Mazzymovie

Last night was the premiere of “Harry Grows Up” (a short film starring a little boy named Lucas with my daughter Mazzy as his love interest) at the New York International Short Film Festival.

From the second Mazzy showed up on screen, I started crying.

The movie is a paraody of a classic New York love story. It is not sad. But there I was overcome with emotion. Like a mother watching her child get married or something.

Mike leaned over to me at one point and whispered, “She’s so tiny.” The movie was filmed last summer and Mazzy’s short hair, chubby cheeks and wobbly walking reminded me of how much she’s changed in such a short time.

It feels like yesterday and forever ago all at once.

The movie was received ridiculously well at the festival.

This could be because out of the 100 people in audience, at least 85 of them were related to the two miniature stars.

But I suspect it was more because my friend Mark Nickelsburg (the director) made a really special film.

Also, I don’t think it escaped anyone how amazing it is that Mark managed to wrangle two toddlers to follow a scripted story.

Yesterday, there was an interview with Mark in the New York Times about the making of the film where he revealed insider industry secrets like using images of Elmo on his iPhone to get Lucas and Mazzy to look at the camera.

Can’t you see Elmo surrounded by hearts in Mazzy’s eyes in the image up top?

Mark told me that after the film makes the festival rounds, he does have plans to release it online so someday soon, I will be able to share “Harry Grows Up” with all of you.

In the mean time, here’s the trailer for a little taste:

As you can see, Mazzy did not make it into the trailer. Don’t tell her. The last thing I need is a toddler starlet tantrum on my hands.

Truth be told, my daughter has already let the movie go to her head. Even though we did not take her to the premiere (it was past her bedtime and I don’t think she would have sat quietly through it).

When we got home, we asked the sitter (easily booked through UrbanSitter, thank you very much) how everything went.

She said that in the midst of a diaper changing stand-off, Mazzy made an announcement.

“I’m a movie star.”

OH, HELL NO.

We’re gonna put a lid on that real quick.

There will be many more tears shed if I end up with one of these:

Screen shot 2012-05-31 at 8.37.18 AM