aftermath are going to dominate world attention for a period, and yes I’m sure the outcome, whichever way it goes, will be challenging for some.
My November challenge is something else.
It’s been 6 ½ years since I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and next year I have one of the most physically demanding periods of my life coming up.
There’s a chance that I might be shooting my Indian thriller, Those that Love, Those that Kill, in January and part of Feb in northern India. It will be a tough shoot.
Even if that doesn’t happen, come mid February Jennifer and I embark on a gruelling Q&A tour of the US, doing 30 screenings of The Way, My Way right across the US in 35 days.
That’s a punishing schedule even for a young ‘un. And I’m no longer a young ‘un! Hence, my November challenge.
I need to get fit for the year coming up. Already I’ve been ramping up my exercise routine, but I need to do more. Plus, I have two addictions that I have to tame: Salt & Sugar.
I put excessive salt on everything. Crazy, right? But that’s the nature of addiction. Plus I am addicted to chocolate of an evening.
Both have to stop. I need to break the craving, and the only way I can do that is to take the nuclear option.
So here is my November Challenge:
I’ll walk at least 45 minutes a day, every day. If I can’t walk for whatever reason, I’ll do 45 minutes on an indoor bike. But every day for the month of November I’ll walk or bike a minimum of 45mins.
I’ll cut salt from my diet completely. By that, I mean I won’t add salt to a meal.
I’ll cut sugar from my diet completely. No chocolate, no desserts, no cakes or sweets. No lemon and chocolate gelato ice creams, which I love.
There’s no doubt that #3, cutting sugar, will be the hardest.
And you might think that walking 45 minutes a day for a Camino walker is no big deal. But you have to understand that my Parkinson’s disease has severely limited my ability to walk long distances. It’s taken me quite some time to even do 45 minutes at a reasonable clip.
So to do it every day for a month is going to be challenging. But I’ll be using my Nordic walking poles, and that helps enormously.
I’ll do a weekly audit on this blog. I’ll detail what I’ve done the previous week. If I falter, I’ll tell you.
This is going to be tough. But tomorrow it starts!
Why don’t you do your own version of a November Challenge too, and we’ll do it together?
It’s taken a little while, but we’ve finally found the right distributors to handle our film, The Way, My Way in several key territories, including the US and Canada.
We’ll make a formal announcement in the trades in the very near future, but we can say that the movie is coming to North America in the early Spring, 2025. It will play the top 50 markets in the US, and we expect it to expand to 500+ screens. Perhaps more if it kicks in, like it did in Australia.
In Australia and New Zealand we ended up on about 320 screens, and the movie played for 20 weeks in cinemas. It made close to $2.5m in ANZ, just from theatrical box office.
Jennifer and I will be attending preview Q&A screenings in the US, and we’ll be accompanied by Johnnie Walker for quite a few of those screenings, along with Leigh Brennan. She’ll act as MC for some of the screenings.
In April the movie opens wide in cinemas across Germany. Jennifer and I once again will be supporting the film with Q&A screenings, alongside our Executive Producer based in Munich, Rudi Wiesmeier.
In September the film will open wide in cinemas across Italy. Ivan the Terrible and His Beautiful Wife Giovanna will be promoting the film in their home territory.
We’re currently in discussions with other distributors in other territories, and there’ll be more announcements shortly.
Thank you all for your patience. It’s taken a little while for our Foreign Sales Agent, Simon Crowe in London, alongside our other EP Marc Wooldridge (consulting on foreign) to find absolutely the right distributors to handle the film. For instance, the Italian distributors have walked the Camino several times. They get the movie.
This is a film that needs nurturing. But handled with care and attention, as Marc proved in Australia through his company Maslow Entertainment, The Way, My Way can find a sizeable and highly engaged audience. Many saw the movie multiple times.
So, in a few months, America, here we come! The rest of the world to follow!
I have a little time at the moment to reflect- on this past eighteen months with the making and initial distribution of The Way, My Way – but also time to reflect on larger matters.
Last week we finished our cinema run in Australia of The Way, My Way. It ran for 20 weeks in Australia, and it’s still screening in New Zealand. A 20 week theatrical run for a movie in this day and age is remarkable.
The film now begins its life online – it’s available on all the major platforms in Australia and NZ – and those that missed seeing it in the cinema will have the chance to see it at home.
Early next year we begin the global rollout- first the US, then Europe following shortly after. Again, Jennifer and I will support the US release with Q&As, and once again we’ll be joined by Johnnie Walker who’ll travel with us across the States, attending select screenings.
Looking forward to that!
To say that the response to the film has exceeded our expectations is a massive understatement. Before the Australian premiere, I would have been delighted with a 3-4 week run. Totally delighted. For it to run 20 weeks is still something I find quite mind-blowing.
Whether audiences overseas will take to the movie with such eagerness is yet to be determined. We’ll see. Again, I have low expectations. All I hope is that like in Australia, the Camino community will see it as truly authentic to the Camino spirit.
Whilst I have some down time, I’m keeping busy.
Jennifer and I are waiting for the finance to fall into place on a large budget thriller set in India that we’ve been working on for some time with Australian based producer Anupam Sharma. It’s called Those that Love, Those that Kill, and it’s based on a true story of a double honour killing. Hopefully that will have us shooting in India in the New Year.
I have the film on Hope still to finish, which will be the third film in my Journey series, the first two being PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System, and Facing Fear. We’re halfway through shooting Hope, but it will have to wait till I have more time.
So I’m using my time to write. I’m finishing off a novel called Dead Image, which Penguin Random House is tracking. They published my supernatural thriller trilogy Palace of Fires.
I’ve also started a new book – non-fiction – called If I can Change, You can Too. It’s a factual account of the massive changes I’ve gone through over the past ten years, and it gives pointers to how you can change too. Should you wish to…
I’ve yet to wrap my head around the book associated with my film Facing Fear. I need to do it, because the companion book to my film PGS Intuition has been selling quite well. But once again, I need to find a three month block of uninterrupted time when I can focus on it.
In a few months though I’ll have another book hitting the bookshops. It’s called Posts from a blog that became a book that became a film – The Way, My Way. It’s a compilation book of all the posts I wrote before, during and after my first Camino, plus posts from the Portuguese Camino I did the following year. All up, 120 posts, including photos.
It’s been a big job pulling that all together.
And then there’s the sequel to The Way, My Way, which Jennifer and I will swing into after the Indian movie, which we’ll be commencing in September next year, 2025. And after that there’s the alien film which I’ve been developing for many years, called They’re Here! It’s a comedy set in a small remote outback town.
I’m busier now than I’ve ever been. I feel as though finally, I’ve reached a stage where I have a level of craft competency coupled with a honed story-sense that enables me to work efficiently and at a high level.
Whether what I work on will be successful is in the lap of the Gods, but I’ll let you in on a little secret – Jennifer and I are having the best time!
PGS - The Way 
You must be logged in to post a comment.