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Published: October 30th 2023
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Day 2 - Sunday
Ok, so, one of the reasons why I don't usually experience the nightlife when I travel for an iF3 competition is because you have to sleep sometime. 12 hours on your feet working the event and then 12 hours out partying at night would equal zero hours of sleep... and that would be brutal. That's almost what happened to me in Egypt two years ago. I was sleeping in the Uber, sleeping on the plane, sleeping every chance I got after a couple of late nights in Cairo. It was tough, and this time even more so. Chelly and I were up until about 3am. When we woke, it was time to get everyone fed, packed, and checked out of the AirBnB. So we ate our Indian leftovers for breakfast (Indian meal #4 of the trip).
I would have loved to have been at the comp all day making connections and promoting my films, but now I needed to balance that with family time and making sure they all had a good experience as well. After checking out, we headed back over to the Olympic Oval and I spent a couple hours catching up with
the guys on the media team and talking to the event vendors. It was good. I left with a great positive feeling around the reception of my first film and the new stuff I was working on now, with a few business cards in my pocket from people who wanted to talk more about sponsorship and strategy. It was so heart-warming to speak with people I had never met and learn that they'd already seen my film Reach For The Rings and loved it.
Then our time was up. On our drive home through Surrey, we stopped for a great big Columbian lunch at Union Latinos (owned by the same people as the Granville club we'd been at last night). This was not planned, just an accident of the route we took to get to the border and looking around for what sounded good. We ate a lot of things we'd never tried before, specially things with plantains and cheese! There was something called an Arepa, which was like a cross between a tortilla and a pita pocket (the internet says it's from pre-Columbian times). It was good stuff. Despite leaving the event before 2pm, we got home a
little after 6. We were all pretty tired. The women were straight to bed. I fed the kids dinner and got them to bed early. Vancouver is just up the road, but a weekend family trip with all hands on deck will still take it out of you.
Day 3 - Monday
I had to work the next day bright and early, and another job after that, but I was done with my appointments for the day by 2. After a little nibble of lunch, I decided to make an impromptu return to Richmond, BC for the last bit of the last day of competition. I was already on the freeway north when I realized I forgot my passport and had to turn around for that. I don't know how many times I've forgotten that Canada is international and left the passport at home, but at least this time it was only a 30-minute delay and I didn't have to make it all the way to the border to figure out my mistake.
Weather was completely different this day, dumping rain all across the Salish Sea region. Despite the delays, I still made it to Richmond
Oval in time to catch the final Men's test. These final events, usually the Power test, are typically action-packed and often bring dramatic upsets to the leaderboard. Usually I'd be right in the thick of it with my camera in hand, but this time I was in the stands making new friends and showing them clips from my docs. It was a different experience, but it was pretty cool this way. The enthusiasm people had for what I was showing them, and the fact that they laughed at all the jokes, helped buoy my confidence around the documentary project.
After that was the awards. The awards ceremony is always a highlight. All the teams come out onto the floor again, and division by division the top 3 placers are called up to the podium for their Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals. In an "elites" division iF3 World Championships, you will only see three sets of podium finishers: the women, the men, and the teams. But, since this was the iF3 Masters & Juniors World Championships, there were something like 16 divisions and two sets of podiums (male and female) for each! This meant a long parade of winners, many
flags held up for photos, national anthems played (mostly Mexico & Sweden), and lots and lots of applause.
At the end of them all, the organizer Veronique Paquette (head of the Canadian F3) gave me an honorary medal for my work on the Reach For The Rings films. That was worth the extra trip up there all by itself. I met the MC, Ryan Jarvis, at the end of the comp. I already knew of Ryan through his work hosting the iF3 World Cup in 2020 (footage I'd been cutting to make Reach For The Rings 2) and it turns out he was already familiar with my work as well. When I asked him if he'd seen Reach For The Rings, he said he had. When I told him I was the one who made it, and I was the voice, he said, "Really! No way!" He was full of praise for the film and it gave me a real uplift.
From there, we headed over to the the after party, where I met some really great people. Some of them were actually folks I'd met before (like Colonel Tony Kurtz, who I'd interviewed in Egypt), or people
I recognized from the hundreds of hours of footage I've poured through making iF3 documentaries. One of them I'd met before through email, but we didn't figure that out until after at least a half hour conversation. Everyone had great feedback on my films, and I made some potential sponsorship connections. I was very happy I'd made the trip.
Reflections
This was my 5th iF3 event, and the first time I'd seen the Masters and the Juniors championships held together. This event did not seem as well organized as others I've been to, and I heard similar comments from many of the people I met there, but then I learned some of the backstory behind the surprising challenges they faced this time around and it sounds like it is a wonder that an event happened at all. I salute them for what they were able to pull off!
This was definitely the most comfortable and familiar with the host-city I've ever been and it was great to be so close to home and to bring my family. It was quite a different experience for me not to be filming the whole time. I was on a
different mission this time: working to connect some financing for the films so they can actually see the light of day and get out there to audiences. The sport keeps growing, with new international federations and a lot of young people signing up in the Juniors divisions, but I am not the only one struggling to find financing for this mission. The International and National federations share this struggle. I got some great insights into this from one of the Finnish masters athletes at the after party.
Upon reflection, I understand that we don't only face the challenges we choose in life, but life gives us its own unexpected challenges that are not our choice. It's how we face these challenges that shows our true character. My current challenge is getting cashflow into all of my various businesses and projects, like the Reach For The Rings films, and I am facing it head on.
Here are the sample clips I made this September and brought up to show people at the iF3 Masters & Juniors Worlds in Canada:
The short trailer The extended trailer “Locked Down” preview of Act 1 of the film “Welcome to Sweden” preview of Act 2 of the film “Welcome to Egypt” preview of Act 3 of the film If you're interested in sponsoring this
film, or know someone who might be, please send me an email at nic@nicnakis.com and I'll be happy to talk more with you about it.
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