“Three Worlds” screens Sept 23rd at the Mockingbird Cinema, Birmingham UK as part of the B’ham Sci-Fi Convention Fest. Then back to Chicago, as the “Spotlight Film” for VAiFF Fest Oct 7th (location info coming shortly).
independent film
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
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....