What a month, huh.

I’m drafting this on my porch in Los Angeles, mostly settled back in after the whirlwind of premiering in St. Louis and Melbourne.

We sold out the screening at St. Louis Int’l, the movie looked (and sounded) great on the big screen, the audience dug it!! R’s family threw us the perfect little party. I was so focused on logistics, I didn’t anticipate how cool it would be to celebrate afterwards, and sorta bask in praise? It went beyond perfunctory congratulationses. Our people really liked the movie ☺️

Oz went great too. The Melbourne Queer Film Fest was beautifully run. I got this feeling, looking out over the audience at ACMI (formerly known as the Australian Centre for the Moving Image), holy shit, it might be a while before I play a venue like this again. ACMI is basically Disney Concert Hall meets MOMA meets Arclight. (RIP, Arclight.)

R’s visa didn’t come through in time, so it was Cam and me, seeing movies, attending panels, eating excellent Thai food. It was late spring down there, and Melbourne was green, sunny, windy. I did my first live radio interview. We saw kangaroos in the wild, and also I got to pet a rescue roo. The coffee lived up to the hype.

A few early reviews have come in:

“Where in the Hell is a gem of a film” — ZekeFilm

“Dennis has done a masterful job” — FilmInk

Back in the Northern Hemisphere, I’m having trouble mustering the holiday spirit. We’re gonna go get a little tree. Maybe that will help.

*****

This month in tacos: I did not brave the tacos in Oz, but I did have a DELISH gluten-free ham & cheese honey mustard crepe at Kiki’s in Melbourne’s Vic Market, made by a bona fide Frenchman in a Breton striped shirt. In St. Louis, I highly highly recommend El Molino del Sureste, where I sampled the cochinita pibil taco, the taco de castacan (crispy pork skin), the taco de camarones al coco (coconut-masa fried shrimp, gluten-free!), and the panucho de pavo, a “bean-stuffed” tortilla with smoked turkey.