No-one has been to bed before 3am since we arrived in New York, so we were pretty much running on empty by the time the big day arrived.
Susan Boehm put on drinks for us at her apartment before the screening, and chilled everyone with a glass of champagne and much appreciated food.
We walked from there to the cinema and found a line of people waiting for rush tickets to our screening, which had been 'sold out' a week before.
As it turned out, there were still empty seats after all. We could have filled them several times over with the people we'd had to turn away.
Willy Smits, the renown scientist who founded BOS (Borneo Orangutan Society) and has devoted much of his life to saving the orangutan and forests, flew all the way over from The Netherlands for our screening. He was the guest of Richard Zimmerman (pictured below) from Orangutan Outreach who co-presented our world premiere screening.
Richard has also organised a brunch meeting with our team, Dorjee and Willie Smits today, Sunday at a penthouse apartment in uptown New York - more about that later.
Back to the screening. We had a dramatic start. The film began with no sound. Trish Lake (executive producer) and I raced to the back of the theatre to find out what was happening.
They stopped the film, and we waited. Morgan Spurlock (Oscar nominated documentary filmmaker, Supersize Me) was at the screening - he's one of the judges - and he said this would only make the audience want to see the film even more. He was right. The sense of anticipation had definitely increased and when the film was re-started, with sound, the audience applauded.
Finally the film had started, and there was nothing more I could do. It was a wonderful experience to just sit there and watch this film that I have worked on now for over two years, and appreciate the results of everyone's efforts.
I could really feel the audience were with us all the way, and the responses during the film and the exuberant applause at the closing titles brought tears to my eyes.
Dorjee and I did the Q & A together and it felt very intimate. They loved Dorjee of course, and I felt there was a lot of positive energy in the room.
I challenged the audience to go to our website -
www.tenthingsyoucando.com - and they assured me they would. Sam, Dan and Liz gave out the flyers at the door, and over the course of the next week we will see how many New Yorkers follow up and actually visit the site.
After the screening, there is that usually haze of talking to people you don't know and enjoying the look of appreciation and hope on people's faces.
Sam organised a limousine to take us to our after party where Richard and Orangutan Outreach had provided the wine with orangutan labels ("Grapes for Apes").
By this time, the exhaustion had finally caught up with me, and all I needed to do was crawl into bed. But I was so happy to be in a very friendly wine bar with so many of the people who share a passion for protecting the world's forests and saving the orangutans and raising awareness about this around the planet.
The long and urgent journey of this film has begun...who knows where it will take us next.
Cathy Henkel
Producer/director/writer
Pictured below: Cathy Henkel and daughter Sam were presented with orangutan pals at the screening.
