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 boredom of any so-called "Art" produced by any individual, organizaton or Society of Spectacle depersonalized by imagination death. My aim is to agitate the insurrection of 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 September of 1992, I faced the sudden death of my beautiful daughter Zoe. The worst thing that could ever happen to me, happened to me. Great gifts sometimes come with great losses. I received the gift of accelerated perception. The eyes of my eyes opened. 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. This is the gift that keeps on giving.

Alternating waves of grief and epiphany guided the scripting and production of a labor love -- my first feature -- THE ORACLE (1993), about a bitter, cynical elderly man whose granddaughter, Ariadne, appears in his dreams as a guide during his final night on earth. As my own cynicism withered, Imagination ursurped the reign of my tyrannical intellect by agitating the creation of THE DRIVETIME (1995; with Rob Brezsny), a story of a federal time-travelling librarian from the year 2023 who returns to 1999 through the night dreams of a Seattle video activist. The injustices of ideological scapegoating got my goat in TRAGOS (2000), where an urban tribe of technopagans uses Virtual Reality technology to clandestinely perform their ecstatic rites during politically restrictive times and the fundamentalist Christian attourney who wants to prosecute 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 authentic religious experience 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 his distressed sgrandson who enters the spirit realm in search of his shipwrecked father. My poetic docufiction, THE GREATER CIRCULATION (2005) tethers the netherworld of ghosts, muses, and dreams when Czech poet Rainer Maria Rilke transforms his lament over the sudden death of Paula Modersohn-Becker, a friend and fellow artist, into an epic work of literature, "Requiem for a Friend".

The laughable national political climate triggered the making of 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 threats during an alleged bioterrorist attack in their city. My lost sense of enchantment was restored by making THE INVISIBLE FOREST (2008) where an insomniac theatre director, inspired by the radical visions of French Surrealist Antonin Artaud, undergoes hypnosis to stop a reoccuring nightmare (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 feature film projects is exhilarating and exhausting. Between these crazy-making adventures I do next to nothing for months at a time. In these creatively fallow periods, I return to my paratheatre roots for recovery and sustenance. These paratheatre processes have also inspired several video documents: ARCHAIC COMMUNITY, 1992; CRUX, 1999; ORPHANS OF DELIRIUM, 2004. Sometimes I find renewal in crafting shorter works such as INERTIA, 1994; LILY IN LIMBO, and 1996; ROADKILL, 2001. Poetry also redeems me, especially through the medium of "videopoems" where I use text from some of my favorite poets (Rilke, Neruda, HD, Rimbaud, Plath) as oblique narratives to invoke the spirits hiding inside the words (some of my 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, my work has been self-funded and/or co-produced with my peers. I don't see the point in applying for corporate grants or studio producers and wait around for their baited funds when I can start creating. After a film is completed I occasionally submit it to festivals (dread and joy) but mostly I go ahead and book one-to-two night stands at USA west coast arthouses; sometimes universities will book my films. Online film review sites such as filmthreat.com, mysticalmovieguide.com and mindjack.com post critical reviews of my work. My films are also available on dvd at 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 work since 1989. I would also be lost without the technical finesse of the talented Chris Odell, my online features editor since 2000.

At some point I would like my work to achieve arthouse distribution in the USA and in Europe, increasing exposure 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. 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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