Closing Night

Tonight was closing night of the festival. The award ceremony and closing night film were held on the beautiful grounds of the M.I.A.
We arrived at 5pm for a rehearsal of the Blue Badge Blues Band performance.
Christian and Phil looked great up there and the sound was fantastic.
The boys were cool, calm and collected about the whole thing, even though they knew shortly thereafter, they'd be in front of LIVE television cameras and a huge audience.


Although I was on stage with them for rehearsal, I was still unsure what my part in the whole thing would be (or even if I would indeed have a part) during the actual show.
Then we had about a 3 hour wait until the show actually started and the nerves kicked in a little bit.


The McCarthy clan showed up to give us some love and support (as they have since I first arrived here 3 months ago, and I am ETERNALLY grateful.... I love you guys).
I parked myself with them and waited for the show to start.
Once it did, I started to feel nervous for the boys.

A comedian came out and did his best to tell jokes with a translator putting a bit of a damper on his timing, followed by Amanda and Maggie taking the stage.
They brought out our emcees from opening night, Mohammed and Hamida (who did a great job AGAIN), before introducing the "Blue Badge Blues Boys"....
This is the performance shot from one of the giant screens on the stage....

Needless to say, I did not get mentioned or invited on to the stage but none the less, was extremely proud of Christian and Phil for what they did.

Christian had a nice run in and words of encouragement from Robert De Niro who was standing backstage awaiting his time in the spotlight.
He came out with Jane and Craig and spoke a bit.
The crowd went bananas and all but bum rushed the stage to snap photos and stand near him.

The ceremony continued with awards given to Team Qatar for best film (selected by the audience) and Pomegranates and Myrrh for Best Arab Feature.
Then a "One Minute Filmmaker" was presented with an award for her film "The Racer".

Congratulations to our staff for putting on such an amazing 4 days in a region where they have never experienced anything remotely similar.
DTFF 2010???
We'll see.

But for now.....
After Party time.