After years of work, we finally had a production date. A real one.

Locations booked. Equipment reserved. Every dollar we had already committed.

Around that same time, through an unlikely connection with Moore Productions, we got an expedited meeting that led somewhere I never expected. His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon read our script. He blessed the production. For a moment, everything felt like it was finally moving exactly the way it should.

Then the SAG strike happened. Our actors belonged to the Screen Actors Guild. Without an Interim Agreement, they legally could not work. Those agreements weren't exactly being handed out to tiny independent films like ours. If we didn't get one, we weren't looking at a delay.

Join the watchlist for our upcoming announcement:

https://www.eltontoporcristo.com/waitlist

Join the Green Room for early updates, our monthly film club, and a closer role in what we make next:

https://wildwestfilmmaking.substack.com/p/the-green-room

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Website - https://wildwestfilmmaking.com

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We had enough money to begin making this film. We did not have enough to finish it.

So Jess and I spent nights and weekends doing jobs we couldn't afford to pay anyone else to do. Production design. Locations. Costumes.

Long conversations with actors that quietly became our rehearsals, because we couldn't afford to schedule

separate ones. Nobody tells you this part when they talk about independent filmmaking.

It isn't glamorous. Most of it isn't even about filmmaking.

It's mostly two people solving one problem after another because they believe in the same impossible thing enough to keep showing up.

That's what these months actually looked like.

We have something to announce on August 1st. Join the watchlist to hear it first. The Greenroom hears it even sooner.

Join the watchlist for our upcoming announcement:

https://www.eltontoporcristo.com/waitlist

Join the Green Room for early updates, our monthly film club, and a closer role in what we make next:

https://wildwestfilmmaking.substack.com/p/the-green-room

Support Wild West Filmmaking:

https://www.eltontoporcristo.com/donate

Website - https://wildwestfilmmaking.com

#IndependentFilmmaking #ElTontoPorCristo #WildWestFilmmaking

Bishop Gerasim of Fort Worth told me something I don't think I'll ever forget.

He said, "Genesius, make this film before you're too Orthodox to make this film." That one sentence did something the last several weeks of doubt couldn't do. It gave me permission to stop second-guessing myself long enough to actually move.

Because here's the thing about certainty. It rarely shows up before you start. Usually it shows up somewhere in the middle, if it shows up at all. Sometimes you don't need certainty to take the next step. You just need enough courage to take it anyway.

That sentence became the reason production ever happened.

We have something to announce on August 1st. Join the watchlist to hear it first. The Greenroom hears it even sooner.

Join the watchlist for our upcoming announcement: https://www.eltontoporcristo.com/waitlist

Join the Green Room for early updates, our monthly film club, and a closer role in what we make next: https://wildwestfilmmaking.substack.com/p/the-green-room

Support Wild West Filmmaking: https://www.eltontoporcristo.com/donate Website - https://wildwestfilmmaking.com

#IndependentFilmmaking #ElTontoPorCristo #WildWestFilmmaking