All films are available
for
free viewing
by
clicking
the ---> viewing link in
each
movie
section below.
Due to the high compression of online video transfers,
my films
made before 2013
may look
and sound better on computer
screens
with
headphones
than
on larger
smart TV screens.
Higher
resolution
DVDs
of most of these movies are
available by clicking this.
NOTE: If you'd like to share your responses to any of these films
I'd love to read them: verticalsource@gmail.com - thanks! - Antero
~ IMAGES BELOW LINK TO PRODUCTION DETAILS ~
"TRACER" (September 20th, 2022 premiere)
"TRACER" (2022; 93 min.) A Psi-Fi Noir Suspense. After seven years of world travel, Erik returns home
to reunite with his family. He first visits
his
ex-girlfriend Polly with
high hopes
of
rekindling their love but Polly has changed.
She now
channels
an ancestor
in her
Oracle vlog as a mission to
expose
the
corruptions
of
Patriarchy. When Erik visits
his
father Leo on his sailboat,
boyhood fantasies of his super-hero dad are
tested
as Leo slowly shares
his dark
and perilous past. Erik finally sets out to
meet
his
estranged mother Corinna,
who
he hadn’t
seen
in
fifteen
years.
Meanwhile
a tracer,
a psychic hitman
in the
Russian
mafia, doses on the new designer drug C-9 to amplify
his
remote
viewing skills for
locating his
targets. TRACER is a cat and mouse yarn unravelling through a maze of underworld
drug culture,
quantum nonlocality, and a fractured family trying
to pick up the pieces. Cinematography, editing, screenplay, and direction by Antero. Click images for production details.
Public Premiere: Tuesday Sept. 20, 2022 at 7:30pm
Clinton Street Theater, Portland OR. Actors & filmmaker in person.
$10 (benefit for the Clinton St. Theater)
Click this to purchase advance tickets
---> Viewing link posted here shortly after 9/20/22.
TRAILER#1
"THE ALCHEMY OF SULPHUR" (2021; 107 min.) A Psychological Romance. Hope is writing a short story for ArtLit magazine. When her boyfriend relationship unravels, she attempts to escape heartbreak by writing herself
into
her story
as
a character
who falls in love with Phineas, the
story's
central character. As her story develops, Hope's romantic literary projections begin to mysteriously trigger a series of real world encounters catalyzing her spiritual awakening. THE ALCHEMY OF SULPHUR explores the creative writing process as an insurrection
of the
Poetic
Imagination poised at the crossroads between Life and Art. Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Cinematography, editing, screenplay, and direction by Antero. Click images for production details.
The rarefied world of Alli’s characters points to a more
substantial
reality than the empty-image limbo
the
masses
inhabit. Alli’s vision
typically reaches beyond materiality to
a
timeless,
unrestricted zone
forever on hand to inspire those
of us
out of
step with, or awake
to more than, the zeitgeist. - Observer of Times, Australia
"THE VANISHING FIELD" (2020)
"THE VANISHING FIELD" (2020; 72 min.) A Monastic Drama. Disenchanted with the corruption of society, vlogger Jakob X joins a Zen monastery where he has a spontaneous but disturbing
out
of
body experience. Intrigued, he rebels against traditional Zen meditation practice
to
pursue
the more esoteric
dimension of astral travel where he
discovers
bizarre
new
worlds that shake the
very ground of his being. Filmed almost entirely at the Great Vow Zen monastery in Oregon, THE VANISHING FIELD was mostly improvised on site with the monks playing themselves. Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Story by Antero. Cinematography, editing, and direction by Antero. Click either image for production details.
"Alli has the sense and the courage to engage directly with
the reality
of life
in a monastery. It is his exceptional accomplishment to make
this adventure
riveting and suspenseful without relying on a convoluted
plot. “The Vanishing
Field” is a poetic investigation of very real
experience, not a science fiction
fantasy. It is also a gem of a
motion picture and an astonishingly original
masterpiece."
- Charles Kruger for Flickstorm, San Francisco
"OUT OF THE WOODS" (2015/recut in 2021; 87 min. USA) An Uncommon Love Story. Sharing his life story with a documentary filmmaker, a former professional mentalist confides how he temporarily died after a terrible accident and was reborn with an uncanny talent for reading minds. What he failed to mention was how an imaginary friend from his childhood, a mischievous feminine entity, brought him back to life by inhabiting and animating his body. OUT OF THE WOODS follows one man’s journey down the rabbit hole of haunted dreams and childhood memories to find his one true love. Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Edited with Chris Odell. Cinematography, screenplay, and direction by Antero. Click images for production details.
“Out of the Woods” carries the virtues of Alli’s canon: handsome
cinematography
(by the filmmaker), a screenplay that is not afraid
to take the viewer into difficult
intellectual terrain and devious flashes
of dry humor. Sylvi Alli, the filmmaker’s
collaborator, is here as the
elusive dream entity and as a creative force on the haunting soundtrack".
- Phil Hall for Cinema Crazed, NYC NY
THE TRAILER
Filmmaker Vision Statement
"THE BOOK OF JANE" (2013; 117 min.) An Urban Feminist Fable. Alice, a Professor of Comparative Religion, is writing a book on pre-Hellenic goddess mythologies. One day she meets Jane, an enigmatic older woman who roams the university campus, sleeps under a bridge, and rattles Alice with her disturbing insights. THE BOOK OF JANE is a story of three fiercely feminist women attempting to embody the values of an ancient culture but at a cost none of them expected. Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Edited with Chris Odell. Cinematography, screenplay, and direction by Antero. Click images for production details.
"The concepts raised in “The Book of Jane” are profound
and
often
complex, and Alli’s screenplay is rich with dialogue
that
clearly requires
a great deal of concentration to absorb
the
many
points being raised.
This film is also
one
of
Alli’s
crowning achievements."
- filmthreat.com (5 stars)
EXCERPT #1
EXCERPT #2
"The Making of Jane"
"FLAMINGOS" (2012; 90 min.) An Outlaw Romance Noir. Twin sisters Beatrice and Zoe are in love with Ray, a bank robbing junkie obsessed with apocalyptic visions. Though Beatrice and Ray are married, Ray absconds with free spirited Zoe after a bank heist to the Flamingo motel where they plot their future together. FLAMINGOS is a heady cocktail chaser of amour fou, metaphysical mayhem and karmic retribution. Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Edited with Chris Odell. Cinematography, screenplay, and direction by Antero. Click images for production details.
"FLAMINGOS is thoroughly remarkable in the way it packs
dense,
engaging layers
of honest emotional and spiritual
musings in an
extremely constricting framework.
Sometimes
the most intense
spiritual
journeys happen when one has
nowhere to go."
Mike Everleth, Underground Film Journal, Los Angeles
"TO DREAM OF FALLING UPWARDS" (2011/recut 2021; 2 hours) A Zany Occult Thriller. The elder Magus of an occult order is on his deathbed when his estranged biological son fraudulently inherits his temple. Jack Mason, the rightful heir, is outraged, plots revenge and soon enters an underworld of professional psychopaths, desert brujas, and a twist of fate he never saw coming. TO DREAM OF FALLING UPWARDS is a harrowing and hilarious collision between the contrary worlds of urban and rural sorcery wrapped in a murder mystery. Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Edited with Chris Odell. Cinematography, screenplay, and direction by Antero. Click above images for production details.
"The complex, expertly constructed story involves a struggle
for succession,
a murder,
and a demonic possession. The twists
of the story kept me
glued
to the screen through
several viewings.
Absolutely riveting, the cinematography
is gorgeous,
the film's
great
depth and power will keep you thinking for a very
long time."
- David Finkelstein for filmthreat.com (4 stars out of 5), NYC, NY
THE OPENING SCENE (3 min.)
Nudity, sexual situations, drug use.
"THE INVISIBLE FOREST" (2008; 111 min.) A Hypnogogic Experimental Drama. Alex, an experimental theatre director (Antero Alli), brings his troupe into a forest to rehearse his vision of French Surrealist Antonin Artaud's magic theatre of ghosts, gods, and demons. In the woods, he is haunted by series of disturbing dreams featuring Artaud as a wild woman. With his sanity pushed to its limits, Alex visits a psychotherapist who suggests hypnotic regression to remedy his problem. THE INVISIBLE FOREST is the filmmaker's most personal and experimental film to date. Edited with Chris Odell. Written & directed by Antero. Additional text by William Shakespeare and Antonin Artaud.
Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Click images for production details.
"The 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.
Since, in real life, Alli is engaged
in paratheatrical
research,
the film’s
fictional story is constructed
out of documentary
elements."
- David Finkelstein, filmthreat.com (4 stars), NYC NY
"THE MIND IS A LIAR AND A WHORE" (2007; 91 min.) An Anxious X-mas Comedy. A quirky Berkeley household - a heartbroken Astrologer, a closet Satanist, an Inuit opera singer, a Gulf War vet, and a WebCast diva - are forced indoors during a citywide lock down after to an alleged bioterrorist attack. Havoc and hilarity prevail as they all grasp for conclusions about what they think is happening during their escalating uncertainty. THE MIND IS A LIAR AND A WHORE is a prescient tale mirroring the anxiety of the current era of government-imposed social restrictions. Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Edited with Chris Odell. Written & directed by Antero. Click images for production details.
"Smart dialogue, compassionate and perceptive character writing,
a heightened
sense of both the comic and dramatic potential of the
situation,
and
powerful
performances all come together in a film
where
comedy
and drama serve as
a means to explore the roots
of what it
means
to
be human, and live in a
dangerous and highly
unpredictable world."
David Finkelstein, filmthreat.com (4 stars) NYC
"THE GREATER CIRCULATION" (2005; 93 min.) A Poetic Docufiction. Over three fever-dream nights in the Hotel Biron, Paris 1908, poet Rainer Maria Rilke encounters what he believes is the ghost of his friend, artist Paula Modersohn-Becker, who died shortly after birthing her first child. Rilke transforms his grief into an epic prose work, "Requiem for a Friend", about a woman at the crossroads between Art and Motherhood. Meanwhile, a hundred years later, three women prepare to stage Rilke's "Requiem" as an avant garde performance ritual. THE GREATER CIRCULATION is the filmmaker's tribute to the poet, Rilke. Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Edited with Chris Odell. Written & directed by Antero with additional text by Rainer Maria Rilke (Stephen Mitchell, trans.). Click images for production details.
"…a deep, provocative and often disturbing drama which
poses
questions
of love, art,
mortality and grief with the grace
and
majesty of Rilke’s work, “The Greater Circulation” is among
Alli's
finest works. Anyone seeking lessons
on how to create a
wholly
original
work of motion picture genius can start here."
- Phil Hall, filmthreat.com (5 stars out of 5) NYC New York
---> viewing link
4 MIN. EXCERPT
3 MIN. EXCERPT
"UNDER A SHIPWRECKED MOON" (2003; 96 min.) An Ancestral Romance. The power of a long-buried family secret is unleashed when the extreme rituals of punk rocker young Jari catapults him into the spirit realm in search of his father, a ship captain who drowned in the Bering Sea. Joining Jari on his dream quest is the spirit of his grandmother Sisu, a Finnish sorceress. UNDER A SHIPWRECKED MOON is a surrealistic fable of true love, giant hedgehogs and the mystical depths of ancestral bonds. Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Edited with Chris Odell. Cinematography, screenplay, and direction by Antero. Click images for production details.
“Under a Shipwrecked Moon,” presents the classic mythic tale
of a hero
on a vision quest, but places it in a naturalistic setting
where the fabulous
and
the visionary are seen as a part of daily
life providing
a metaphorical
guide
to the forces underpinnings
life’s
dramas. In doing so,
Alli
enables the
viewer to build a bridge
between
the quotidian and the
visionary,
the living
and the dead".
- David Finkelstein, filmthreat.com (4 stars) NYC New York
"HYSTERIA" (2002; 83 min.) A Magical Realist Drama. During the Serb-Croatian war (1991-95), Ikar - a young Catholic soldier - unwittingly drinks hallucinogenic datura tea triggering a full blown vision (or hallucination?) of
the
Holy Virgin Mary who gives him a mission.
To fulfill his religious destiny, he migrates westward to Oakland California and starts pugilist training in preparation for his incendiary apotheosis. HYSTERIA was made in early 2002 in response to the rampant racial profiling of Middle Eastern people after the 9/11 attacks in NYC. Written and produced by Antero Alli and Jakob Bokulich (who also plays Ikar). Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Edited with Chris Odell. Cinematography and direction by Antero. Click images for production details.
"HYSTERIA" is a profound and frequently disturbing work
of intelligence
that
forces viewers
to weigh in on emotional
issues that haunted America
as a result
of the tragic events
of 9/11:
the damage created by religious
dogma, the terror
in dealing with inner fears, and the inability
to justify
a societal
mind frame built on a foundation of selfish behavior."
-
Phil Hall, filmthreat.com (5 stars out of 5) NYC New York
"TRAGOS" (2000/01; 105 min.) A Cyber-Noir Witch Hunt. An urban tribe of technopagans perform their ecstatic rites in "Tragos", a virtual reality program. One night their leader, Bella Luxor, overamps the program and goes blind, while her sister Vivika is tragically dies. Robert Logos, a fundamentalist Christian attorney views the VR device as a suicide machine used by a Satanic suicide cult. He hires an unemployed actor posing as a detective to gather evidence for their demise. TRAGOS explores the contemporary tragedy of soul loss in an increasingly virtualized, hyper-digital society. Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli & others. Edited with Chris Odell. Written & directed by Antero. Click images for production details.
"TRAGOS is an intellectual adrenaline rush of hypnotic strength
and
emotional depth.
Alli envisions a future where the desire to
escape from
government and media
thought-control drives people
underground. Though
perhaps the future is a lot closer
than we think,
since the parallels between
Tragos' futuristic tale and the assault on
many
basic contemporary liberties
seems too close for comfort."
- Phil Hall for filmthreat.com (4 stars out of 5) NYC New York
"THE DRIVETIME" (1995; 86 min.) A Cyber-Fi Experiment. In the hopes of obtaining politically sensitive video footage of police riots, a federal archivist from the year 2023 uses a flawed Time Travel device to return to Seattle circa 1999 via the dreams of a video activist. THE DRIVETIME was created during the birth of the internet within the seething underground Seattle subculture, circa 1995, four years before the WTO riots of Seattle 1999. Edited with John Comerford. Written and produced with Rob Brezsny. Cinematography and direction by Antero. Click images for production details.
"One of the most chilling yet innovative cinematic essays
on
the flaws
of today's
technology-obsessed society. This work
should be seen by
anyone who mistakenly
believes that all's
calm and well in our little
digital sphere. Alli's iconoclastic view
of a future world projects a
dazzling stream-of-consciousness
skein of technical
wizardry and
provocative wordplay."
- WIRED Magazine
"THE ORACLE" (1993; recut in 2021; 58:30 min) An Afterlife Family Drama. On the final day of his life, a cynical patriarch lapses into an intermittent coma where his sleep is interrupted by spontaneous mutterings. Much to the bewilderment of his anxious daughter tending his bedside, his mutterances are pure poetry (from "The Book of Questions" by Pablo Neruda). His grandaughter, Ariadne appears in the internal landscape of his dreams as a guide to the great beyond. Meanwhile, his estranged son Brandon visits him and finds himself at the center of an ancient ritual of ancestral healing. THE ORACLE is the filmmaker's debut feature (see "Director's Notes" below). Cinematography, editing, screenplay, and direction by Antero. Click images for production details.
.The Oracle is a visionary exploration of an elderly bedridden
man's
interior journey toward death and beyond. It's also a
sometimes
humorous,
sometimes heartrending portrayal of
his family's changing
perceptions of
the processes of death.
The film resonates meaningfully
long after
you've left the theater. - Paul Goetz, Washington Free Press
DIRECTOR'S NOTES
"THE ORACLE", my debut feature art film, was made in the months
following the sudden death of my second daughter, Zoe. The film was
a collaboration with Zoe's mother, Camille Hildebrandt who also appears
in the story as a wandering nomad. A few years after its Seattle premiere,
I took the movie out of circulation as it felt too personal to keep sharing.
But after recently watching it (25 years later), I felt that time had healed
something in me. Though this online version suffers a bit from occasional
uneven image quality, I'm surprised at how well it actually holds up.
- Antero, 3/10/2021
The VideoPoems (since 1992)
"Set to poetic texts, often to excellent music by his long time collaborator
Sylvi Alli, these films show Alli’s command of film editing and visual language,
and his
ability to draw performances of deeply grounded power from dancers
and actors, to
create visions which are indeed loaded with the ability to evoke
deep longings, exaltations, cultural memories, and altered spiritual states."
- David Finkelstein for filmthreat.com (4 stars)
Rilke's Dream #1 - Rainer Maria Rilke and
"A Poison Tree" - William Blake
---> The VideoPoems viewing links
LIVING WITH A SORCERESS (4:05; 2020) text, Antero Alli
MOUVEMENT (4:00; 2001) text, Arthur Rimbaud
FAIRY (4:00; 2000) text, Arthur Rimbaud
FEARS (8:30; 2001) text, Rainer Maria Rilke
REQUIEM FOR A FRIEND (19:36; 2005) text, Rainer Maria Rilke
RILKE'S DREAM #1 (3:00 2005) Rainer Maria Rilke
RILKE'S DREAM #2 (4:00; 2005) Rainer Maria Rilke
WITCH BURNING (4:00; 1994) text, Sylvia Plath
BOOK OF QUESTIONS (6:00; 1993) text, Pablo Neruda
BOMBS & PRAYERS (6:
00; 1993/96) text, Rob Brezsny
THE ANGEL (4 min. 2018) text, William Blake
A POISON TREE (3:41; 2018); text, William Blake
BLACK SEA (4:00; 1992); text, Antero Alli
"A WIDER LIGHT" (2019) bird&wolf music video
---> bird&wolf Music Videos viewing links
Sylvi Alli, vocals, accordian & lyrics; Antero Alli, guitar & video
These "music videos" betray the commercial agendas of traditional
music
videos with their slick overly-produced, multiple fast cuts of
the
featured
singer, musician or band. By deconstructing the genre,
I am
free
to follow the creative impulse.
The music and
songs
in these
videos
are by individuals and bands
I personally know who granted
permission
to interpret their music in this way. - Antero
"UNDER" (2018) Sylvi Alli and ParaTheatrical ReSearch
---> Other Music Video viewing links
Science of Deduction, Michelle Bellerose, Sylvi Alli
Since 1992, I've been creating short videos that don't really fall
into any
existing
categories besides maybe 'experimental.' These
sixteen
videos (titles listed below link) include descriptions
on
how
each one developed
as a specific experiment.
- Antero
"COLD FORCE" (1993) and JIZO GARDEN/DIAMOND SUTRA (2020; 2:42)
---> Experimental Shorts viewing links
THE BEACH TRILOGY (2021; 3 shorts, under 3 min. each)
WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES, ANOTHER OPENS
(2021; 8:44)
PEARLS & PERILS OF COURTING THE MUSES (2020; 9 min.)
THE ZEN OF ASTRAL TRAVEL (2020; 5:11.)
JIZO GARDEN/DIAMOND SUTRA (2020; 2:42.)
MARIONETTE (2015; 3:48)
THE ANIMA (2008-15; 4:32)
ROADKILL (2001; 25 min)
LILY IN LIMBO (1996/ recut 2001; 26 min)
THE RECKONING (1993/recut 2020; 4:07)
INERTIA (1994; 16 min.)
COLD FORCE (1993; 4 min.)
DRIVING MYSELF THERE (1992/recut 2020; 7:53)
THE WORD, WEIRD (1992; 5:38 min.)
"Escape from Chapel Perilous" Portland OR - December 2018
ParaTheatrical ReSearch refers to a process of group ritual dynamics
inspired
by the early
work of Jerzy Grotowski that
gives
visceral, somatic
expression to Carl Jung's "active
imagination" for making
the
Unconscious,
conscious. Whenever a
given
group
reached
proficiency
in
this work,
public
performances
were developed
with
participants and
directed by myself
and
then, documented in videos for public screenings. -- Antero
---> ParaTheatrical documents viewing links
4 STAGES OF WORK (2020; 10 min.)
BEWARE! ARCHETYPES CROSSING (2009/2020; 35 min.)
ESCAPE FROM CHAPEL PERILOUS (2018; 59 min.)
FALLEN MONSTERS (2018; 64 min.)
SOROR MYSTICA (2017; 42 min.)
BARDOVILLE (2017; 3 min.)
A TURBULENCE OF MUSES (2016; 39 min)
DREAMBODY/EARTHBODY (2012; 80 min)
ORPHANS OF DELIRIUM (2004; 84 min)
CRUX (1999; 80 min.)
ARCHAIC COMMUNITY (1991; 87 min.)
Antero Alli (2022)
CONTACT
verticalsource@gmail.com
ANTERO ALLI has been writing and directing his idiosyncratic feature films since 1993. His highly personal style destroys stereotypes and is influenced by a lifelong commitment to experimental theatre (since 1975). His films have been extensively reviewed at filmthreat.com and have screened on the west coast arthouse circuit since 1995. In late 2015, he took a five year hiatus to direct and produce five intermedia performance rituals while recording music and creating music videos with his wife, Sylvi in Portland Oregon where they currently reside. Antero returned to cinema with "The Vanishing Field" in 2020 and "The Alchemy of Sulphur" in 2021. He is currently in post-production for his Psi-Fi Suspense feature, "Tracer", scheduled for Autumn Equinox 2022 release.
Notes from the Underground by Antero Alli
Cinephile Confessions in the Time of Covid
"A Cinema of Otherness"
Subverting Mainstream Values & Standards
VISION STATEMENT and VIDEO/FILMOGRAPHY
"Why I Make Movies" -- list of titles , clips, stills, reviews
DVD Distribution
The Original Falcon Press