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I remember the day we finished our first edit of [e'TZAINTES], which is also our very first film. It was surreal. I was looking at Armen by the editing system. "It's done?"2 years of our lives had just flashed past us. Amizadai was in Australia. Editing her bits in australia, while she's studying and workin part time, I think. Armen and myself were in National Service, using our NS pay to feed ourselves and our passion. I was doing freelance (ontop of some mascot work) to help pay for the things we need to buy. "Is there life after e'TZAINTES?" I asked Armen. He looked at me and said, "Dude, I need to catch the last bus." Frantically, he grab his bag and off he went, at 11.45pm, out the door, down the stairs, onto the road, across the bridge, to catch his last bus... a bus he MUST catch, becoz he had no money for cab fare.

That's how it was for us as teenagers working on this epic b-grade project. Putting everything we have into it. Working on something think we can do, with no sense of what a budget is. Truth is, we never treated [e'TZAINTES] like it was a mindless artsy fartsy short film to be made so that it can be screened in artsy festivals and earn us some artsy cred. WE BELIEVED IN IT. We believed it was something bigger than ourselves, because of how it turned out, how we got 30 people we do not know on set to pull this through. How we got people who want to see it work come to us with their own lines, own ideas, own costumes and own props to help make this film bigger than it is. That chaos... that madness .... and that excitement... and that high... is enough for us to keep going... After 3 weeks of shooting, with the boys being sent to NS to have their hair chopped off.... and the raw tapes in our hands. The pressure from the faith that the cast and crew had in us, to want to know how the film will turn out .... we told ourselves.... we have to get it made... by whatever means possible.

It was crazy. because we were amateurs. wannabes with illusions of grandeur but no experience and no knowledge in filmmaking and production. We were young, reckless and stupid... or should i say ignorant. Ignorance is what got us this far. Ignorance allowed us to move on not knowing what's coming our way. Ignorance gives us the will to not to be put down by what we do not know and cannot do. It was our coming of age film. It was a film that we grew up to. It was what it was. [e'TZAINTES]

Tzang M.