Thursday morning and the phone rings. It’s 4.30 a.m. It’s an actress from Los Angeles who doesn’t seem to understand that Australia is in a different time zone from Hollywood. She’s up, awake and cheery. I’m jolted from a deep sleep and incoherent. Her problem is that she is concerned about aspects of a character she is reading for Shadow Plantation, a film I will be shooting in Louisiana in 2012. You often only get one shot at these things, so I could understand her wanting to discuss some of the finer points. We talk and manage to bring the character to life. She’s thankful and I have to get up. The clock blinks 5:00 a.m. Breakfast.

Downstairs, I prepare oats for my son Christopher, and coffee for me. Chris, a swimmer goes training every morning and his dedication to his sport is inspiring. Every morning when I see him walk out the door into the half-light I wish I had the mindset of an athlete. He inhales his breakfast and is gone, noncommittal about the rest of his day as most nineteen-year-old boys are.

For me it’s emails. The inbox does require a certain stamina at this time of day to get through all the correspondence. First I delete the advertising beckoning me to purchase things I will never use and then move on to the familiar names.

One email in particular catches my attention from a company in Greece. They are interested in distributing Matching Jack, my latest movie and want an interview with Kodi Smitt-McPhee who plays Finn, a young boy diagnosed with leukemia who faced with dying, embarks on the fight of his life. Matching Jack is about to be released in several new territories and this involves a whole new round of interviews, appearances, and discussions about the movie by either myself or the lead actors. I don’t have the Hollywood machine behind me this time, so for an independent Australian director this means it’s up to me to organize the publicity and liaise with the media. I spend the next couple of hours on the phone to Europe and America lining up interviews and sending off background information. There is strong interest so I have to strike while the iron is hot.

7 a.m. and I already feel I have made a good start to the day. Chris fed and watered, check. Emails up to date check. Lap of the Botanic Gardens next. I’m lucky enough to live around the corner from one of the most beautiful Gardens in Melbourne. Every morning joggers, walkers, and yummy mummies with kids in all terrain strollers do ‘the tan’ a gravel path following the circumference of the park that takes you on a four-kilometer circuit past towering gum trees and sleeping fruit bats. However, it’s the café at the end of the track I look forward to most. A popular haunt for those who feel a reward is needed for their efforts. It’s where you’ll find me feeling virtuous with a soy chai latte in hand as I walk back to the house.

Christopher and David are leaving as I arrive back from my walk. David makes a swipe for my latte which I manage to deflect and Chris tells us to stop mucking around he’ll be late for university. I relent and send David out the door with the last half of my well-earned coffee. He won’t be back until late, he’s shooting on location. After decades of marriage I still wonder how we manage considering our busy lives. I put it down to luck.

Two urgent calls later I was finally in the shower. However, I am constantly interrupted by phone calls about some urgent editing that has to be finished by 11 am. It’s now 8:45 a.m. I have a head full of damp curls, and with all the interruptions I’m struggling to get out the door. We are preparing publicity clips for Greece and America for Matching Jack. I pull on some clothes, wince as I pass the mirror and by 9:20 am in the editing room viewing the trailers.

Trying to encapsulate the story of a film in under three minutes is like trying to put a Genie back into its bottle. You wrestle with it for a while and then all of a sudden you realize what you have to do is go with it. In this case much of the wrestling has already been done by the editors, but I feel there are certain shots that are better for the characters than others. We make the changes I suggest and I hope the actors feel I have made the best choices for them and the film. I think I have.

It’s right at this time, when things are coming together that I get the stupid call from the record label. When I say stupid, I probably mean infuriating. They are refusing to give us approval for the music for the publicity trailer. I call David, who was the main producer on Matching Jack to set up a meeting and renegotiate the music deal so we can finish the edit. Annoying as this is for everyone involved these eleventh-hour changes are common, but despite all the years of experience I have, they still throw me. David’s price for this last minute fix, a soy chai latte at 7 a.m. next time I’m on my morning walk. Done. Half an hour later we have the go-ahead. Crisis averted–and only two hours behind schedule.

I rush off to a script meeting. Based on a book called The Diary of Jimmy Porter’ this is a beautiful coming-of-age story that takes place in the outback in the 1920s. It’s a lunch meeting set up by the Melbourne producers with the writers from Sydney. This process is the opposite of cutting the trailer. This time we are trying to coax the Genie out the bottle and bring some magic to the script. We discuss the changes in detail, looking at themes, relationships, narrative, and individual organic development of the characters. We have a good meeting and all leave feeling as though we have made progress. I’m excited and looking forward to the next draft.

It’s 3:30 p.m. and I have time to drop in on my mother. My mother, my wonderful mother. What can I say about her? She lights up my world. Still traveling herself at the age of eightyfour, I tell her about my recent adventures, and she relays to me her plans for her next trip to Greece. As she talks, her blue eyes dance with such warmth, intelligence, and love that I find myself lost in her beauty. My children have grown up within a strong extended family that is always there for them. Being Greek certainly has its advantages. I see my mother’s face and I know I can do anything I might choose. She gives me such courage and confidence. She truly is remarkable.

We have our Greek coffee and chat. I am about to pack my bags again and leave for Singapore to attend a Charity Screening. She shakes her finger at me, ‘Nadia, you travel too much’. She is probably right, but she is a bit of a globetrotter herself traveling regularly to Greece, Germany, Bulgaria, and France to visit family and friends. I have inherited her wanderlust, and am grateful to her for it.

I get home by 4:30 p.m., pack my bag and the car arrives to take me to the airport. It is now seven o’clock. David sees me off. It always surprises me how connected I feel to him and how I feel confident that things are in good hands when he is at the helm. The work at Cascade Films (our company together since 1987) will be attended to, the kids will be looked after, and I will feel secure. I hope he feels the same when he is away filming–he’s a great cinematographer. It’s an unwritten understanding that whoever is home takes care of everything that’s needed. Whilst in the car to the airport I text my son John who is at Georgetown University studying International Relations. He’s thrilled one of his lecturers is Madeline Albright. He’s doing well, is extremely motivated and I’m not surprised he’s just leaving the Library in the wee small hours, having finished a paper that’s due the following day.

I get to the airport, check in and proceed to the Qantas lounge where I take my laptop out and start emailing London regarding a play I’m directing in three weeks’ time. Over the tannoy I hear the boarding call. It’s at this point I’m forced to turn off the laptop and mobile and succumb to the white noise of airline travel. After a hectic day behind me and a frantic one ahead, it’s kind of comforting in a mad sort of way. Then I remember the script in my bag and my mind is off again.