The Spanish DVD cover of I Am a Ghost
Spanish DVD review! I would love to brag about the pullquote, "GENIUS! Flashes of Kubrick, Lynch, Bergman and Wise." - but the total dork in me wants to point out THIS pullquote: "A MORE THAN DECENT DVD RELEASE! Very good definition and color contrast." Sorry, but it brings me back to my days of going to Tower Records and buying the latest issue of Widescreen Review.
H.P.
It was a better year than usual. In fact, the past twelve months at what we still call "the movies" amounts to a ray of hope, a candy-colored kaleidoscope of unexpected possibilities, a lineup of happy surprises as an antidote to the usual cynical, flabby product. Maybe it's the films themselves, maybe it's how and where we saw them, or perhaps it's just a dusting of movie magic. But we were enthused, especially by these 2013 releases (in alphabetical order):
1) 12 Years a Slave
2) Blue Jasmine
3) Crystal Fairy
4) Frances Ha
5) Gravity
6) Inside Llewyn Davis
7) Kill Your Darlings
8) Nebraska
9) Spring Breakers
10) Stoker
Let's work down the list from glitz to grunge, from the slickest to the roughest. No movie this year was slicker and more accomplished than Gravity, the spaceship adventure against which all future such spectacles will be measured. Since Gravity first splashed down in October, the marketplace has only confirmed what we knew all along. Alfonso Cuarón's crowd-pleasing procedural disaster pic — with the most exciting production values we've ever seen — represents a quantum leap forward in its genre and also in the wide-open universe of motion picture entertainment. Best of all, the biggest box-office hit in Cuarón's career (currently in sixth place on the 2013 grosses chart) does not sacrifice the things we love about his work: the humanism, the far-ranging international viewpoint, the essential skepticism, etc.
In Gravity's stripped-down two-character cast the pivotal part belongs to a woman: Sandra Bullock as heroic astronaut Ryan Stone. There's a lot of that going around. Six of our Top Ten entertainments are shaped by strong female characters, none more so than Cate Blanchett's dazzling performance in the title role of Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine.
It isn't entirely necessary to know that Blanchett's Jasmine French is an update of Blanche DuBois from Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire in order to enjoy the show Jasmine puts on when she straggles into San Francisco in a cloud of vodka, pills, and self-pity. Seldom has misery been so amusing, nor foolishness so pathetic. Writer-director Woody Allen's best screenplay in twenty years provides the footing for the latest in a remarkable line of flavorful, brave performances by Blanchett. It's one of those actor-director pairings that we dream about on long winter nights. Factor in the enthusiastic support playing of Sally Hawkins, Andrew Dice Clay, Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K., Peter Sarsgaard, and Michael Stuhlbarg, and Blue Jasmine takes on an unforgettable luster. Allen's resurrection and Blanchett's triumph.
At first glance, Alexander Payne's Nebraska might seem like just another of the filmmaker's comic/wistful studies of his home state — à la Citizen Ruth,Election, and About Schmidt — but there's something unique about this particular Payne road trip back to the heartland: It's got Bruce Dern in it. The legendary actor's actor, prized for his heavies and weirdos in the films of Roger Corman, Hal Ashby, Walter Hill, and other Hollywood mavericks, has the Cornhusker State all to himself as Woody, the grumpiest man ever to steal the wrong farmer's air compressor. Payne delights in flawed individuals. Woody has imperfections to spare, but the lingering mood of Nebraska is one of forgiveness. It's one of Dern's very best acting jobs. It's a shame he had to wait until he was 77 years old to stretch out over the length of an entire feature film with such a richly drawn, complex character. Usually his guys are violently eliminated halfway through.
Few movie lovers think of the Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, as sentimentalists. Yet that's one of the only conclusions we can come to after following them on a time-machine voyage back to 1961 in New York's Greenwich Village, to peer into the habits and opinions of a folk musician who never made it past the open-mic nights. Inside Llewyn Davis sprinkles its nostalgia with typical Coen observations about the fragility of best-laid plans, as the talented-but-irritating singer of songs meets obstacles everywhere he steps. Actor Oscar Isaac milks a surprising number of laughs — of the sour, inside-showbiz variety — out of Llewyn's wanderings, and we get to hear a bounty of new-old folk tunes sung by Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, and the rest of the musical cast. But the true flavor of the piece, one of the Coens' most penetratingly bittersweet, is of lost romantic love. Is Llewyn a Dave Van Ronk stand-in or a Bob Dylan doppelganger? Only the Coens know for sure. Better forget all that and soak up the atmosphere and music.
It would wound the heart to reopen the historical discussion of Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave. Yet British filmmaker McQueen's dramatization of slavery in the days before the US Civil War is so visceral, and so precisely depicted, that we'll probably be discussing it for years to come. So let's riff on one or two specifics. English actor Chiwetel Ejiofor does a very good job portraying Solon Northup, the victimized focus of the piece, but it's really the supporting players who carry the load. The more beastly they are, the nobler Northup looks, and the more outrageous Northup's treatment by the American slave apparatus, the more clearly the film's message rings out. What's that message, again? That all people everywhere in the world should be able to live in freedom, without fear. We're still working on that. In the meantime, the performances of Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, and the rest of the large cast effectively drench us in fear, hatred, and cruelty — for a good purpose. Special kudos to Adepero Oduye, Sarah Paulson, Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry, Nicole Collins, and the dependable Alfre Woodard, as Mrs. Shaw.
At the indie end of the scale, five new films tried to show us something we'd never seen before. Frances Ha, the very finest film of 2013, boasts the best actress (Greta Gerwig), one of the best directors (Noah Baumbach), one of the best screenplays (a joint effort of Baumbach and Gerwig), plus that indelible feeling that something fresh and wonderful has just arrived on little cat feet.Kill Your Darlings continues the fascination with 20th-century cultural avatars in the romanticized, convulsive story of poet Allen Ginsberg (played by Daniel Radcliffe, the former Harry Potter), glimpsed as a 1940s college student transforming himself. Director John Krokidas is a major talent.
We head deeper into the jungle of human endeavor with Sebastián Silva'sCrystal Fairy and Park Chan-wook's Stoker. The former, aka Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus and 2012, may indeed be the ultimate comic hippie road trip. It certainly puts actress Gaby Hoffmann (daughter of former Andy Warhol superstar Viva) on the map as the only actress you'll ever need when the time comes to have a stoned, naked American woman go on a scavenger hunt on a Chilean beach. Santiago filmmaker Silva (The Maid, Old Cats) is a major talent. Meanwhile, South Korean cult figure Park (Oldboy, Lady Vengeance) makes an impressive Hollywood debut directing a bizarre family shocker, written by Wentworth Miller and outfitted with a high-wattage duo of Australia's finest, Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska, doing what they do best. The subtexts in Stoker are inexhaustible.
Spring Breakers, manger dog of the Top Ten, didn't overly impress us when we went to the press screening back in March. That time of year is typically the burying ground for films distributors don't know what to do with, and writer-director Harmony Korine's (Mister Lonely, Gummo, Kids) over-amped chronicle of college-girl debauchery in a Florida beach town seemed a sure candidate for oblivion. We found it slow for all its noisy hyperactivity, with too many gratuitous lyrical interludes of the four squealing main characters cavorting in their underwear. Or were those their swimsuits?
But the broad implications of Korine's story stayed in our mind. That was partly because of James Franco's performance as Alien, the cornrowed rapper/drug dealer who takes the relatively sweet — for armed robbers, that is — coeds down the rabbit hole of commerce. It's been a hellacious year for Franco: Homefront, This Is the End, Oz the Great and Powerful, Lovelace, and a clutch of privately produced features and shorts known only to god andIMDb.com — including Interior. Leather Bar., a riff on Cruising. He also wrote a short story collection called Palo Alto, and assumed the role of Mr. Gucci. Then to remember him with a gleaming grill in his mouth, showing off his collection of assault weapons to impress four kids from flyover land, something clicked. Franco, with help from Korine's violent montage and music by Cliff Martinez and Skrillex, makes all the difference. All the conjecture about Franco and Korine spinning a critique of mercantile America — the land of bagheads, pimps, hos, and tomorrow's combat casualties — begins to make perfect sense, especially after a second viewing. Spring Breakers is not for everyone, but the truth never really is.
If there's one common denominator among the best movies of 2013, it's that undervalued commodity, character. Here are some narrative fiction films (in no particular order) that in another, less bountiful year might have cracked the Top Ten. All of them are crawling with personality: Abbas Kiarostami'sLike Someone in Love; J.C. Chandor's All Is Lost; Derek Cianfrance's The Place Beyond the Pines; Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful; Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing; Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects; Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners; Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring; Jean-Marc Vallée'sDallas Buyers Club; Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station; Brian Helgeland's 42; and David O. Russell's American Hustle.
Also: James Ponsoldt's The Spectacular Now; Richard Linklater's Before Midnight; Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy; Brian Percival's The Book Thief; Ron Howard's Rush; Johnnie To's Drug War; Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster (the longer Chinese version); Asghar Farhadi's The Past; and Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warmest Color. Plus one for the late-show crowd: Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives, with Kristin Scott Thomas as an expat criminal boss in Bangkok. And a couple of Guilty Pleasures: Rawson Marshall Thurber's drug-smuggling comedy We're the Millers and Shawn Levy's Google promo The Internship, featuring America's favorite lunkheads, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.
Documentaries weren't quite their usual compelling selves this year for some reason, possibly having to do with "outrage doc" overkill. But these domestic and international docs shone through the mist: Dmitry Vasyukov and Werner Herzog's Happy People: A Year in the Taiga; Morgan Neville's 20 Feet from Stardom; Bill Siegel's The Trials of Muhammad Ali; Jehane Noujaim's The Square; Mark Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlett's A Band Called Death; Greg "Freddie" Camalier's Muscle Shoals; Jorge Hinojosa's Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp; Frederick Wiseman's At Berkeley; Jacob Kornbluth'sInequality for All; Joshua Oppenheimer & Anonymous' The Act of Killing; Gabriela Cowperthwaite's Blackfish; Alex Gibney's The Armstrong Lie; and Teller's Tim's Vermeer.
Six horror pics we couldn't get out of our head: Jim Mickle's We Are What We Are; Andrés Muschietti's Mama; James Wan's The Conjuring; Xan Cassavetes'Kiss of the Damned; and a pair of superlative remakes: Kimberly Peirce'sCarrie and Fede Alvarez' Evil Dead, with Sam Raimi producing.
Let's hear it for the Danes. Some interesting cinematic treats came out of Denmark (including Only God Forgives): Tobias Lindholm's A Hijacking, a much more satisfying Somali-pirate adventure than Captain Phillips; Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt, with actor Mads Mikkelsen as a man wrongly accused of a sex crime; Susanne Bier's frothy romantic comedy Love Is All You Need, and Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg's oceangoing adventure doc Kon-Tiki.
All the films in the Ten Best list have been shown in East Bay theaters sometime this year. The big-screen, advertised, scheduled, ticketed, popcorn-littered, shared-entertainment way of "going to the movies" has been around a long time, but it's in the middle of a major shift. The event-driven process of waiting until a movie "opens" near you in an auditorium is steadily giving way to a bewildering array of platforms. Web-based delivery systems and home video software in all its forms now compete with theatrical movie events, and suddenly the flicker fanatic is swimming in a vast ocean of choices stretching from the beginning of the art form more than one hundred years ago to the latest YouTube meme. No one critic could possibly see every new movie released in 2013. There are hundreds of new (and old) movies we might enjoy that simply will never get an East Bay booking. It's time to think outside the 'plex. Just for fun, here's a list of five titles that almost made it to local theaters this year but which can still be found if you dig hard enough. Call them Five Excellent Films You Didn't See This Year (Yet):
Capital (directed by Costa-Gavras): The maker of Z and Missing remains one of the world's most incisive directors of politically charged dramas, in this case a rapid-fire 2012 meditation on the international financial octopus, centered on a French bank exec (Gad Elmaleh) who lucks into a powerful job and proves more ruthless than the rest. A hit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, it never got an East Bay booking.
Far from Vietnam (various directors): A group of angry auteurs put together this anthology combo of doc and narrative in 1967 as an anti-Vietnam-war statement, and it's still giving off heat. Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Joris Ivens, William Klein, and Agnès Varda, among others, contribute to the outcry. New on DVD from Icarus Films.
I Am a Ghost (directed by H.P. Mendoza): The San Francisco-based writing/directing talent behind Colma and Fruit Fly is responsible for one of the best indie horror movies of the year, the story of a tormented soul (actress Anna Ishida) trapped inside an old dark house. Simplicity itself, and hella frightening. Showed only at CAAMFEST, aka the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, and other one-offs.
In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey (directed by James Cullingham): The cult of influential acoustic guitarist John Fahey gets examined by experts in a roots-rich DVD from First Run Features, loaded with performances by the late Fahey and tributes from such admirers as Chris Funk of The Decembrists and The Who's Pete Townshend.
Le Joli Mai (directed by Chris Marker): The re-release of Marker's 1963 free-form documentary portrait of Paris belongs with the best of the "city symphony" docs for its flaneur-like approach to the metropolis and its denizens — including a complaining menswear merchant, the inhabitants of a slum overjoyed to be moving to a public housing project, the inmates of a women's prison, and a man who doesn't realize he has a spider living in his suit. It opened and closed at Landmark's Opera Plaza in San Francisco.
Edited by Frank Lee
(Original Spanish text can be found here.)
In 2013, we attended Nocturna: The Madrid International Fantastic Film Festival. Of all the films screened at Nocturna, the most surprising film of the festival was H.P. Mendoza's I Am a Ghost starring Anna Ishida. We couldn't just attend the festival, but had to meet director H.P. Mendoza and actress Anna Ishida who were there to present the film. Besides being really nice, they were also very open with their work and agreed to keep in touch. Recently, we did an interview with the two of them to coincide with the screening of the Final Cut in San Francisco.
FILMSTITUTE: Why do you make movies?
H.P. MENDOZA: It's the only thing I know how to do.
ANNA ISHIDA: I've made one feature film in my career: I Am a Ghost. And it was because H.P. invited me to do so. I had always wanted to do film, but was very wary of the medium because as an actor, you have to trust your director/editor implicitly with your performance. Fortune smiled when she put me in H.P.'s path.
FILMSTITUTE: It seems surprising that such a small team created such a well-rounded film. What's been the most difficult phase of the whole project? At any point did you think that you wouldn't be able to finish it?
H.P. MENDOZA: We had a team of seven people, including the cast. For me, the most difficult part of the project was pre-production. All I had was a file called iaag.pdf sitting on my desktop and I had no idea how I was going to afford to make this movie. Getting started is always the hardest part. I was surrounded by people telling me it was a bad idea and that my movie didn't make sense. Even through early rehearsals, I had to sit through constant second guessing. That's when you feel like it might not happen. But once we started shooting, and there was nothing but a camera in between me and Anna, my confidence came back.
ANNA ISHIDA: The most difficult part of filming for me was conceptualizing being "captured on film." Relaxing was also one of the more difficult things to maintain and trusting that what I was thinking as Emily was enough for the camera. There was one night where H.P. wanted me to scream at the top of my lungs at about 9:30pm. I looked at him and said "you don't want me to do that" because I had a feeling the entire project would be shut down if the owner got complaints/reports/police called if I were to scream at full voice that late at night in a busy hotel. I think it was the right decision. (Those are MY screams in the film)
FILMSTITUTE: H.P., screenwriting, directing, editing...which do you enjoy most?
H.P.: When it's someone else's movie, I love editing and composing music. But if it's my movie, I really don't know which task I enjoy the most. I feel like I'm an introvert who loves to socialize, which makes the writing and directing perfect for me. But I also love to refine, which makes editing a very comfortable spot.
FILMSTITUTE: We love the the shots, the color, the texture. What camera did you shoot with?
H.P.: I shot with the Canon 60D. Since I knew that I would be the person shooting the movie, I even put the optics in the screenplay. The first section is all shot with a 10mm lens, which everyone warned me about, but I didn't care. I wanted the first third of the movie to look like a dollhouse. Once we get the first flashes of memory, we start using prime lenses. And when we get to the second third, I'm using every lens I can. One of the trickiest things was knowing how the footage would be processed, so in order to get the shadowy cold look of the movie, I had to constantly shine a super warm light at Anna so I can cool off the picture in post, which is what gives the red walls the purple gradients as well as Anna her deathly cold appearance. And often, we would run into problems because of the lack of space in the house, so there are a few shots where we actually lit Anna with blue light coming from an iPad!
FILMSTITUTE: Anna, were you scared to approach to a character who bears virtually all the dramatic weight of the film?
ANNA: I was absolutely scared. I was stunned with the prospect. It just didn't make sense to me for an established filmmaker to "risk" an entire film on an inexperienced film actress. Trusting H.P. as the director and editor with my performance was a challenge for me at first. I'm so glad I did end up trusting him day 2/3 of the 7 day shoot. He was very generous and gave me final say on each take and that was an instant establishment of trust between us. I realize this will probably never happen again. He'd also assure me that in some cases he was humoring me because he'd gotten what he wanted in the first 3 takes so it was a constant flexing of "trust muscles" on my part. However, as we got to shooting, the intimacy of the shoot and the intense focus of Emily's story was familiar to my experience acting onstage; I was responsible for my performance.
FILMSTITUTE: Anna, you're on tour with Red Virgin, a musical about the Paris Commune. Is it difficult for a stage actor to move to film? What things do you enjoy the most of each discipline?
ANNA: With theatre, I enjoy the journey/experience of living a character night after night - living the arc of a character's journey. With an audience in the room my performance is completely affected by the energy of the audience. It can be absolutely electrifying - I've never felt so alive when I perform in front of an audience. With film, I appreciate something a teacher told me "trust that thinking is enough." It is a totally different set of muscles and stamina for an actor - in film there's no arc or throughline to build up/ride down from - everything's filmed out of order. I love the experience of rewinding seconds in a favorite movie to watch an actor/character's reaction: seeing their love, horror, anger, anguish, incredulity, sexiness, etc. captured in seconds on film. I love watching behavior and I love how film captures those moments. Theatre is so fleeting - ethereal. Film is forever.
FILMSTITUTE: H.P., when filming, which directors inspire you the most?
H.P.: It depends on what I'm working on. For my first film, Fruit Fly, I was really trying to do something different - because that's what you do when you first start! You try to separate yourself as much as you can from your influences. But for I Am a Ghost, I basically wanted to make the kind of movie that would scare me. And that meant that it had to look, sound and feel like a horror film from the late 60's/early 70's. That meant that I'd be digging into inspirations like Polanski, Bergman, Peter Weir, David Lynch andespecially Stanley Kubrick. It didn't mean that I was trying to make some unholy combination ofRosemary's Baby, Eraserhead and The Shining - but those movies had styles of their own that were such a part of the 70's and they carved grooves in my brain.
FILMSTITUTE: In some moments of the film, the treatment given to the spirit feels very much like therapy, which makes us think of the late 19th century work of Carl G. Jung. Is there any of that? What do you non-cinematic things influences your work?
H.P.: I saw counselors growing up mostly because I went to Catholic School and I was struggling with hiding my sexuality. Interesting that you should point out Carl Jung because for such a long time I dwelled on how much of an introvert I am. And I thought about the collective unconscious for as long as I can remember. So growing up, I gravitated toward analytical psychology. When I was a child, I used to wonder if I was merely reliving memories. I used to wonder if I might be a robot programmed by my parents. I used to wonder if I was a girl. So, yes - without ruining too much of the ending of the film, individuation plays a big part in I Am a Ghost.
FILMSTITUTE: For us, assembly is the key to the film. How did you deal with it? Do you have a reference? Is there any tool without which you do not think you could have to get it?
H.P.: The editing of a film is what makes movies such a tricky medium. I can honestly say that I only have a few rules for editing. 1) Your movie is a song. Stay on beat. 2) Don't withhold. If you're immersing an audience in a world or in a character, show the audience what they visually and psychologically need to stay inside. If you get too clever, the editing doesn't work, and the audience gets pulled out. 3) Treat individual scenes like a social interaction. Am I being entertaining? Am I being informative? Am I dominating this conversation? Am I overstaying my welcome? Or am I not staying long enough?
FILMSTITUTE: There is a specific scene in the movie that really impressed us. The one when Emily opens the house door. Can you tell us something about it? Does it mean anything special for you?
H.P.: Again, I went to Catholic school so I went to mass every morning and we were taught by nuns and priests. In the third grade, a kid my age turned to me after mass and said "you know this is all bullshit, right?" And I thought that lightning was going to strike him down. But for years after, the thought of nothing after death haunted me. It haunted me so much that I had to talk about it with everyone I met. Priests, nuns, teachers, counselors, friends, bus drivers. And when I started getting really into ghost stories, I thought that the idea of a ghost trusting "the light", like in Poltergeist, was just as scary as a haunting. So in the fourth grade, I wrote a short story about my class taking a field trip to the zoo. In the story, the bus driver keeps telling us that we're almost there and if we behave, we'll get ice cream at the zoo. And at the end of the story, the bus plunges off a cliff. It wasn't subtle. At all.
FILMSTITUTE: Recently you screened the Final Cut at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, Does it differ much from the cut we have seen in previous festivals in Europe? Are you very critical of your own work?
H.P.:I'm always critical of my work, but I learned to embrace it and not try to go back and fix things. I Am a Ghost premiered in San Francisco in its rough cut stage in 2011, and it did quite well. But recently, it came back to the Castro after having been completed and shown at festivals around the world, so I had to make sure that people in San Francisco knew it was a new cut. The cut we screened recently in San Francisco versus the version in 2011 is very different. It's longer now. But compared to the version that played in Spain, it's only a little bit different. You'll see when it releases in Spain in February.
ANNA: H.P. answered the first part of this question. I am a perfectionist. I am extremely critical of my work, which is why I have stayed away from film for so long because I was afraid of what I'd discover! What if I was a fool all along thinking I could do this (acting)? When I first watched the film, I forgot I was watching myself, Anna. I believe that was a quiet message that I'm on the right path.
FILMSTITUTE: How do you see the scene in San Francisco Independent Film?
H.P.: I used to have a good handle on what the independent scene was in San Francisco, but I've become so reclusive. Friends started leaving San Francisco to go to Los Angeles or New York. I think the indie film scene is changing in San Francisco because it has to. Ted Hope, the executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, stepped down after only having been appointed for a year. San Francisco is quickly becoming one of the most expensive cities in the world and let's face it: the old model of filmmaking is proving to be way too costly. I'd like to think that with Silicon Valley on our side and the embracing of transmedia, San Francisco is going to be a launchpad for a new wave of independent filmmaking. But what do I know? I just shot I Am a Ghost with a team of seven for $7500.
ANNA: I am brand new to the independent film scene in San Francisco. I'd love to become more involved. It is a very interesting experience when people tell me "you want to do film? Go to LA. Go to NY." But I think "but...I made an excellent film in San Francisco!"
FILMSTITUTE: In 2014 is scheduled for distribution. Has it been hard? ? Asia, Europe, America where you think your film will work best?
H.P.: So far, Europe has been the most receptive of our film. Only in France can we be nominated withGravity and win Best Film and Best Director! And in Spain, our ratings were high, too. I should remind people to rate our film on IMDb, too. Then, I can see exactly where the good reviews are coming from.
ANNA: From what I heard about and witnessed with HP and his company Ersatz, distribution is incredibly difficult! I wanted so badly to do a Japanese overdub for Japanese distribution - all of my father's side of the family live in Japan! But that didn't work out. I knew early on that I Am a Ghost would FIND its audience and vice versa. It is not a film meant for mass/risk-free consumption; it requires time and attention and a certain curiosity and interest in the unusual/unknown. Those who want to see the film will FIND it. To quote an early interview with Frank Lee very early on in the journey of "I Am a Ghost" re: "being bothered by potential obscurity" I said: 'Obscurity is GOLD because oftentimes it's what makes the piece memorable - because it is different and leaves an impression; its quality comes from pure heart and skill."
FILMSTITUTE: Can you tell us something of your upcoming projects?
H.P.: I've learned that every time I tell someone what I'm doing next, I'm wrong! I have a stack of screenplays under my bed and I'm not sure which one I'll be doing next. But I know, whatever it is, I want to do it soon.
ANNA: I will be working with the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco in early Spring on an ancient Chinese myth play with music titled The Orphan of Zhao. I also hope to relocate from the west coast - I have my eye on New York and beyond. Spain, for sure.
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Ersatz Film is partnering with Tugg.com to bring I Am a Ghost directly to your theater! It's easy - you pick the Time, Place and Date. Tugg will reserve the theater and give you a personalized event page for your screening of I Am a Ghost. Here's the trick though - you need to pre-sell a certain amount of tickets in order for the event to be confirmed!
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Gravity wins Grand Prix and Best Special Effects at La Samain du Cinema Fantastique while I Am a Ghosttakes BEST FILM and BEST DIRECTOR!
(Translated from the webpage)
Navigating between chills, dizziness and cold sweats, the fourth edition of the Festival of Samhain Fantastic Cinema held in Nice, Cote d'Azur from 22 October to 2 November 2013 . Praised by many public (projections sold films competing in the Pathe attest), this festival - with a total attendance of 5,775 people for this edition - is recognized by its peers ( Fantastic Fest, Frightfest, Screamfest ) , and now poses as a rendezvous for lovers of genre cinema during 's Halloween in France. Among the highlights of this edition, the Zombie Walk Nice has a record of success 900 undead walking on the green cast (recently opened) of the city of Nice.
Read more HERE.
H.P.
Congratulations, Anna Ishida! This is Anna's third win for Best Actress for the role of "Emily" in I Am a Ghost! Because she couldn't make it, Anna recorded a quick acceptance video to be projected at the Horror Film Festival of Molins de Rei in Spain during their award ceremony. Here is that video.
Official release trailer
Right before Halloween, H.P. Mendoza's I Am a Ghost has a One-Day-Only engagement at The Castro Theatre on October 29th. And while many Bay Area horror afficionados were able to watch it during the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, many missed out. When people tell me that they're going to wait until a movie hits home video, I understand. But I've seen this film in various incarnations from rough cut to final, and I even edited the collectible hardcover screenplay. This movie is different. And I'm going to give you 5 reasons why you have to see it on the big screen.
"More clever and cerebral than your typical ghost story, this one has chills, but may resonate more for fans of "In Treatment" with a taste for the paranormal."
- Jackson Scarlett, 7x7
Lots of H.P. Mendoza fans were disappointed that he's ditched the musical genre, but I urge them to watch this film. This isn't one of those "jump-out-and-scare-you" films that everybody seems to make. It's lessParanormal Activity and more Rosemary's Baby. A smart, edge-of-your-seat psycho thriller that uses concepts and ideas to give you a scare that lingers well after you leave the theater. This movie has the distinction of leaving me scared, even in broad daylight. Director Mendoza has stated at festivals that he had no intention of making a scary film, just one that makes you think.
"TERRIFYING. The last twenty minutes of this film are some of the most intense and incredibly terrifying moments I've seen in a film."
- James Cortez, Planet Terror
That's a blurb from a guy who watches horror movies for a LIVING. Despite Mendoza's intentions of not making a scary movie, it actually is frightening. James Cortez (Planet of Terror) says the last twenty minutes are the most intense and terrifying moments he's seen on screen. And he's right. But only because of the philosophies and ideas presented in the first sixty minutes.
Word on the street is that repeat viewers will be coming to the screenings in costume. I joked with a friend about how there's only one costume you can really wear to a screening of I Am a Ghost and he reminded me of the myriad conceptual costumes you can wear. Like dressing like a giant fried egg. Or an electro-shock patient. Or "nothing". (Does that mean going nude?) Anyway, it's a great way to get some dress up time right before the Castro Theatre closes down for Halloween.
!["[I Am a Ghost's] eerie atmospheric soundtrack demonstrates Mendoza is a musical talent without limitations."- Curran Nault, Artistic Director, Polari](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/539feac5e4b09fc82dfde6ad/1403044711173-X1L7NH5EXDGIFDJL8PK2/image-asset.jpeg)
"[I Am a Ghost's] eerie atmospheric soundtrack demonstrates Mendoza is a musical talent without limitations."
- Curran Nault, Artistic Director, Polari
Opera singer Carolyn Oliss will be performing the theme song live before the film and director Mendoza will also be hosting a Q&A with the cast and crew, which includes lead actress ANNA ISHIDA! The subsequent meet and greet in the reception area of the Castro Theatre should be lively and full of local filmmakers and musicians.
!["Haunting [and] artfully crafted." Dennis Harvey, Variety"Visionary. Made by a true cineaste." - Anderson Le, LAAPFF"Meticulous mise-en-scene [and] frosty cinematography." - Curran Nault, Artistic Director, Polari](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/539feac5e4b09fc82dfde6ad/1403044761502-88FS1UYIUNH2PKQMJTJT/image-asset.jpeg)
"Haunting [and] artfully crafted." Dennis Harvey, Variety
"Visionary. Made by a true cineaste." - Anderson Le, LAAPFF
"Meticulous mise-en-scene [and] frosty cinematography." - Curran Nault, Artistic Director, Polari
I served as editor on the collectible Kickstarter hardcover book which got me the chance to see this final cut of I Am a Ghost and it is GORGEOUS. The first 30 minutes consists of long single takes that makes you feel like you're in the house with Emily. When the camera starts to move, hold on to your seats because that's when the sound kicks in. And when it hits the fan, you'll be hearing things flying past your head and rumbling under your feet thanks to the sparkling new 5.1 soundtrack that will be soaring out of the Castro's loudspeakers. Unless you have a huge screen at home with a kickass sound system, you probably won't do better than this presentation.
October 29, 2013 - The Castro Theatre, San Francisco - BUY TICKETS
-FL
(from left to right: Diana Tenes, Mark Del Lima, Anna Ishida and H.P. Mendoza)
MARK DEL LIMA: And now it's done. Ersatz Film thanks you from the bottom of its facsimile heart. It's one thing to make a film from nothing more than the creative spirit. It's another thing altogether to get a community to support it, to proselytize, to broadcast. What you see is what you get. This is our means for dissemination. And you carried us. Thank you for tolerating the endless chatter of promotion. We promise to talk about other things. We actually have a lot of other interests and things to talk about. Really! I'm actually thinking of getting back on the piano. And H.P.? Well, tireless H.P. is already planning the next project. Stay tuned.
H.P. MENDOZA: All right, it's my turn to gush. Last night, you all came to the Castro Theatre which pretty much marked the full circle closure of the work we've all done on I Am a Ghost. And it was fantastic, thanks to all of you. The movie took two years to get here from conception to distribution, and in that time you've had to see posts and posts and posts about the film. You donated on Kickstarter, attended the film festival screenings, shared the updates and re-tweeted the tweets. Because you knew that, as far as marketing and publicity goes, we didn't have a machine; we are the machine and you supported us all the way. You showed up to The Castro Theatre in costume. We saw ghosts, disco ghosts, a few Emilies, Catrina skeletons, Devo and even Chun-Li! And you came to the mezzanine party to have a glass of wine with us. We didn't get to see you all, but I hope you know we wanted to. This is what we love to do, and if you love it too, we promise to do it more often. We love you.
H.P.
