My Very Last Run 'n Gun + The economy is so bad you might as well follow your dreams.

There's something nauseatingly rewarding of a mint yerba mate on a decimated dry throat at 3:32AM on Run n Gun Friday as you're trying to figure out how to jam a “alternate universe” surprise element into an 8 page script that you really hate that's also only supposed to be 4 pages and also 25 people you somehow convinced to do this are going to be at your house at 8AM to shoot this thing that you also don't know what it is and also you got this really talented actor off of instagram and you wanna impress them but this is script is not good and also oh my god this is the world's longest run on sentence.

Maybe its the frontal lobe of my brain finally coming in or the lobotomy I got at Claires last weekend, but I have decided this will be my last Run n Gun I write, direct and produce. 

I've been doing Run n Guns since 2021. My first one was exactly a month after my grandma dropped dead of COVID-19. What better to grieve than make a movie in 48 hours in your dad's boiler room as he grieves his mother's death?! 

Growing up in a tumultuous household while facing early childhood adversity, I realized quickly that the secret to keeping the peace at home was making those around me laugh. From a childhood spent writing down the voices in my head (hold for mental illness diagnoses) I realized one thing clearly: I love telling stories.

I am drawn to the question of how narrative transforms pain: how a single sentence can reframe an experience, or how comedy can be the oven mitt, allowing me to hold a boiling hot pan. My writing lives at that intersection, where humour and discomfort coexist. When I was sixteen, I met a film teacher who, unbeknownst to her, would change my life. I was told I could not only write stories to escape my situation at home, but also make the worlds in my head a reality and maybe even have a career from it. (Big maybe)

As you could probably tell from my complete lack of regard to punctuation, grammar, and my dry sense of humour yes I did homeschool as a child. Because of this I was very isolated as a child. I was constantly told by adults that I would ‘never have any social skills’ and ‘probably never be able to make friends either’. While I don't think that is true my childhood was a loneliness combo platter served to me on a 90's box-TV, consisting of Saturday Night Live, the Cohen Brothers and Turner Classic Movies network.

And as I now enter into a new phase of my career; beginning to do paid work as a creative producer and direct a feature documentary I feel the great importance of Run n Gun and I feel the people around me agree too. It's a lovely thing to make something for the sake of making something with absolutely no limits. It's something you take for-granted as a young filmmaker but is so important. 

Because what makes a good filmmaker? Someone that has made a lot of stuff. You will never learn or grow stewing on something. I once met a 42 year old man that had been sitting on a feature screenplay for 10 years that he had never shown anyone. He brought it up at every chance he could, and lamented at how hard it is to get anything made but would never show anyone the script. He had never made anything, ever. I know this sounds ridiculously obvious, I know it sounds like I'm regurgitating every ‘motivational’ influencer with a trust fund on tik tok - but i don't think people get how important it is. Just make something. It doesn't have to be good it actually would be better if it wasn't good and take this as a challenge; show one person and hear what they think. I once made a very sad video poem (think high school english class type), about not being able to remember my childhood, alone, filmed in a storage closet in toronto that played at the Rio Theatre. Humilation ritual? Sure, but did I feel good for just making something and putting it into the ethers? Yes. 

And oh my god the world is horrible! A.I. has the nuclear codes people! We have probably another good 7 years tops and then we're toast. So if you made it. this far please for the love of larry david please keep following the joy. Even if the joy is making a movie with you're friends in under 48hours and even if the joy is kind of bad for you and the loved ones around you keep saying you should stop. Think about the stories you're going to have. 

The economy is so bad you might as well follow your dreams.

Thanks Run n Gun for 6 insane years of yerba mate at 3:32AM <3

xoxo malka

P.S.

i think i miss-understood what peliplat is and just wrote a public diary entry. oh well, i guess enjoy. check out some of my stuff here:

For my serious-ish film stuff Malkamartz.ca for my comedy stuff @SATsketches on instagram and @malkamovies on Tik Tok