My second last post was a review of The Painted (2024), a low-budget film lacking a Wikipedia article due to limited marketing and visibility. As one of the first people to write about it, I also ended up creating its Wikipedia page—my first-ever contribution—which, despite being doomed to perpetual draft status, led to some interesting experiences that I’ll share in this post.

The draft had gotten rejected for having too few references and having low notability. It was hard to find even basic information about the movie outside of IMDB and Letterboxd, both of which, being community maintained, aren’t considered strong sources for references.

  • I tried different combinations of keywords and went as far as the last page of google’s search results to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
  • I visited Wikipedia articles for other movies to find any non-indexed but standard credible sources that might also have information for this movie. e.g. BBFC
  • I updated and resubmitted my draft many times and the moderators even acknowledged that there simply didn’t exist any more sources of information for the movie but that didn’t change anything. My article will retain its draft status until more blogs write about the movie.

However, in the process, I ended up learning a lot about the people behind the film. I learned that Sasha Sibley – the producer, director and writer – was scarcely older than myself, and that the executive producer was also named Sibley and therefore was clearly a family member (his sister, perhaps?). I learned that Sasha was LA based and that this was his second feature-film and that “The Painted” had originally been a short film that was released around covid. I visited the websites of the other crew members, e.g. Peter Bui, their cinematographer with a mechanical degree. I also learned from a not too reliable source that this movie had been in the works for a very long time.

Suddenly had a newfound appreciation and love for the movie I had so brutally posted a review about a few days before. I felt like I knew the crew and was rooting for them. I was curious too. So I did what anyone else would have done in the same position: I emailed Sasha, telling him I had the pleasure of watching and reviewing his movie and that I would love to learn more about it. He replied:

[…]I am very flattered – and that was a nice, accurate if not glowing review […] I’m happy to hop on a call if you want any more info or an interview[…]

That’s right. I reviewed a movie and the director of the movie read my review.

I took him up on that interview offer and excitedly waited for the call which turned out to be an absolute pleasure, of course. Sasha Sibley was a delight and one of the nicest and most humble people I have ever met. We talked a lot, about his background, inspiration, work, and even budgets. That information, however, deserves a post of its own that I will post shortly. For now, all I can say is: I’m glad I spent all that time writing that Wikipedia article.