The Doctor’s Wife sequel becomes a reality

After 90 days of full time campaigning, fundraising efforts for the sequel to the 2011 documentary The Doctor’s Wife have finally been declared a success but not without a fair bit of sweat, blood and tears.

Queensland director Jonathon Duffy took to Facebook last weekend to make the long-awaited announcement and he told the Star Observer just how relieved he was after reaching his goal.

“Incredibly. I guess the best way to describe it is like getting to the end of a really long marathon. You’re relieved, but at the same time you are absolutely exhausted and quite emotional,” Duffy said.

The three-month long effort was still somewhat off its $10,000 target within hours of the campaign ending last Sunday and the thought of failing played on Duffy’s mind.

“That thought was constantly going through my head. It’s the question that looms over you the entire time, ‘What if I fail?’ It really forces you to take a look at the project and question your motives, the message and everything about it.

A last minute anonymous pledge secured the future of the sequel to the critically acclaimed documentary and made all the work that Duffy and his team had done finally worth it, work that taught Duffy about the people that he could rely on.

“The process really taught us a lot about the people we can really count on for support too. Despite the community of supporters already developed from the first film, we still had a great deal of doors shut in our faces which would then make things hard. But we never let it get us down. We persevered not in spite of it, but because of it,” he said.

“It was incredibly time consuming. By about the third week we were already sick of posting. It makes you so worried that you are annoying people, and then there are the people who do find it annoying and make sure they tell you.”

It didn’t take long after reaching his goal for Duffy and his team to start working on a clear path and direction for the sequel.

“It was really worth going into it straight away because it almost had a post-birth effect on the pain and labour of the campaign. It helped us to forget about it and just love the baby we’re about to grow. We felt more focussed and more determined to get stuck into the project than ever.”