VERTICAL POOL PRODUCTIONS
presents
(2008; 111 min. USA)
NEXT SCREENING
WEDNESDAY OCT. 26th, 7:30pm
Humanist Hall - 390 27th St (& Broadway), Oakland
$5-10. admission. Filmmaker in person.
>>> Watch the Trailer <<<
"Cinema is a drug. If some movies lull us to sleep like tranquilizers
while others jack us up like triple espressos,The Invisible Forest is
a 100% organic, user-friendly hallucinogen." -- Antero Alli, director
A HYPNOGOGIC DRAMA
A theatre troupe camps out in a forest to enact their vision of French Surrealist Antonin Artaud's magic theatre of ghosts, gods, and spirits. During their forest experiment Alex, their director (Antero Alli), is haunted by a reoccurring nightmare where Artaud (Clody Cates) appears and mocks his ambitions. With his sanity pushed to its outer limits, Alex visits a psychologist (Garret Dailey) and undergoes hypnosis to find the source of his disturbance. What follows is a journey through the internal landscape of dreams and memories to a place beyond belief, beyond words, and beyond the mind itself.
Conceived and directed by Antero Alli and featuring the writings of William Shakesepare and Antonin Artaud. Music by Sylvi Alli, Diatonis, Sean Blosl, Andrew Vernon, David Rosenbloom & others.
CAST & CREW, STILLS, REVIEWS, ARTAUD
JAMES L. WAGNER as "Hermes, the Dream Ego" and JESSICA BOCKLER as "Miranda"
“The Invisible Forest” is full of treasures. It is able to depict those elusive mental states which prove so hard to remember or describe when we awaken from dreams. This film incites and dares the viewer to let go of concepts and accept the risky adventure of following the free, unimpeded energies of the body and mind." - from the REVIEW by David Finkelstein, filmthreat.com (4-stars)
CAST, CREW & SCREENING HISTORY, STILLS, MORE REVIEWS
ANTERO ALLI as "Alex"
"The onscreen presence of Alli makes this film particularly special...his ALEX is enigmatic, sardonic, arrogant, insightful, joyful—an unpretentious but still portentous portrait of the sort of irascible, multidimensional artist who is not content to make myths but to provoke the nameless forces behind myth, and to bid them intrude." -- from the REVIEW by Erik Davis, author, "TechGnosis"
NICK WALKER as "Id Savant"
"Forests embody threshold spaces where we encounter the spirits of nature as well as ghosts of the psychic, para-spiritual world. It is here in the forest that Alli’s dreamstory begins and winds itself through a rich tapestry of labyrinthine dreams within dreams that eventually carry us through to the shattering and regenerative conclusion of Alli’s cinematic opus." - from the REVIEW by Cedrus Monte, Jungian Analyst, Zurich Switzerland.
JOJO RAZOR as a "Lunar Muse"
What may be Alli's most delirious picture to watch is also his most difficult story to follow, and at times the narrative seemed to spiral out of control. On the other hand, the spiral takes us places an ordinary, scripted story might avoid, even when the visual effects cease. In particular, the improvised dialogues between Alli and Garret Dailey, as his psychiatrist "Philip K. Brodrique," are naturalistic, funny, frightening ...the best acting I've seen in Alli's oeuvre." -- from the REVIEW by Jesse Walker
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
ANTERO ALLI (b. 11/11/1952) is a Finnish born, West Coast-based underground filmmaker whose feature-length art films have garner critical praise at the prestigious filmthreat.com and screen in rare, limited runs on the west coast arthouse circuit. Alli is also an author of numerous books on "reality-based metaphysics" and the founder/director of ParaTheatrical ReSearch (since 1977), an ongoing exploration of group ritual dynamics that often informs and inspires his films. (click the above image for Antero's I.M.Db profile)
FILMMAKER INTERVIEW
by Juanita Benedicto. April 29, '08.
DIRECTOR'S BLOG
Updated -- 1/25/2010.
VISION STATEMENT
"why i make films"
FILMOGRAPHY
completed works; w/trailers
ANTERO @ I.M.Db
Internet Movie Database
DVD, MUSIC CD, CONTACTS
VERTICAL POOL PRODUCTIONS
PO BOX 10144, Berkeley, CA USA 94709
vox: (510) 464-4640
e-mail the director
MP3 "DYING STAR"
from the CD, A Hundred Birds by Sylvi Alli
as featured in the film, "The Invisible Forest"