I don't call myself an artist. The self-proclaimed "artist" is a modern-day delusion; that title is for others to decide. I see myself more as an accidental agitator. I do not agitate on purpose. My agitating is more like a gut response to being agitated. I am agitated by the soul-crushing mediocrity masquerading as "Art" and produced by any individual, group, organizaton or Society of Spectacle suffering from an endemic of Imagination death. My aim is to agitate the Poetic Imagination, the chief inlet for Soul in the Hypermedia Era.

"Existence itself may be considered an abyss possessed of no meaning. I do
not read this as a pessimistic statement but a declaration of autonomy
for my imagination & will and their most beautiful act of bestowing
meaning upon existence itself." -- Hakim Bey

My journey as a filmmaker began with tragedy in 1992 with the sudden death of my beautiful daughter Zoe. The worst thing that could ever happen to me happened to me. Existential anxiety dissolved. I saw "death" as an illusion, an intellectual symbol for fear, social control and oppression. I saw through the lies of society. I saw eternal cycles of Life. People come and go but Life continues. I saw that Love exists beyond time and space; true love trumps death. Alternating waves of grief and epiphany guided the scripting and production of my first feature, THE ORACLE (1993), about a cynical elderly man whose granddaughter, Ariadne, appears in his dreams as a guide during his final night on earth.

As my own cynicism collapsed, Imagination took flight and ursurped the tyranny of over-intellectualism. This perceptual shift agitated the creation of THE DRIVETIME (1995; with Rob Brezsny) where a federal time-travelling librarian from the year 2023 returns to 1999 inside the dreams of a Seattle video activist who shoots police riots. The injustices of ideological scapegoating got my goat in TRAGOS (2000), a contemporary tragedy following a futuristic urban tribe of technopagans performing their ecstatic rites in Virtual Reality while persecuted by a fundamentalist Christian attourney who sees them as a satanic suicide cult.

"The border between the Real and the Unreal is not fixed,
but just marks the last place where rival gangs of shamans
fought each other to a standstill." -- Robert Anton Wilson

The racial profiling following the 9/11 attacks in NYC outraged the making of HYSTERIA (2002; with Jakob Bokulich), about a Catholic soldier-turned-boxer who naively confuses a drug-induced hallucination for a genuine religious vision with disasterous consequences. The heartbreaking dissolution of my own family, both inherited and created, informed UNDER A SHIPWRECKED MOON (2003), a family saga of a comatose elder haunted by dreams of his first love and the distressed soul of his grandson who enters the spirit realm in search of his shipwrecked father. My feature docufiction, THE GREATER CIRCULATION (2005) tethers the netherworld of ghosts, muses, and dreams of Czech poet Rainer Maria Rilke as he transforms his lament over the death of Paula Modersohn-Becker, a friend and fellow artist into an epic work of literature, "Requiem for a Friend".

The absurdity of the national political climate enraged my dark comedy, THE MIND IS A LIAR AND A WHORE (2007), where a quirky Berkeley household grapples the slippery slopes between actual and perceived threat during an alleged bioterrorist attack in their city. My lost sense of enchantment was restored by making THE INVISIBLE FOREST (2008) wherein a theatre director traverses the internal landscape of his memories and dreams in pursuit of the radical ideas of French Surrealist, Antonin Artaud (also my debut as lead actor in my own film).

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
Philip K. Dick

Completing any feature film project is highly exhilarating and totally exhausting work. Between these crazy-making adventures I return to my paratheatre roots for spiritual and creative sustenance. Paratheatre processes have also inspired a chain of video documents: ARCHAIC COMMUNITY, 1992; CRUX, 1999; ORPHANS OF DELIRIUM, 2004. I also find renewal in crafting shorter works such as INERTIA, 1994; LILY IN LIMBO, and 1996; ROADKILL, 2001. My "LOADED VISIONS" series features short works (4 to 8 min.) using text from some of my favorite poets (Rilke, Neruda, HD, Rimbaud, Plath) as oblique narratives; the poems are treated as stories, never as recitals or "poetry readings". (Some of my videopoem techniques are outlined in Video Deconstruction; Essential Cinema Magazine).

"It's better not to know so much about what things mean or how they might be interpreted or you'll be too afraid to let things keep happening. Psychology destroys the mystery, that potential for a vast, infinite experience."
David Lynch

So far, all my work has been self-funded and/or co-produced with my peers. I don't see the point in applying for corporate grants and waiting for their baited funds when I can start creating. After a film is completed I personally book (rent) one-to-two night stands at west coast arthouses (see "Screenings & Bookings section below); sometimes universities book my films. I send preview screeners to several online film review sites like filmthreat.com, mysticalmovieguide.com and mindjack.com where their critics generously post their reviews. DVDs of my films can be purchased through my website.

"The only Art created by conscious mind is dead Art."
anonymous

With the exception of my shorter works, which I make alone, most of what I do is highly collaborative and would never have happened without the talent and energy of many others. I am forever indebted to my longterm collaborator, the gifted singer, composer & actress Sylvi Alli and the magic her music has brought to my film, video and theatre projects since 1989. I would also be lost without the technical finesse of the talented Chris Odell, my features editor since 2000.

At some point I would like my work to achieve arthouse distribution in the USA and in Europe, alongside increasing exposure in university film programs, or wherever hearts and minds are still open to new ways of seeing. Until then, I will continue making the media I have to make (or burn out trying) while sharing those visions with whoever shows up at the screenings. What is success to me ? Zero compromise. Money ? What I spend on my next project. Fame ? Grease for the publicity machines. Love ? What makes life worth living. Truth ? Everything beyond advertising. God ? Everything beyond that.

truly,
ANTERO ALLI
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