Bend Film: Meeting Cornelia and The Dark Horse

I crashed the Bend Film party last night. I got in the tent.

Technically, I was hanging out at the Film Oregon Alliance party at Bella Cucina, and a friend had an extra ticket to the Bend Film awards dinner, in the tent across the street.

Untechnically, as soon as I got in, I spotted another friend, Julie G., at a table near the door that happened to have an extra place. It was the Fairy Godmother's table. Seemed like a good spot for me.

So I swooped in, grabbed a chair and sat down next to a lady with 4 feet of strawberry blond hair. I mean, seriously, her thick, wavy hair goes down below her knees. She had to put it on the outside of the back of the chair. It touched the floor. Intriguing.

Her name is Cornelia Duryee Moore, and she wrote and directed The Dark Horse Movie about coming to terms with the potential loss of her childhood home on Orcas Island, and how a grown woman grieves the loss of childhood while dealing with family drama.

She was sitting next to her friend Karen, from Bend, who shared her childhood with her. BFF's always sit next to you when the film you made about your life gets into a film festival. That's just what friends do. Especially cool friends like Karen, who make cute skirts out of neckties.

So anyway, I quickly sat down next to Cornelia and introduced myself.

"You are so beautiful!" she said.

I was kind of speechless, then, which doesn't happen often. Huh? What?

"Wow, thank you!" I stumbled, and grabbed her hand to shake it. Seems like you should shake someone's hand when they say that to you.

"Are you an actor?" she said.

"Uh, no," I stammered, wondering if I should tell her about my Improv. Troup days in college, or my stint as Queen of Hearts in 3rd grade. "But I think you and I should be friends now!"

She agreed, so we whispered and giggled a bit more, and she told me about her movie and Karen's amazing costume and fashion designs, before we figured we should listen to the speaker.

Later, during a break, Karen told me that Cornelia runs a production and casting company up in Seattle with her husband and her sons, which I think is interesting, but not because I was thinking about my acting career, and wondering if she wanted to cast me in her next film, since I wasn't, since I don't have an acting career, I just hang out with actors and film makers. Because they're interesting.

And then it was time for the "Best of the Northwest" award, worth $2,000, which was sponsored by Integra Telecom (who I wrote about a while ago) and I told her I'd met the CEO and he was nice.

They announced her name! Cornelia won! She won the big cardboard check and one of those amazing, 40 lb. bronze Bend Film awards! And it was so exciting, our whole table clapped and clapped, and I grabbed her camera and took some great pictures of her accepting that heavy statue thingy. She was beaming, just beaming!

After all the other awards, we stood up and hugged and chatted about how she's a 5th generation Washingtonian and I'm a 5th generation Oregonian, and maybe we're cousins, and then Karen went somewhere, and then some bigwigs came up to talk to Cornelia, which is good for her career, so I decided to go home and let her move on with her career without me.

We didn't exchange emails or phone numbers, I didn't have any business cards, and I didn't even tell her about this blog, because I was a crasher, not there to network. I was there to swoop in and spread cheer and clap for winners. And get compliments on my looks apparently, but I swear that was just a bonus!

I am anonymous to her, she probably can't even remember my name. It's kind of fun, in a way, to be a representative of the Bend Community who just happened to sit by her and share in her joy and accomplishments. I want her to remember Bend as a friendly town, even though we were freezing, freezing in that tent. The air is cold here, but not the people. That's what I'd like her to remember.

But I would like to find Karen, because I want her to make me a neck tie skirt. So, if anyone has any information about this amazing seamstress/fashion maven who sells her creations out of her living room, sometimes, when the mood strikes her, please let me know.

And of course, if anyone's looking for a middle aged chubby mommy to play a middle aged chubby mommy in their next film, I'm happy to audition.