The World of DARCY

There is a little bit of DARCY in all of us – that soul-searching, young individual seeking light where there is darkness; thirsty for truth, where the lies fail to nourish ones natural quest for equilibrium and justice; and hoping that the world beyond your front door offers opportunities of which, at present, you can only dream.

When I was in my teens, I longed to get out into the world and see if there might be anywhere offering more than what was on the plate for me in the small, economically strapped, culturally undeveloped town where I lived.

Of course, my dilemma was the same as DARCY’S: The soul wanted to fly, by the heart wanted to stay. 

What to do when you love your parents, but can’t wait to get away?

Looking back now, having taken that flight, left the home, travelled and worked and seen much of the world, I want to tell the DARCY’S out there: “Yes,” there is a whole other world out there… but home is, and always will be, where the heart is….

As the producer of THIS IS NOWHERE, I felt it was very important to tell this story – not just for the young DARCYS out there, but also for the DARCYS who are still young at heart, fighting to remember what it feels like to still have those youthful, passionate, honest, and, yes, even naïve or innocent dreams.

When I was a cultural reporter for DW-TV in Berlin, Germany, covering the Red Carpet of the Berlin Film Festival in my late twenties, I had the unique opportunity to interview the great actress Shirley MacClaine.

I had read one of her books, “Dancing in the Light,” in which she talked about naivety and how it had affected her life, and I asked her during our interview, “If you were to live all over, again, [a very appropriate question for Ms MacClaine, if you know anything about her], would you be as naïve?

Shirley MacClaine answered, “Yes, absolutely,” because, “if I had not been as naïve as I was, I might not have started half that I’ve finished.  And the naivety saved me.  Had I known the danger around me, at times (hanging around with the Brat Pack, for example), I might not have sailed as smoothly through it.)”

Now, fifteen years later, I often recall what Ms MacClaine told me and the courage it gave me to be who I am in the pursuit of my dreams – naivety and all.  And I marvel that little me, the teenager from Ypsilanti, got to be near and ask such personal questions of such a great actress – at all.

DARCY, I guess, is alive and well in me.

But this, too, is why I am so maternally protective and supportive of our little indie that could: DARCY encounters her own challenges and dangerous moments within THIS IS NOWHERE, but it is her quest for beauty and truth and love – and, yes, naivety –  that pulls her through. 

I think that, like me, you’ll find yourself both rooting and fighting for this beautiful teenage creature on the cusp of adulthood and all that she represents to dreamers like us… because, in truth, we are all holding out, hope of all hopes, for a place in the world we hope to see through those rose-colored glasses, bringing into vision, what we wish to see.