It’s what I went to sleep to the night before the 2020 Presidential Election. The recorded sound of rain. Yes, the days have been quite sunny where I am, but only in nature. In the United States we’ve had an anxiety-filled year, which can all be resolved by a landslide victory of one candidate over the other. And even if that happens, hate groups may unleash tyranny onto the streets. To take us out of the 1950s, I allow my mind to drift by listening to rain sounds on my app. And now, with the film showcase I’m curating, we can bring that calming cadence for the senses to audiences everywhere through the experimental short, RAIN UP CLOSE by filmmaker Louise Fleming.

I’ve known Louise for about two decades. We clicked right away. We would see each other in the same film circles in Manhattan. We celebrated and championed our love of film and the opportunity independent film offers artists as a platform for new ideas that many would consider noncommercial. Millions of people would never see the work Louise and I came out of cozy (and very tiny) apartments—sometimes in the rain—to sit in a dark theatre and watch. And even though millions of eyeballs and stacked box office reports did not validate the existence of the work, Louise, myself and a community of film lovers knew how the work and being a witness to the filmmaker’s journey to produce the work made us feel. Moved. Invigorated. Alive.

Join my friend Louise and I November 15 - December 15, 2020 for GFNTV’s Indie Fuxion Film Showcase. I’m the Artistic Director and our hope is to bring more films like RAIN UP CLOSE to you in the future. Cinema in all of its forms has something for everyone. And with Louise and the other filmmakers whom you’ll get to know through their work, audiences streaming our film showcase will take a trip around the globe—a respite from your troubles. Please click here and register for FREE! Besides, when is the last time you allowed yourself to sit alone .

Thank you, Louise.

Filmmaker Louise Fleming