PLAYING WITH PIRANHAS
Director’s Blog

 

The two questions I am most often asked about “Playing with Piranhas” by people who have watched it are “Is it a true story?” and “Is it about you?” I suppose the simplest answer to both of those questions is no – the characters and plot of the film are entirely fictional. However, there are certainly events, aspects of characters and issues within the film drawn from my own life and from those of people close to me. It’s not autobiographical, strictly speaking – and yet, in a strange kind of way, it is.

When interviewed about writing “The Shining”, Stephen King once said, "I was able to invest a lot of my unhappy aggressive impulses in Jack Torrance, and it was safe’. And on another occasion he stated “Sometimes you confess. You always hide what you're confessing to. That's one of the reasons why you make up the story”. I think there are also acutely confessional aspects to “Playing with Piranhas”. When I watch it now I sometimes feel really embarrassed and uncomfortable because it feels like somehow I’ve exposed something I shouldn’t have about my own psyche. – like I’ve told people far too much. The rawness of some moments in it is shocking even to me.

And party that’s because I don’t think I’m the same person as the one who needed to write it and make that film anymore. The very process of making the film has helped me to change my relationship with a lot of the internal stuff that went into “Playing with Piranhas” and tame a few of my own inner demons. Things about it that felt absolutely true and authentic for me back then feel less true and authentic for me now. So I don’t really feel like the film is really about me – or even for me – anymore. If I was to make a film today about the same stuff I imagine it would be a very different one.  So maybe it is actually a very good thing that I made it back then, instead. Because maybe the emotional life of this film will resonate with somebody else, and it will feel true and authentic voice for them, as the person they are now. I hope and have faith that’s true.

That’s why the film has been posted here and the website is serving a purely archival function for it now, largely unchanged from when it first appeared. The film never had a cinematic release or achieved distribution through formal channels but I am proud of the efforts of everyone involved in making “Playing with Piranhas” and feel that it showcases a lot of talent. Especially considering our circumstances and very limited resources, our cast and crew did an incredible job. So it’s good to be able to validate some of that effort by putting “Playing with Piranhas” up on the internet for anybody who wants to take a look at it to be able to do so.

Any thoughts and responses to the film would, of course, be very welcome even though there is no facility to post them here. Please visit our Facebook page to let us know what you think of the film. It would be great to hear from you.

Best wishes,
Michelle Mead.