Gifts

I’ve got a daughter who’s a filmmaker and the older I get the more I realize that some stories just need to be told. She’s not just directing films she’s building worlds and standing firm in them. Her name is Georgia Renée Lawrence and she’s always been that way. Even when she was a little kid.

There was a time back in elementary school when she was singing in a packed gym for the school talent show and right in the middle of her song the sound system went out and for most kids that’d be the end of it they’d freeze up or cry or get pulled offstage. Not Georgia. She didn’t skip a beat. She just kept on singing. Louder. More sure. Like the room didn’t get quieter but she got stronger. Everyone in the gym heard her voice carry all the way to the back row. I remember sitting there thinking this kid is made of something different. She’s got a kind of grace and poise that doesn’t show off. It just is.

Another year she put on a magic show. Balanced an egg on its end and made a pencil disappear. She wasn’t doing it for laughs she was doing it because her imagination demanded to be seen. It always has. She’s been a performer and a creator since day one and she’s always known how to hold space for wonder.

After high school she just took off. Traveled alone. Indonesia Europe places I’ve never been to. She took photographs of people and places and moments that most of us only ever dream about and she made them real. Not because they fell into her lap but because she believed so deeply in them that they couldn’t help but show up. That’s the kind of conviction she has. She dreams it and then she builds it.

I remember one moment that still sticks with me. She was maybe fifteen or sixteen and she sat us down and said she didn’t understand why we weren’t using the Whistle Stop our family business to stand up for issues like suicide prevention that meant everything to her. She felt like we had a platform and we were letting it go to waste. And I told her something I regret now I told her we had to stay neutral to avoid alienating customers. What I didn’t realize then but I do now is that I was protecting revenue over responsibility. That was economic fear talking. And she saw right through it. She’s always seen right through it. Her compass has never pointed toward comfort it’s pointed toward what’s right.

She once told me she wanted to live with a family on a farm with a couple feral kids she could nanny for and I kind of smiled like yeah OK we’ll see and a couple years later she found this couple in Hawaii through Craigslist of all places and boom she was living on Kauai on a farm full of fruit trees and horses and two wild kids she absolutely loved. The couple lived in a 150 square foot house the husband built by hand and the wife ran a business renting old VW camper vans to tourists. They even built her a yurt to live in. That’s Georgia. She doesn’t hope for life to happen. She decides what kind of life she’s going to live and then she goes and makes it.

Her filmmaking is the same way. She’s not waiting for permission she’s writing her own ticket. Check out her Production Company At https://www.seafaringproductionhouse.com/in-the-works She’s directed over ten short films already and now she’s deep into her first feature called Odyssey of the Pirate Women. It’s not your typical story. It’s a vision. A future world ravaged by capitalism and patriarchy and five women who say screw it we’re going our own way. She’s flipping the American Western on its head and telling a story that’s never been told before by anyone because it takes someone like her to even imagine it.

I’ve watched films my whole life. Kubrick Scorsese Ridley Scott. The greats. But I’d be lying if I said Georgia doesn’t belong in that conversation. She’s in my top five. Hands down. And yeah I’m her dad so maybe I’m biased but the truth is I’ve seen what she’s capable of and I know what’s coming. I believe with everything I’ve got that she’ll be the youngest female director to ever win an Academy Award. And if she doesn’t it won’t be because she couldn’t. It’ll be because she’s too busy building a better world on her own terms.

Her mom and I support her with everything we’ve got. And I’ll admit it there’s a part of me that’s jealous of what she’s done and who she’s become. OK more than a part maybe a lot. But mostly I’m just proud. Deeply proud. The kind that makes you stop what you’re doing and weep because you know in your bones that this world’s better with her voice in it.

That’s all I got for now. Just wanted to say it out loud.

She’s doing something rare and she’s doing it with heart and guts and vision and maybe someone out there reading this needed to hear it.

Thanks for listening.

Her Dad