Check Out Clarinda Blais’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Clarinda Blais

Hi Clarinda, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born and raised in a small town in central New York — the same town as three generations of my family before me! My family’s roots are mostly Italian, but each of my grandmothers married non-Italians. So I’m mostly Italian-American, with a French Canadian last name (which we pronounce “Blaze”).

As a kid, the woods that surrounded my house were my playground. I dreamt of being an actress, so I (along with my pet pot-bellied pig) put on elaborate shows in my backyard, convinced that talent scouts had made their way from New York City to Herkimer, and were lurking behind my trees to “discover me.” They never popped out of the woods to cast me in a movie. My act must not have been good enough.

I left Herkimer for Boston University at 18, where I abandoned all hope of becoming an actress in pursuit of something serious. So, naturally, I majored in philosophy. I couldn’t help it — I loved it. Nothing made me want to leap out of my extra-long twin bed and into the library faster than the thought of reading Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, or a Socratic dialogue. I know that sounds sarcastic… but it’s not. I was (am) just that weird.

As I wrapped up my studies my senior year of college, I was fairly certain I wanted to do a PhD in moral philosophy. But my professor, mentor, and now I’d call him a friend, encouraged me to spend five years doing anything else. If at the end of those five years, I still felt like I wanted to do a PhD, then I should do so.nI listened to him. I’d also dedicated a lot of time to studying Mandarin in college, so with no idea who or what I wanted to be, but with a real curiosity for something unlike anything I’d ever known… I moved to rural China to a help a strange, kind man I’d met at the Chinese consulate in NYC run a live-in tutoring center for left behind children. From there, I moved to Beijing where I did an accelerated master’s degree in Global Affairs as a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University.

It was while working in foreign policy after I finished my first master’s degree that I happened to uncover the power of cinema to capture what I felt was as close to truth as we could get. Once I realized that people made films for a living, I knew that I could try to do something else… but I would really always be chasing the idea of being a filmmaker. So I gave up on trying to do something serious. I decided not to go back to school for a PhD in moral philosophy… and instead decided to, for better or for worse, make films.

I know that to some people my path seems meandering, but to me every step as felt like a clear progression from the last. I’ve always just kind of followed my sense of wonder, like a dog follows their nose. I’d hoped that in allowing my curiosity to guide me, I’d figure out what it is I had to offer my community. Turns out what I had to offer all along, was just this: my sense of wonder.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s still not smooth. Life is like a seasonal road made all the more terrifying by being in a rental car.

From age 18 to 23 the biggest struggle was not understanding who I was or what I had to offer and so desperately wanting to understand.

From 23 to 25, I think I was slowly starting to understand who I was, and I had to come to terms with the ugly parts of myself. I had to learn to love them, and to forgive myself for the person I had sometimes been that I did not like. This was almost heartbreaking for me. It’s when I grew-up.

From 26 to now… 28… or 29 (I can never remember, but definitely not 30), I know who I am and I know what I want. All I have to do is do it. This is the scariest phase yet because I no longer have the searching to hide behind.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a director of films. I used to say that I’m a “student of directing,” or that “I want to be a director,” but I’ve now come to identify with the work.

I gravitate towards stories that reflect reality — which is often funny, and very rarely black and white. I’m proud of the first short film I directed, Indulge Me, about an ex-priest who makes a living running a mobile confessional out of a trailer park.

As a filmmaker, I’m not afraid of the unknown. I’m quite comfortable in it, actually. As a student of the Greeks, all I really know is that I know nothing at all. This, in turn, makes me pretty unconcerned with opinions. I rarely have them.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
Oh this is a tough question… I think many of us in film are quite uncertain about where we go from here. I do think we’re hopeful though. Cinema is an incredibly resilient industry.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Blaisclarinda.com
• Instagram: @indulgemefilm