5 Questions with Eli Powers
In “Holy Moses,” two God-fearing individuals, separated by thousands of miles and two decades, are connected by a transcendent occurrence. We asked director Eli Powers where the idea came from, about the biggest challenges in bringing it to life, and a recent film he’s loved…
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I wanted to be a stuntman originally. That was my preferred profession as a kid, because I was really good at falling down and not getting hurt. Like every other suburban kid in the early 2000s, my friends and I tried our absolute best to emulate the guys from Jackass. We filmed stunts with my mom’s mini-dv camera, like jumping off the roof of my house over and over but when that footage started to lack inspiration I’d write in a thin plot lines to go along it. The Godfather was a big influence then too, I didn’t think there was anything cooler than having an all AC/DC soundtrack to a video of me in a baggy three-piece suit and fedora falling down the stairs. And then eventually my tastes got better. I think.
2) What’s the backstory here? What was the initial seed of inspiration, and how did you go about building from there?
I came across a news article about a cow that had escaped a truck on the way to the slaughter-house, only to wander into a convenience store and be shot to death by police. There was a giant photo of the dead cow lying on its side in the store, bleeding everywhere, and the brilliant absurdity of that image struck me as something that desperately needed to be explored. I’ve always been interested in the bizarre transcendent moments that shake us out of our stupors, and so I took that idea and ran with it, and the initial story developed from there.
When I first wrote the script it was primarily set in Texas with a brief cut away to a farm in Ireland, but in the space of time while we were producing the Ireland segment, I was sitting with the script for so long that inevitably the story kept growing and growing, and all of a sudden it wasn’t just any farm, but a farm on a Magdalene Asylum where nuns worked and lived and prayed. Even now, as I write this I’ve lived with this story for so damn long, I don’t know where it starts and ends anymore.
3) This is quite the ambitious project on many levels. Can you talk about some of the unique challenges you faced bringing this short to life?
I certainly didn’t make it easy on myself. Everyone is always urging young filmmakers to reverse engineer their projects with the means they have available to them, which makes sense. I used to follow that wisdom closely but for the first time when I sat down to write Holy Moses I tried to free myself from the notion of creating for what was immediately possible and just allow myself to write outlandishly. Through that process I landed on a story that still feels truly intuitive and honest to me.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
I just watched The Devils Advocate for the first time. It stars a young Keanu Reeves speaking sporadically in a southern drawl, with Al Pacino ranting and raving with these beautifully over-written three minute monologues about God. I’d never seen it before and may never see it again. It’s so over-the-top and I can’t imagine anyone making something like that today. There's like seven different sex scenes, Charlize Theron spends the whole movie painting the apartment different colors then changes her hair style and goes crazy, old ladies briefly turn into freaky demons, runners in Central Park become invisible and chase down Jeffrey Jones, and (spoiler alert) Keanu shoots himself in the head and then falls in slow motion in front of CGI flames. It was so absurd and oddly inspirational.
5) What’s next for you?
Holy Moses the feature film. When it's all said and done, my ultimate goal is that it feels ancient and familiar to the viewer like some bed-time story they’ve always known.
Contact Info:
Website: https://www.horsegodproductions.com/
Instagram: @elipowersfilm