Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is a collaboration between Costard and Touchstone Productions and the Dads from the Crypt podcast.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the how not to make a movie podcast. I'm Alan Katz.
As I've detailed on this podcast, part of my story was a two decades long writers block where I convinced myself I had no more stories to tell. Crazy think. During that period, I put my writing to work on other peoples projects. Mostly a very unsatisfying, unrewarding, and frankly, depressing stretch of time. But there were a few bright spots, projects that didnt work out the way I thought they would or hoped they would. But still, there was something redeeming about them. One of those projects introduced me to today's guest, a super talented armenian filmmaker, musician, and all around style maestro named Art Sivada. Though art's never gotten to make a feature film, he's one of those crapspeople who absolutely deserves a shot from somebody. And if his appearing on this podcast gets art any closer to getting that shot, I feel like I accomplished something here. As you'll hear, art comes originally from Armenia and grew up outside of Armenia's capital, Yerevan, when Armenia was still part of the Soviet Union. His dad was a respected artist, still is. And so art grew up in a family where creativity was understood and encouraged.
Speaking of the Yerevan, Art and I came within a whisker of art, making his feature film debut, a little independent political thriller we almost made in Yarrow pod. We had money in the bank, a production team in place, and art was scouting locations in Armenia. And then, as happens, the money balked and everything just fell apart.
Another example of not to make a movie. But that was then and this is now. And one thing you can never do is keep down a really good artist like my friend Art Sivada.
We'll get to the point where you and I intersected in due time. But as I will explain to the audience prior to this moment, I think you have an amazing eye.
I just have a remarkable visual sense.
You were born in 1972 into an artistic family, a town called above it.
Did I pronounce it anywhere near correctly?
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Nailed it. Yeah.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Hot damn.
And that is just outside of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: You know, you didn't move here until the 1990s, so you moved here. You were 18.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: 1516.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: 1516. Okay. So, really, an awful lot of your developmental, who you are comes from that place.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: It does. It does. A lot of culture is part of that place.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: And you are steeped in its culture, as you said, but also its history.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: It is. It's the big heritage that is part of who I am.
And I believe the intersection, the crossroad of cultures that is Armenia itself is what's so unique about the place.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: It is a very long lived culture. It's been around for a couple thousand years.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: It has.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: It, I think, is one of the things, when we first started talking, and I did not know a whole lot about armenian people until we started working on your project together.
And it was.
Oh, it was, it was a revelation.
One of the, we'll come to this. One of the things that was an important part of the story that you wanted to tell was about the armenian genocide in 1915, which I confess before our conversation I knew nothing about, but I should have known something about it because it was a precursor to what happened to my tribe.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: Yes, exactly.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: So excuse me.
And, hey, if you go to Jerusalem, there's an armenian quarter.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: There is, yes.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: In Jerusalem. Well, there's a reason for that.
And so, yeah, there's an interesting intermingling of our two groups and a history both outsiders to the larger group and not treated terribly well as a result.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: True. That's true. So the intelligent point is always a problematic kind as well. It's not just an interesting kind, but it's also a problematic kind. So, yeah, we do have that similarity in that regard.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: So one of the things that, as I began to know you, was part of the history that is really important to, not just to you, but to armenian people is what happened in 1915.
Yes, it is a seminal event.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: It's a breaking point, I think, for humanity in general, because the second world war was part of that initiation, that was armenian genocide. And as Hitler said, who remembers the Armenians? So let's do the same thing to the Jews.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: And it worked quite well with the Armenians. To this day in most of the world, it's still hard to get that recognized. As for the event, the significant event that it was.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Yes. And thankfully to Biden's administration, it got accepted finally. He did say the word genocide.
Much like everything in this world, everything is politicized. The relationship between Turkey and Russia wasn't working out for the Americans. So that was a great card to play. And Biden did it well.
Yes. And in general, I think it's such an important thing to recognize. And my concept, and then obviously your concept was a great approach to the story itself because I always thought of being an Armenian didn't mean being a victim. And my understanding was always to come from a certain position that was dignified, that was you know, maybe even a bit powerful. You know, we understood our fall and we accepted it, and we became stronger with that.
So, yeah, I think.
And what you brought to the project was that the most brilliant thing that I keep talking about constantly is the way that you assembled it. That's the way that you actually put the whole Rubik's cube together is what was amazing to me.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: You know, that's just having spent a professional career as a storyteller within that particular medium, here's what you got to do to set it up in order to pay it off.
More that than anything else, just, hey, I'm not qualified to do anything else other than figure out how to tell a story.
So you grew up in a family. Like I said, that was incredibly artistic. Your father?
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Yes, my father is a painter.
He's pretty famous in the post soviet region, and obviously he's back in Armenia right now where he resides, and he has his own school for over 50 years. So education has always been part of who he is. And obviously, he taught us the best ways to see arts and visuals and sound as well.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: What is your father's name?
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Samuel Sabata.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: And one can find Samuel Savada's work.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Anywhere on social platforms at Sivada Am, which is his website.
And, you know, cool, cool. Close your head. I love what he did with us. What he introduced to us was the. The power of color, but also the smell of the oil paint and also the way to. He always said, you do not put the color on the canvas. You apply it. So the difference between a good painter and a bad painter is to be able to apply it and not to be able to see the brushstrokes unless it's some sort of a, you know, intentional thing. And I think that brought me to filmmaking. And when we talk about the visuals, there is always the same concept. In my opinion, you apply it. You don't. You don't necessarily just shoot a specific scene. It's always, you know, it has a texture, it has a feel. It has sort of a metaphysics to it.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Let's go back a step before you get to film school, before you even think about any of that, you were brought up by a father who was an artist, who. All right, I was brought up by a father who was a surgeon. And the thought of me being an artist or a filmmaker or a writer was utterly foreign.
And he had no idea how to mentor, supportive, went to the plays that I acted in, but no idea how to nurture this particular spark inside of me.
I would hope that you didn't have that you didn't have that problem.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: I didn't. And the cool part about his generation, my father's generation, was that they had a bit of a protest in them against the soviet reality. So the understanding of freedom, beatles, and all those great elements that come with. With the pallet were already there. So he wanted something that he couldnt do for himself. He wanted that for his own kids. And the overall understanding that the Soviet Union was about to collapse. And he felt that coming prior to it happening. And he brought us to us ultimately, because he wanted us to be a bit more democratic. He always thought that that was the way to be in the family or in relationship with others. And in this regard, we always separated from the overall landscape and blueprint of what was Soviet Armenia back at the day.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: That's right. So you grew up in the Soviet.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Union until the age of 1560.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. But the Soviet Union, you grew up in a country that doesn't exist anymore?
[00:13:32] Speaker B: In essence, yes.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: What was now how sovietized was Armenia?
[00:13:47] Speaker B: It was very sovietized, but also the fact that a lot of the major soviet scientists and artists were Armenians. And much like your tribe, mine has a lot to say and to do in science and technology, give or take in arts.
A lot of these people were part of the Kremlin and the blueprint. What was the soviet reality? So I think we were still protestants deep inside, just waiting as sleeping cells, waiting to wake up again. And the 1988 earthquake in Armenia sort of initiated that. And it actually began from that little small town of Abovian that you mentioned. The collapse of Soviet Union actually has started from the town that I grew up in.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: How do you mean?
[00:14:46] Speaker B: One thing led to another.
What happened is that there was a chemical factory in our town, and the protests began against the factory to dissolve it, to close it down. But because the factory was part of a bigger sort of a web of factories, a lot of people did not know what they made in those factories because that would unite with a different part somewhere else in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan or God knows what. So closing down or shutting down the factory was impossible, basically. And then one thing led to another. A lot of people got on the streets, started protesting, and then it became politicized, and it took its own sort of embodiment of rebellion and everything else that just went. And then it became bigger. It became the Armenia and then the rest of the republic as well. And I think Gorbachev was already working towards dismantling the soviet reality, for which I truly thank him. Immensely, though, he's definitely underrated nowadays, as I see a lot of. Of Russians trying to go back to that reality and even missing those days.
The funniest part about all that, Alan, just to give you a brief explanation to me as an Armenian living in the US, is when I see an Armenian in Glendale, in crater, Los Angeles, walking around the streets with Stalin's photo in his pocket.
And it's just sometimes I don't understand who brings these people here. And that's why I left, and that's what I didn't want to be part of. And every time I see or hear somebody talking like that, I always curse the person that gave them the green card, because, you know, I don't mind people coming or going. It's. It's just that the mental state that you come to this country with, you.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Your family did not bring that particular state of mind. You.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: No, exactly.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: That must have been having grown up in a sovietized place like Armenia at the time.
And where did, where did, what part of America did you land in?
[00:17:01] Speaker B: We came to Los Angeles right away.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: This is. So you came from the Soviet Union to Los Angeles at the age of 1516.
Was that a shock to your system?
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Well, only a shock in regards to the bigger family that we missed. And we were always together, you know, the overall family, and that's the only thing we missed. And then as we witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and whatever happened already from here, because we came in 1990 and Soviet collapsed in 1992.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: But the culture. But, but the culture here was so incredibly different. I mean, centered on completely different things. And. And you're a 15 year old kidde.
You know, now, what part of western culture was available to you before you immigrated here?
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Well, everything that you would consider classics was available because, you know, we would kill to find the next lp by Beatles, by rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin and all those great things that we called America, obviously not understanding what the lifestyle of it is, but, you know, Coca Cola and everything being part of the.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: But music was especially important to you.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it was. It was a big deal because freedom always came through those. Through those channels, and we witnessed some of the stuff that was uniquely different from everything else.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: You are, in addition to all the remarkable list of talents and skill sets that you possess, you are also a musician. And your music is lovely. We will link to it on our website.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: But music, you went from a place where you had to, I imagine, kind of hunt and peck to find the stuff you wanted to. Hey, it's all here by the truckload.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, I was twelve years old when I suffered a major pneumonia, and I was about to die as a kid, and I was dreaming of this synthesizer by a company, company called Korg. I don't even know if a company exists anymore, but it was a japanese company that made musical synthesizers. And there was this flute sound, a specific flute sound that had the human breathing with it. I would kill for something like that. As a kid. It did not exist. We just dreamt of it. It was like another planet that had all that stuff. And at some point, I thought I was gonna die as a kid because, you know, pneumonia was a big deal back in the day, and I made one from a cardboard box just to. Just to imagine that it was the real thing and to sit down and play on it, you know? So, I mean, I believe that longing is such an important element of having, and it's always one that leads to the other. And as an adult that I grew up, and I'm 52 now, I realized that the process and the enjoyment is the longing itself, not the end game, not the outcome. So now I try to prolong that as much as possible. And, yes, music was part of that. So the american music, the american blueprint, the genes and everything else that, you know, part of that. This world was very, very much interesting to us. You know, we wanted to sample that. I think a lot of people, if they had the opportunity to sample it, I don't think there would be a lot of immigrants and refugees nowadays in the world. You know, if the borders were open, if people would be able to come and go and travel and see and sample one another. I think it would definitely be a better world without so much relocation, without Red Cross camps and everything else. That is the reality of the world nowadays. And to see Putin going back towards the old ways of doing things and closing the borders down, it's absolutely terrible. I think it's definitely going to send them back to stone Age.
Deservingly for the politicians in Russia, but not deservingly for the people as they struggle, you know, within the. Within the realm of itself.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: So you were here, and one of the things that you eventually found your way into was filmmaking.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: Yes. What I came to with understanding, very good understanding of visual aesthetics through my father. Painting and photography, you know, we developed as kids. I'm sure you probably were that generation. Well, you know, you actually did actually.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Work in a dark room.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: There you go.
And, you know, and then my experience in music, I graduated the violin courses in Armenia so film became like an embodiment of music and visual aesthetics. And then I came to it, basically, I didn't dream of making films because it would just. It wasn't even possible to imagine that there was such thing to be able to do that just for you to understand what soviet reality was in regards to filmmaking. If they shot a film on 35 in Armenia, somebody had to get into the train with all that footage, take the train to Moscow to develop it. And if by chance or by some accident, they were to open the, you know, the canister, the film would burn itself completely. So, you know, a key thinking about filmmaking is just.
It wasn't even anything we could dream of. Yeah, I came to that, definitely. But what I wanted to make sure to explain is it was an embodiment of music and visual aesthetics.
What I see missing with kids nowadays is that, you know, it's always one or the other. I see a lot of people making video clips, and I do hear the sense of that. They have good hearing. They can hear the music. So the way that they edit and assemble it, it's beautiful, but it lacks the visuals a lot of the times. And it's not done with a certain, you know, a certain panaj, if you know what I mean. And it's always one or the other. And I believe, in my case, it's great that I came to it with. With music and painting as well, composition.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: And really, there's a. There's a shot at the beginning of Mikoshd. The opening shot of Mikosh is fantastic.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: And it's a slow, slowly moving shot looking up the side of the building and about halfway through it. Hey, if you find yourself thinking, where the fuck is this going?
Okay, stay with it. Stay with it. And we finally come to a window. Just as a shoe crashes through it.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: It shatters the glass and comes into the home.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: And suddenly we're on the other side of the glass. Now we're inside the room, but there's such a lovely aesthetic to it and a patience.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Thank you, Ellen.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: There's also. There's a dreaminess to it. There's something otherworldly about your stuff.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Alan. Thank you for. It means a lot to me, coming from you.
What I find very interesting is when people watch my films, they talk about styles being very close to Antonioni, to Fellini, this guy, that guy. The funniest part about it all is that I swear that I hadn't seen any of those films when I.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: That was the question. That's just been sitting there. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As you took yourself into moviemaking, your aesthetic was.
Didn't necessarily come from other movies. It came from, not at the time.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: But definitely when people started bringing it up, I really wanted to see who Antonioni was or who Fellini was. So I obviously dug into it.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: So you had to circle back to see what had inspired you, supposedly.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah. It's interesting because, you know, the funniest and the greatest thing that I discovered is that every country that you visit and you put your camera down and start shooting, something happens to the ambience, the light and the sounds, and even the frame rate changes based on where you are. I'm sure as a filmmaker, you can relate to the final outcome of the footage that comes, that you realize that as a person, are you an instrument that it manifests itself through? And I always find that the elements of deja vu being part of the filmmaking process, you know, as we. As we go through towns or villages trying to find the next great locations, it seems as if it finds us instead of we find it. I always see that as an important element in everything that I do, whether film or not. And I believe it's an important thing to hear that, to feel that and attach to the cast this way. It's such an important metaphysics behind it. It's not explainable.
A lot of people talk about finances in film. A lot of people talk about if we had the money, we would have done something amazing. And I've seen a lot of people, a lot of them actually, with tons of money making crap. I'm sure you've seen it, too. And I've seen great films come out of $50,000 budgets and $100,000 budgets, which I didn't expect.
I always talk about the cinema in Iran and Persia, and these people are making 50, $60,000 feature films, obviously, the film industry.
And, you know, it isn't something that is like in the US, so it costs less, obviously, but it's the subject matter that is important. The way that it's presented, it's simple things. And ultimately you discover that, you know, the author goes and gets an Oscar for it and you realize it's never about the funding and it's not never about, you know, the technicality of it. Because I hear a lot of filmmakers talking about this camera, that lens, this equipment, and, you know, and it's totally irrelevant, in my opinion. The most important thing is to feel, to connect, to. To be part of the deja vu that I constantly talk about. You know, my car broke down in front of the house, so we had to walk in to ask for gas from one of the tenants in the villages.
And we realized this is the location we were looking for, you know, but the car broke down right in front of the house, is what I mean. And I let that play out. It's such an important thing because a lot of scenes I add because of the actor that comes in and then the ambience starts speaking for itself and you're like, you know, action. You know, you don't even tell them, you just press the rack. Press the goddamn wreck. This is, this is a finder shot, you know, roll, roll, roll. Yeah. So, yeah, it's an interesting process. Of course.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: I absolutely appreciate your desire to get back in, to get there, to take what you have and find the biggest possible audience for it. I absolutely appreciate that. And the biggest possible audience should find you too.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: Hopefully. Hopefully. Of course, what I wanted to say is that somehow, because of the soviet filmmaking reality, people wrote their scripts. They produced, they directed, they sometimes even act in their own films, which is okay. But one thing I realized, and this was after I met you actually in person and you delivered the very first script that we were working on, is when I realized that, you know what? It's a teamwork. You can never be the solo player because once you monopolize the project is when everything goes wrong. Because the energy of the project becomes horribly bad. And it's just the energy, it's because a lot of people tell me that they love being part of my projects is because I'm humble guy. You know, ego was a big part of who I was back in the day. Obviously, my first shortcut to the Cannes Film Festival and, you know, I started walking around with, with a scarf on my face being this Antonio or, you.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Know, what, what was that of yours that got nominated with that got, that ended up in cons?
[00:30:46] Speaker B: It actually went into the official selection. Mikosh was the film that got into.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: It was Mikosh. Oh, and, and it's not hard to imagine why. It's, it's, it's a, it's a delightful little piece and it's great looking and it's lyrical and poetic.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: I was very much influenced by Para Janov's work, who is one of the armenian filmmakers that is an icon nowadays. And the way that he used objects and the way that he portrayed certain things that were very painting like. And obviously, my father being a painter and the influence of color. The reason that I chose the very first project would be about a shoe. Mikosh actually means a single shoe. Mikosh.
And it's basically looking for its second pair in life. It's just going through this hands and feet of various people.
But nobody needs a single shoe, obviously. So they just throw it away or it becomes part of a painting.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: The movie is the story of a single shoe as it goes from person to person.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: And ultimately it ends up finding a one legged man that doesnt need a second shoe. He just needs a single shoe. So they find each other, in a way, it represents Armenia within its realm of politics. We dont have oil, we dont have all those goodies that make countries powerful. The only thing we can monetize on is our culture, is who we are.
As I see a lot of settlers becoming countries, Armenians are becoming settlers is what's affecting me tremendously as we live all over the world right now, which is a very powerful thing to have. I mean, diasporas usually make Armenia pretty strong. But on the other hand, you see countries that did not exist 100 years ago becoming countries. When settlers from King is Khan came and became countries like Turkey and Azerbaijan.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: When you went, got, when you got into filmmaking, you went back to our media to make your movies?
[00:33:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: Why did you do that?
[00:33:14] Speaker B: Well, for financial reasons, but also for cultural reasons.
A lot of people talk about american films being something easy to make, and I learned it the hard way.
What Armenia gives you is a background of texture that is already 1000 year old, whether it's churches, walls. The very first shot in Mekosh, you don't have to spend money to gain that specific texture in your film. And I was craving that specific european look. It seemed to have a certain value for me because I always realized that doing an american film within an actual clean cut office building on a certain chair in front of a computer, you know, this is required a bit more intelligence for the story to be, you know, in words and descriptive and actually go someplace without the overall visual aesthetics, which is much harder to achieve, in my opinion, because if the blueprint is already beautiful, the background is great. You know, and I always talk about this, a lot of people that make religious films, I always say, you know, nail somebody to a cross and guess what? You already have a fantastic shot. I mean, within the 2000 year of Christianity, it's been painted and presented in so many ways that, you know, you portray that within a shot. It's already a storytelling. But that's not a good way of doing movies.
Your mic is off, I think.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Good thing too. I didn't want to interrupt you there. No, it's. It's organically dramatic.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah, but the hardest thing is to be dramatic with your story, with your words, with your actual storytelling, and that's harder. So when people say, well, you know what? Hollywood has the money. Hollywood has the great actors. And, you know, that's why they deliver what they deliver. I say, try that. Try that. Actually put a camera in an office and shoot dialogue between two people and try to make me sit there and watch this for over two minutes without being bored. That is great filmmaking, in my opinion. So Hollywood is definitely underrated in that regard. And that's how I came to an american filmmaking experience that I wanted to be part of because as I did experience the european film. Look, the sentiment. But I also got tired of presenting poverty. The overall element of sadness and poverty and poor people and their lifestyles is something that is good, but it's not beneficial. It just doesn't go anywhere. I wanted to talk about not why, but how. The most important question that I think that changed and flipped in is not to ask the question why? Why did God do this to us? Why did God, do you know why? Genocide. But how do we go forward from here? How do we become better? How do we shift towards intelligence and forget about, you know, forget about superstitions and all that crap that makes people fear one another. The funniest thing about Armenians is because of the genocide, people started building their homes attached to one another. It's a psychological thing. So basically, when you were building a home, you would build it attached to your neighbor's home. Not a bit far from it, but a touch to it. So that if the Turk came, one would tell the other. They would protect each other. But this becomes a bigger embodiment, sort of a fear of psychological weaknesses. And I think the understanding of doing Gen X and you being part of it and giving me all the palates that you did with what can be done with it, technically even, is what opened up my eyes to american cinematography.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: So the way that you and I form this creative partnership or this patch of time I was in the midst of a 20 year deepening depression, as I've described in a writer's block. I didn't know I was in. I could. I couldn't generate anything of my own.
I thought I was out of stories to tell. And so I was perfect, man. Whatever writing I could do, I would put it at someone else's disposal. And I think I found you. You put up an ad on Craigslist.
That's how bad things were. I was looking for work, writing work on Craig's list. Oh, my God. Oh, those were not the days.
Holy cow. But project was interesting because I think you talked about the armenian genocide, and I think I did some quick research and, like, wait, whoa.
And we met, and at the time, I think you had an investor who. And there was going to be money, but, you know, as a lot of things happen and the money wasn't there, but I said I would stay with the project and we'd be 50 50 partners because the project was so interesting, because the subject was interesting, and I enjoyed working with you.
And I think the way that we were trying to bring the genocide shadow into the present day and, and in a way, find a little piece of.
There's no way to ever make up for it, but a little teeny piece of payback, a teeny piece of justice, teeny tiny, whatever you can get.
So, yeah, to try to construct that story was.
Was an interesting puzzle.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: It definitely became an interesting puzzle because of you.
What can I say? The concept of it was extremely important to me to do it differently because there were some attempts by great filmmakers like atomic Guian that did approach the subject matter. But I always found, though he is an amazing filmmaker, he's definitely one of my favorite directors of all time.
I didn't think that his film did the subject matter justice. And, you know, I wanted for it to be an entertaining film for greater masses, not an independent film by an author that would see lesser theater openings. And the way that I approached it was because the 2007 eight crisis, the financial crisis, was coming to. Everybody hated the goddamn banks, and everybody wanted to see an anti bank film. In a way, people were losing their homes in the US. We all remember the recession, and it seems such an interesting subject matter to approach because the banks who funded the armenian genocide ultimately funded the jewish Holocaust as well.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: Deutsche bank had played a part in both.
What I don't. Yeah. What seemed to have happened during the First World War was that as it was the first mechanized war, there was a need for oil.
And Germany wanted to create a rail line that would connect Baghdad from Baghdad to Berlin. And that rail line flowed through Turkey, where an awful lot of the armenian population lived. And so suddenly they were in the way and had to be moved out of the way. So it seems.
[00:41:53] Speaker B: Yes. And unfortunately, part of the Young Turks movement were a lot of european Turks that came back home and try to implement certain ideologies. In their opinion, that anti fundamentalist movement that they were starting ultimately ataturk ended up changing their letters to latin letters. They were trying heavily to europeanize their culture and become part of the european union is something that they've been craving for so long. Yet Europe has said, let's start, you know, recognizing your, your, you know, you have to see your own demons in the past and basically, um, find the skeleton. And like you said in genics, you know, you said, one of the lines that just blew me, uh, two pieces, was the. The. That says, um, uh, I was the one holding the light and you were the schmuck. No.
[00:42:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it wasn't that good a line.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: No, no, it was amazing.
I was the one who delivered.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: It didn't roll trippingly off your tongue, art?
[00:43:06] Speaker B: No, no, no. But I mean, you know, it's a little.
But I was the one and you were the schmuck holding the flashlight while I did the digging. Finding the bodies is what you meant.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:43:20] Speaker B: I mean, the overall understanding of the genocide was extremely important for me for just only one reason.
The NATO bases in Turkey right now are actually on the armenian grounds that used to be part of Armenia. So when they deported most of them and obviously killed over 1 million Armenians, about ten years later, NATO forces moved in, obviously, and that became part of the american basis in Turkey.
So the conflict is not only with the turkish agricultural bank, but also the Deutsche bank, but also with the american government that is putting its own basis right where there's a conflict territory up until this day. So if we're talking about financial retribution, I think it's just in trillions ultimately at this point. And why would I want to talk about the money when it's more of a, you know, more of a mental recognition? That's what Armenians have been craving, is that it's a weak country. It needs to become stronger. It needs to be an ally to United States. It needs to become stronger. And finances are a big part of it.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: If. Well, okay, you could look at it this way.
If all the possessions and the wealth that had been acquired as of 2015 by the armenian people living in Turkey, if that had not been wiped out and had been allowed to grow, then, hey, if they had family back in Armenia and they were sending money to or, you know, that changes that equation completely. And it's no longer a poor country.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: It's no longer a poor country because as a recipient of what is the beneficiary that would supposed to get the outcome of the armenian genocide finances, then if the beneficiary doesn't exist, then the country is the beneficiary. And if we're talking about trillions of dollars, obviously it's a great opportunity to tell a story about the funding of the genocide, talk about the financial retribution. And I think Gen X was.
I mean, the concept of it was for that reason, for me, why it was so important to tell.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Part of the story that you wanted to tell was we were connecting. The money that one of the characters was trying to get or get back was part of remembering this correctly. Inheritance connected to a very well known armenian composer of religious music just went up on his name.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Khomeini comitas.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: Comitas. That's right. Khomeini comitas. Yes, that's right.
Was about connecting to that piece of. Yeah, the comitas. A piece of comitas was here in the present, in this inheritance.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: And he is the embodiment, as Armenians, when we put a everything that is armenian genocide onto one person's shoulders, it is comitas that we see it as the embodiment. As he went mad later at the Paris monastery and obviously was hospitalized, and he was captured for over 20 years, I believe, before he died. So ultimately, he went mad and he couldn't digest what he saw, you know, through the genocide.
[00:47:07] Speaker A: So the genocide. The genocide drove him mad.
[00:47:11] Speaker B: Exactly. And I think telling his story and telling a winning story, not a losing story, was something extremely important to me because, you know, his.
His descendants and people in Fresno, California, were another generation of Armenians that ultimately, you know, decided to tell this story. That's why I think that it was extremely important. I'm actually thinking right now of restarting the project because I think it needs to be done organically. And I think the times are coming back again that this could become tangible as a story once more.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: Someone should definitely make that movie.
[00:48:00] Speaker B: Someone should, yes.
[00:48:05] Speaker A: After that, man. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.
You. In addition to movie making and music that we've talked about, you have a number of other businesses, artistic. The Savada. Is this a Vada company?
[00:48:25] Speaker B: Yes. It's a fashion brand that develops a lot of goodies for not only fashion, but also technology products that we make.
I love to experiment, and if it's not the film, then it's the design. If it's not the design, then it's the music.
I always jump from one place to another because I was early in us, I realized you can't just be doing one thing and just talk about one thing for too long.
I had a lot of friends that were already 60, 65 that were still talking about Grammy awards and Oscars from their garages and home, still talking about possibilities. I always felt bad for them because the sheep had sailed already, but they weren't realizing that they were still keeping the dream alive.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: And I always told myself, it's a big dream.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: It is. And I always told myself, be pragmatic, man, be pragmatic. Put certain obstacles in front of you. By the age of 25, if you do well in music, and if you have recording contracts, and if you have this and that, and if it's, you know, putting bread on the table, then great, stick with it. No, shift. You know, it's like driving a stick shift car and just keeping it on the second gear. At some point, the car starts screaming, you gotta shift, shift, man. So I always do this with my craft. If one thing starts swamping, as when I shift to an open sea.
[00:50:11] Speaker A: You do beauty products?
[00:50:14] Speaker B: Beauty products, yes. Eyewear, watches, bags.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: Bags.
[00:50:21] Speaker B: Bags. A lot of. A lot of cool stuff. Yes.
I actually run two conglomerates. One of them is construct, which is a technology company, and we are developing a very interesting AI product right now, which I think would be very beneficial for humanity. But I don't want to overwhelm you with too much of, you know, jumping from one place to another.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: Thank you much, much appreciated. You've always had a fascination with watches.
[00:50:50] Speaker B: It seems, I guess, and it's, I guess, my fight with death, you know, I think I always connected to my own inner fight with death, I guess because coming from a soviet reality, you know, we were not connected to religion at all. You know, the totalitarian state did not allow us. So I always think that the questions weren't answered in time. And understanding that there's limited, that there is an end to everything that has a beginning has an end, as why I constantly seek interest in time. It's such an important thing in filmmaking as well. I see Chris Nolan talking about a lot about time and the way that he sometimes shifts from one dimension to another. Yeah, that's the.
It's a cultural thing, I believe. You know, old nations have that certain element of being too tired, you know, too tired. We're just too tired. We've been here too long. You know what I mean?
[00:51:55] Speaker A: Indeed.
What, so obviously you still want to make Gen X.
I do, yes.
[00:52:05] Speaker B: Whether it's directing or not, because I think the ambitions as an entity, as an, you know, as an artist, are gone. I'm very happy to say that I'm in a better place because of being more humble. And, you know, my kids made me humble as well.
[00:52:22] Speaker A: Kids will do that, won't they? Yeah.
[00:52:24] Speaker B: My ego is completely dead. And my wife was brilliant in that regard. You know, my office had a lot of winning festival trophies and a lot of stuff and memorabilia from the previous films. One day she said, man, just dump it all away. Dump it into trash. Let it go, you know, clean slate. Just start fresh. And I did exactly that because I realized I was becoming too fond of myself and too proud of all those achievements. And I just looked at it from space. I looked at it from a couple of million miles away, and I realized how small and how pointless all that was. So, yeah, I mean, every time, every single day, I start from a clean slate.
But I absolutely admire people that I work with. I am extremely influenced by people like you, Alan. And I am very, very much thankful for you being part of my life.
[00:53:20] Speaker A: You are. You are too kind, art, you know, the fact that we're still having this conversation all these years later, because I remember when we started working on Gen X, the goal was to try to get it done before the 100 year anniversary of the genocide.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: That was 2015, and we're 24.
[00:53:40] Speaker A: Yeah, so that was. Yeah, we were trying to get that done before 2015. So, man, we've been. We've been having this conversation for a while now.
[00:53:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a tough.
[00:53:56] Speaker A: I hope we go on having this conversation.
[00:54:01] Speaker B: I hope so. It's definitely an important process to be part of.
I hate days that are mundane. I hate days that are not interesting. I always find something to do, just not to be bored. And I think ultimately, culture and arts are all about trying not to be bored, to live an interesting life, to experiment, to sample. And I think the way that you smoothly shift from filmmaking to podcasts and then writing scripts and this and that, I think it just makes you so much more powerful as an entity. And being able to shift from one thing to another so effortlessly is what's very unique about my generation. And I think your generation as well.
[00:54:50] Speaker A: I would call it a survival skill.
[00:54:53] Speaker B: Yes, you're right.
[00:54:54] Speaker A: Keep as many plates going as you can. Kids, some really good advice from Uncle Al and Uncle Art.
I thank you so much for sitting in today.
[00:55:08] Speaker B: My pleasure, Alan.
[00:55:09] Speaker A: It's been a pleasure. And, yeah, hey, we'll link you all to art's terrific film work and his music and also all the other creative stuff he does, all the products that he makes.
[00:55:21] Speaker B: And really thank you.
[00:55:26] Speaker A: Thank you again.
[00:55:27] Speaker B: Good luck with the podcast.
[00:55:29] Speaker A: Thank you. And thank you, everyone, as always.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: We'll see you next time.
[00:55:33] Speaker A: The how not to the Megamovie podcast is executive produced by me, Alan Katz, by Gil Adler, and by Jason Stein. Our artwork was done by the amazing Jody Webster and Jason. Jody, along with Mando, are all the hosts of the fun and informative dads from the Crypt podcast. Follow them for what my old pal the crypt keeper would have called terrific crypt content.
