THREE WORLDS is HERE!!

You can finally watch THREE WORLDS on Vimeo On Demand starting now!  This is the soft launch, with many platforms coming soon including Amazon Prime. Though, being an amazing first adapter, you don't like waiting.

I don't want to say too much about the film, but it is a unique experience. Like my other film MAN, it benefits from putting the phone and distractions away for 90 minutes. Though, while part of the same series of works, THREE WORLDS is nothing like MAN on a structural/formalistic level. (if you haven't watched MAN, click here).

Additional info:

Three Worlds is a psychological science fiction drama that explores the three lives, or 'worlds,' of a man who undergoes an experiment that triggers haunting memories and alternate life memories.

Written & Directed by Amir Motlagh
Produced by ANIMALS, Amir Motlagh, Charles Borg
Director of Photography: Amir Motlagh

Starring:
Amir Motlagh
Samantha Robinson
Rey Deegan
Keaton Shyler
Gregory Linington

Editing: Bryan Tuck, Amir Motlagh
Original Score by Julian DW Brink

Sound Designer & Re-Recording Mixer: Stephen Holliger

1/3 of the THREE MARKS, TOO MANY SIGNALS trilogy.

Press Quotes:

"It's rare to mix rawness with beauty" - Marcus Pinn PINNLAND EMPIRE / ZEBRAS IN AMERICA

"It's always exciting whenever a distinct new voice makes itself heard on the indie landscape. Amir Motlagh is such a voice...."Honest and soulful" - Adam Schartoff FILMWAX RADIO

“There is without a doubt a definitive boldness to “Three Worlds”, both in its tone and aspirations, and it will certainly require viewers to lean in a little closer, which is never a bad thing…..a curious and
fascinating watch.” - David Fowlie KEEPING IT REEL

The experience of both films (MAN + Three Worlds) is one that any film connoisseur must have. To sit with an awareness of the film, and, an awareness of how you are watching it, is a surreal act that can only be described as “art.” Motlagh’s work is definitely a piece of art in the medium of film.” - Jonita Davis THE IRANIAN

The Passing of A Friend - Things w/ Amir Motlagh Ep10

Was not going to do one of these this week, but then I figured that, knowing Chris, he would have been like, "fuck you dude, do one of these on me!" 

I just pulled up our last text message, in which he states that I owe him a Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles dinner. I can't seem to recall why?

Still working out some audio drop-outs, but I think I figured that out. If you're interested in getting your weekly (bi-weekly) dose of these, please subscribe. 

Christopher Ad Castillo: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1779820/?ref_=nv_sr_2

Celso Ad. Castillo: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0145036/?ref_=nv_sr_1

MIRS video we co-directed on the set of his film LosAngeles7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_lyA...

RIP Christopher Ad. Castillo

Film Pipeline Interviews Amir Motlagh and Charles Borg about the feature film MAN

This is a recent article conducted on Film Pipeline (Script Pipeline) about my latest film release, MAN. Both Charles and myself answer great questions posed by Script Pipeline about the process of MAN. You can read the whole interview by clicking here: 

Here a small snippet:
"Options and possibilities have opened quite a bit. Filmmakers tend to idolize the big names because they like the toys and scale that comes with moviemaking. Most of the time, that’s just a hindrance because it gets in the way of truth."

MAN is available on Amazon Prime (US/UK) and Vimeo On Demand (worldwide) with a host of other platforms coming soon.

Japanese cinema, "now" now, and then....

I've been on a Japanese kick of late.  I happen to return to this culture, frequently, for a vast bouquet of inspiration.  Simply, the well is never dry.

The last five films I've watched this week were Japanese. One observation I've made is that the Western Cinematic tradition has lifted heavily from this world, and Akira Kurosawa ( i feel silly leaving a link here, but I'm going to assume that a good percentage of people are not that familiar with him, and do not give the same unwavering adulation to say, Stanley Kubrick) being on the receiving end of this homage ripping, while also being the most universally influential. But aside from the good type of artistic stealing which is mostly an "influential" lifting, there has been a much more malignant form of culture appropriation, which comprises of the more serious form of perjury. And yes, this bad form of stealing is rampant in cinema.

In the prior decades, distribution was the real barrier to familiarity with international cinema. The world, before NETFLIX and the web was a localized arena.  So localized in fact, that believe it or not, you'd have to go to a movie theater to see a movie (perhaps a film festival, or art-house theater, school, etc).  And, if you didn't catch it, then you'd have to hope for some form of taped distribution.  It wasn't till the late 70's whereby people were actually renting and buying movies.  At this juncture in the space time continuum, the selection was incredible limited.

With the explosion of VHS and the video store, more titles could be discovered. But, media was not ubiquitous, and our reference points were limited to stuff we heard about, or actually saw; which again, had serious limitations in breath, scope, and in memory. Image those days, in which Wikipedia, Google and Youtube were not at your beckon call, and did not serve as your assistant brain (soon to be, First Brain). Yes, scary indeed.       

Say you saw something really interesting in an obscure Japanese movie from the early 70's, and were a filmmaker in the 80's and even early 90's, and you happened to steal heavily from it.  In fact, even go so far as to purge it's images, its style, its flow.   People would hardly know.  Only a relative few.  And surprisingly, unlike music and other types of arts, this type of heavy lifting would not even be frowned upon critically, and certainly not by the general movie going audience.  For the most part.

The idea of originality in Western Cinema has long been a secondary by-product; a term Hollywood tried to bury (and successfully) in the 50's (purely conjecture here).  It's worked.  This is one of the only arts where familiarity gets a pass almost every-time.  And as the post-modern infiltrated movie making in the early nineties, it was even considered cool.  

But on a personal level, I always felt a more kindred liking to original works (herein I'm referring to a more direct style of moviemaking) then post modern assemblies of those styles.  But that was then, and now is now.      

But, "now" now, is not like the 90's now.  People dream up movement phrases like, "The New Sincerity", and while this might last for "now", it can never congeal into anything resembling the classical arts movements of a prior century.  Because we have moved past time oriented "movements".  We are in a post-movement world; better yet, post-mechanical-watch.  Human time doesn't neatly pack itself into bubbles anymore, because it's umbilical cord to our evolutionary clock has been cut.  

And "now" is like the scene from the Mel Brooks film SPACEBALLS:  Now "Now", Not "Then" Now.  This sentence above, however is not my own, i'll gladly admit.  In fact, I lifted it from a wonderful conversation between media theorist David Ryan Polgar and Douglas Rushoff.  If only cinema were so nice to attribute.

I'll leave you with this apropos image from Kinji Fukasaku's BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY

a quantum question....

RIP Filmmaker Celso Ad. Castillo

My friend, and fellow filmmaker Chris Castillo's father passed away a few days ago.  His father was Celso Ad. Castillo, a heavyweight in the Filipino Film World.  Here is an open letter he posted about his father's passing.

_______________________________________________

AN OPEN LETTER ABOUT MY FATHER, CELSO AD. CASTILLO 

As soon as I received the news that my father had passed, I sat there not knowing what to do. I didn't cry. I couldn't. So I did the only thing my father loved doing the most - I went to the movies. I watched Lincoln. The little kid in him had always admired Spielberg. They had met before and he was going to direct a movie for him at one point.

And inside the dark theater, I cried. 

As the images flickered on the screen, as Lincoln fought for the future of humanity, I saw my father fighting all his life for his vision, his morals, his values. He was going to make the films he wanted to make. No matter the personal cost. He was The Kid, The Messiah, the Philippine's first truly independent and renegade filmmaker. The man who was larger than life. Fitting. 

I am the first born son of Celso Ad Castillo. Growing up on film sets, I was destined to follow in his footsteps. Never to eclipse him but to be the best that I can be in using the gifts he gave me. My path had always been set. As my mother always said, I am my father's son. 

We had spoken recently about some exciting things that the future was going to bring. My project with producer Alemberg Ang was short listed in the upcoming Cinemalaya 2013 and after I finished my interview with the selection committee, it dawned on me the excitement that I might have a chance to work with my father once again. But this time with with me in the director's chair and he as an actor. Our last talk was about the long awaited and much anticipated Ang Lalaking Nangarap Na Maging Nora Aunor which was going to be his FDC film. It would be his swan song, a tribute to his love for Philippine Cinema. He would be Salvatore in Cinema Paradiso. I was going to write it for him. 

As I sit here and pen this missive, not just for me but for everyone that admired and was influenced by him, I always think back to a night in San Francisco over two decades ago that truly defined who he was. When for the first time, he explained to me the reason why our family broke apart. We were living in Las Vegas at that time when he came to join us for good but decided to leave after a couple of months back to the Philippines. He told me that he made the hardest decision of his life. He had to choose between his art and his family and he chose his art. And from that decision came some of the greatest films cinema has ever seen. I have never begrudged my father for what he did. I have never questioned his love for us. I have always understood him and felt sadness that he was put in that situation. No one should ever have to make those kinds of decisions. But all of us in his life have always competed with the characters in his head and stories in his mind. 

Film was his family. Film was his life. And we are all the better for it.

We will celebrate the man and his films. We will honor him with words and tributes. But let us not forget the greatest gift my father gave us. The strength and courage to be an original, to be rebellious without fear, to dig deeper into ourselves and embrace the madness within us, to question art and mold it to our own perception, to test people's comfort zones, to force the audience to watch what is uncomfortable in their own lives. 

So to those filmmakers influenced by him, continue the fight to make the films you truly want to make and extend the path that he paved and pass along the gift that he gave to you to the next generation of filmmakers. It would be the only thing he would ask any of you. I wish all of you would have met hm. Then you would see the true man behind the legend. A man of wit, wisdom, and a huge sense of humor. 

To some people, he was the greatest filmmaker of his generation. To me, he was simply a wonderful father. I will truly miss him until I see him again. 

- Christopher Ad. Castillo 

Celso Ad. Castillo