How is it that you say ‘hello’ again?

Being in Korea and attending Asia’s largest annual film festival was at times conflicting in terms of the age old question, what to do? what to do?... On the one hand you have access to so many new and exciting films and filmmakers that you feel the time you are there will never be enough to do it all. Now the other hand... YOU ARE IN KOREA!!! For Paola and I the other hand won many more times... and if I had to break it down it was the food. We wanted to try it all (although we drew the line at food that was still breathing, and there was lots of it!) By the age of 12, I was cooking for my entire family, including 5 siblings. My parents worked all day and my oldest sister Marta, who probably would have done it, among other things was epileptic, so the stove was not the friendliest place for her! So, by default, or rather as I see it, by fortune I learned and now love to cook. So being in Buson invigorated my passion for cooking. Dishes I want to experiment on my loving husband Joe are the octopus w/ onion (killer-hot) dish we had at the seafood market, the rice & veggie roll, the pancake-like dish (I sadly left without tasting) and naturally we’ll do all the sides, including the boiled purple/sweet potatoes and lots of soju! I was close to heaven, film and food. The love affair with cinema boils down to (no pun intended) “People & World”! I saw a very touching documentary Winds of Sand/Women of Stone that transported me to Niger. I was in utter awe of the lives and traditions lived by these women... some wanting to break free, other trying to hold on. The intensity of their lives forced me to examine my own. Not because it was the greatest film I ever saw, but because it was simple and grounded, as grounded as the women it followed. As a filmmaker the privilege to travel and meet fellow artists from all over the world is not something I take lightly... especially after years of bearing witness through cinema the hardship so many people endure simply to make it to the next day. I am forever present and grateful. After the Q&A at our first screening we had a chance to meet some of the people in the audience, some filmmakers, others local film lovers. After brief introductions, I couldn’t keep track of all the places they were from. All this to say...the world is huge, fortunately cinema makes it yours!

Gloria

p.s. I heard and wrote down the basic ‘hello’ & ‘thank you’ in Korean so many times, but for the life of me, it did not stick!

Chillin in Tokyo

I have a four hour lay over before I land in Chicago and then finally arrive at Indianapolis....making my trip a total of about 27 hours. I am a long way from home! why Indy, you ask? Well, you guessed it...another film festival. Right now I am in about two of my four hour wait which has given me a lot of time to contemplate life and specifically Korea.

I had a huge revelation in Korea. I thought to myself, "If I can travel alone in Korea and make my way around without a problem I can travel anywhere in the entire world!" In that moment I felt this surge of freedom come over me. I really could go just about anywhere in the world (barring a few war torn countries & cities) and make my way just fine. Before Korea I had never been to a place so foreign in culture, in expedience, in language. And to be quite honest before leaving I was a little afraid. I'm not talking about the type of fear of getting mugged or killed or anything violent. It's a smaller but deeper fear, the fear of feeling alienated, lost and inadequate. The fear of not being able to manage in a place so different...but that type of fear I always like to embrace...because that fear quickly disappears once the adventure begins. And so on my first day in Korea the fear was gone because I was on the streets hanging with the people and doing just fine. Which lead me to realize that I could go to India by myself, I could go to Brazil by myself, to Nepal, to South Africa, to Australia...and I would be fine.

Will I go to all these places, yes of course! Will I go by myself...some I will travel to alone, some with family, some with friends...but if ever I feel the need to get up and go...now I know I can do it and all will be GOOD!
p

Standing for 1400 years

I was completely amazed by the knowledge that this temple had been standing for nearly one thousand four hundred years. All I could think about were the people through out those 1400 years that had walked this very path, the hands that had touched the walls, the knees that had knelt before Buddha and here I was adding to this wonderful human history...I closed my eyes, crossed my legs, rested my hands palms up on my knees and listened to the monk chant to Buddha. I felt such gratitude...such humbleness...and pure and simple happiness. I sat there for a long time...I didn't want to get up...I wanted to stay in that place, relish my internal peace but the monk stopped chanting and I took that as my cue to leave. I looked around the temple one last time making sure to ingrained it in my memory forever, making sure to never to forget what happiness feels like...

The temple that I visited yesterday was about a 45 minute subway ride and then a 10 minute taxi ride up a HUGE mountain. As the taxi driver was dropping me off I wondered to myself how I was going to get back down the mountain as there weren't any taxi's at the entrance to the temple nor were there any other tourist...I pushed the thought aside and told myself I would figure it out when I was leaving. Well about 2 hours later...there I was trying to figure out how I was going to get down the mountain. Like I mentioned before no one speaks English...so there I was trying to tell an old man I need a taxi to get the the subway...could he call a taxi? I became quite the spectacle...a westerner trying to explain I needed a taxi. A small group gathered and I was finally able to make myself understood...everyone laughed... an even greater spectacle...taxi's didn't just come up the mountain. The old man pulled out a stool and told me to sit. I smiled, sat down and told myself patience would be needed as I might be waiting for a long time. I was there for about 15 minutes "talking" with some other gentlemen as I tried to explain my predicament when the old man called me over to a car. He pushed me into the car said a few words to the woman that was driving, closed the door and waved goodbye. Before I knew it I was driving down the mountain headed to my train station. The old man had come through...he hitched me a ride with a kind woman who dropped me off and sped away heading home.

Kindness from strangers is truly a beautiful thing!

Culture shock from the 18th floor

I have arrived...it took about 22 hours to get to Pusan but I did finally make it in last night at about 10pm. Today I ventured out into the city and loved every second of it. Even the getting lost, the inability to comunicate, the inability to order my lunch...I loved all of it!

There is a certian freedom about being here. Whenever I travel I am in a constant battle with myself about trying to Not give away the fact that I am a tourist. I like the apperance of being at home, I hate carrying a map, I dislike taking pictures. Don't get it twisted I do all of those things but I'm in contstant conversation with myself. Yet here that convo has stopped because I clearly am not from here. On the train today I was the only non Korean. At times people seemed a little surprised to see me...but everyone was kind and very helpful. Being in korea has been the most culture shock I have felt in my entire life and I love it. It's with in that culture shock that we as people grow, it is in those diffrences that we search for oneness...a list of my culture shock thus far

the bed is hard as a rock
no shower curtain or shower door
slippers at security check in airport cuz I had to take off my shoes
legs falling asleep at lunch because I sat on the floor at a traditional table
stainless steel chopticks
communal showers at the hotel sauna
no shoes in the locker room
lots of shoving on the street and no one says excuse me
young people giving up their seats on the train for elders
a fish market that will never be forgotten
at every store every person bows to you
working cell phones on the subway
no tipping...ever

there's lots more but that's it for today cuz I'm pooped!!! If there are typos I apologize I am writing froM my phone again!

P

1 day of down time...

When I was in Deauville I got an e-mail from my manager that Law & Order SVU had offered me a part as a guest star in an episode called Spooked. The gig couldn't have been more perfect as it started the day after I returned from Europe and wrapped the day before I had to leave to Woodstock and then Korea. Flash forward to today...I wrapped the episode yesterday and today I am EXHAUSTED! Yesterday was the last day of shooting and we spent SEVEN hours shooting my big emotional scene!!! For those that do not know my process when I need to be in am emotional state I will stay in that place until the end of the scene (or at the very least until my coverage is shot)so yesterday I was an emotional wreck for seven hours. It was hard work. It felt like it was never ending and by the time it was my close up, I felt like I didn't have anything left in the tank. No more tears, no more feeling no more anything...I could barely get my lines out. But the director was insistent, he kept on calling reset, reset, reset. I was screaming on the inside...no more!!! You have to be able to use something...please I am so tired...please just say CUT! The other actor felt my pain...she knew exactly what I was going through and the solidarity shone through. She said, "Come on, look at me, listen to me." And she proceeded to do the scene in a completely different way. I did as she said and I listened to her, which triggered my emotions, which triggered the honesty and rawness that the director wanted and which led to those words I was so desperately praying for CUT! It was a great moment...a true learning moment..a moment that we as actors train for...those moments when we feel as if we are an empty vessel...all we need to do is listen to the person we are talking to and the truth will come. As I look back on it today...in that moment I fell in love with acting all over again. That moment was the reason I decided to act in the first place. That moment which is indescribable, a moment that is so full of truth and honesty that it makes you feel as if you are on another plane. That moment was the reason I decided to throw caution to the wind and follow an "impossible" dream.

I got home around midnight and fell right asleep. I didn't take off my make up, I didn't even change. Just fell on the bed and slept. Today I woke up and felt fresh and new. I'm writing at my corner coffee shop (Smootch) getting some work done before I leave to Woodstock Film Festival tomorrow and then to Korea on Monday for the Pusan Film Festival. I am really excited about Pusan...a little nervous, a little scared to travel to Korea...but a good scared. A fear that I get everytime I am trying something new that I know will be a wonderful journey. The same fear I felt before I started my scene yesterday.