5 Questions with Andrew Theodore Balasia
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I was lowkey a child actor and also grew up making short films with friends in high school. I eventually took a break and pursued music, tried juggalo stuff, but inevitably returned back to it.
When I moved to LA from NY I helped start an experimental cinema space with my friends called Now Instant Image Hall. I think we screened several hundred movies in the first year, which was basically film school for me. That's when I started writing again and hitting the pavement.
2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?
Parallel to COVID, I noticed this public resurgence with nature, which to me felt insincere. Mirroring that I wanted to write a scenario where a character experiences some form of spiritual enlightenment or "magic", but it ultimately doesn't resolve his actual nature: moral apathy.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?
We didn't rehearse or anything prior to the shoot and I haven't acted since I was a kid, so it took me a bit to find the rhythm again. But having one location and only four of us as friends working together created a mellow, collaborative environment.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
There's this movie Funeral Parade of Roses by Toshio Matsumoto that Ben Russell screened with us at Now Instant. I revisited it recently and fell in love again. The style is so fresh - the way he mixes mediums and tonality is really exciting. It's as much a commentary on the underground queer counter-culture in 1960's Tokyo as it is a Greek tragedy with a splash of Three Stooges slapstick thrown in for fun. I'm not sure if there's anything quite like it.
5) What’s next for you?
I just finished writing a feature with my best friend that we're beginning the next phase of. In the meantime I'm shooting another short in a few weeks - it's a horror movie surrounding a coke bender.
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IG: @andrewtheodorebalasia