Ecstasy

I was young.
I was troubled.
I wanted to get lost in distractions.
He was older.
He was the remedy.
He was the perfect distraction.

A hypnotic film inspired by a poetic true diary of a Montreal born fourteen-year old’s girl’s roller-coaster love affair with an 18-year-old drug-dealer musician/DJ boyfriend, fueled by the drug MDMA.

Inspired by the novel “Misconception” by Clelia-Angelina Frith and by true events, the bilingual film is planned to be shot on a multitude of locations all over the city, featuring its diverse multi-cultural landscape.

“CUT UP METHOD” – WRITING/FILMAKING STYLE

The cut-up technique (French: découpé) is an aleatory literary technique in which a text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text. The concept can be traced to at least the Dadaists of the 1920s, and the corresponding literary technique (or genre), was invented by author and artist Brion Gysin and the English mathematician Ian Sommerville.

It was popularized in the late 1950s and early 1960s by writer William S. Burroughs, who experimented with the technique cutting up his original text into random fragments and then rearranging them to produce a new text.

The cut-up is closely linked to the lifestyle and philosophy of the Beat Generation defined by Jack Kerouac and Burroughs. It tries to reproduce the visions due to hallucinogens, the spatio-temporal distortions of the thought under toxic influence (phenomenon of déjà-vu in particular).

It has since been used in a wide variety of contexts. Aesthetically, the cut-up is close to pop-art, happenings and post-war surrealism (Henri Michaux for example) and his quest to explore the unconscious.

Philosophically, Burroughs sees in it the culmination of language as a virus and writing as a letting go of consciousness (he proclaims “language is a virus”).

Musique concrète had introduced such techniques as well — cutting, re-arranging and re-editing sounds — much earlier in a musical (as opposed to literary) context.

From at least the early 1970s, David Bowie has used cut-ups to create some of his lyrics.

It is a technique which came to influence Kurt Cobain’s songwriting.

Other musicians working in sample-based music genres, such as hip hop and electronic music, employ a similar technique. DJs may spend hours in record stores looking (“digging”) for LP records featuring obscure or interesting breaks, vocals, and other fragments to meld together in new compositions.

THE NOVEL “MISCONCEPTION”

Written by the 14 year old Clelia Frith, is an intimate series of chapters that are poems chronicling her love for a boyfriend who was 18, a drug dealer, who swept of her feet, got her hooked on the drug ecstasy, started cheating on her, broke her heart, leading to an attempted suicide, then an awakening, efforts to clean up and eventual self-discovery, refusing to allow him back into her life, when he came crying – story of empowerment, and hope that hopefully will inspire and shed some lightness onto the darkness of our world and what teenage girls experience not only in this country but across the world.

The novel has a hypnotic, musical-like effect, almost like lyrics of a song, often using repetition, affirmations, as form of self-enforcement, a chant, a prayer, as if Clelia was trying to make sense of her feelings as a young girl on the cusp of womanhood and will herself into some kind of understanding and illumination.

The script incorporates themes of abuse, teen -pregnancy, addiction, discrimination, race, bullying, suicide, crime, violence, exploitation and trafficking, drawing from several characters from the world of Clelia’s circle growing up in Montreal during the early 2000’s.

The central character, Katherine is a composite character embodying several of these life-journeys.

CHARACTER BREAKDOWNS

KATHERINE

She is the main character. She is a 14-year-old who grew up as an only adopted child in a family with 2 kids. The father was always away on business trips and the mother was always home. They wanted what was best for Katherine, and they made that clear. They didn’t approve of any friends, were always on her case about schoolwork, choices, etc. Katherine thought they were just trying to ruin her life. She didn’t realize that what they were doing was only for her best interest. She rebelled and got into a lot of trouble. Growing up as an only child was lonely, and not having a father around much, she went seeking for those traits in older men. She was also bullied her entire life, which made her depressed. She never felt good enough, or like anyone loved her. She was completely damaged/hated herself, and her life, and was on a relentless path of self-destruction and blamed it on everyone but herself. Her fear was the future. She didn’t know what her hopes and dreams were. She didn’t think she would make it long enough to live her future life.

Her desires are finding new, fun, and thrilling/ rebellious things to do, and new bad people to meet. She has many issues but the biggest one of all was the way she saw/felt about herself. Once she learned to love herself, she changed her mind, heart, self and way of life. She finally had the unconditional self-love that she deserved.

She is hypersensitive and has a deep soul, but she hides it well behind an almost expressionless mask and almost imperceptible tiny smirk, a defense mechanism from battle scars of pain and hurt she has experienced thought out her young life. The “ice queen” image often provokes people to throw punches at her – verbal, psychological, even physical to see how far they can go – to get a reaction. This facade often drives Jacob to rage as he tries to dig deeper and twist and carve himself into her tender heart.

JACOB

He is Katherine’s lover. He is an 18-year-old high school drop out/bad boy, living at home with his father. He sold drugs, he was fun, careless, selfish. He grew up with a dysfunctional family. He watched his mother cheat on his father as a kid, he saw the pain, lies, despair. He watched his father get hurt, repeatedly. He was in the middle of everything, was around for the long, and tough divorce. That destroyed his soul and was what turned him into the horrible person he was. It damaged him deeply. He had no trust in any women, because of course, “they would all turn out to be his mother”. He learned that abuse was okay, because his parents were like that. He learned that lying was the way to go, and to cover up any mistakes… because a lie would hurt the other person less than the truth. His belief system was completely fucked up. He had no hopes, or dreams for his future. He had no ambition. He desired Katherine, because he had full control over her. He fucked with her mind, and made her believe that he loved her, and did everything in his power to never let her leave. That was his deepest secret. The fear of losing her. Not because he loved her, but because he did not want to be alone.

Jacob in the beginning is a bit of a lost soul. He works odd jobs, is very charismatic and interested in music but he never studied it. He hangs out at club events and concerts selling drugs.

Jacob has a huge record collection (his treasure) and has been messing with “Garage Band” on his computer, creating tracks, but he suffers low esteem and thinks his music is shit. He is shy about singing and using his voice. He has no ambition to pursue it as a career – its just a hobby he likes to dabble in. Kat gives him courage and encourages him.

Jacob has a very eclectic taste in music – he loves rap and EDM, which are forms he is experimenting with, but his ultimate idol is David Bowie. He has huge collection of vinyl records from the 60s, 70s, 80s as well as Blues and Jazz – especially Miles Davis.

He is almost religious about his “sacred” collection. Katherine loves to come over and be engrossed into this world of music and sound. She loves when he makes love to her and the music plays loud, especially when it is music he is working on, it’s as if she’s making love to him and his music.

When Katherine gets drunk and high, she accidentally trips over the record player, the needle snaps, scratches a record and breaks another. He attacks her, beats her up and almost wants to kill her.

When she gets mad she starts smashing the records and starts to throw them out of the window. “You love your fuckin’ music more than you love me… you are incapable of real love. You are a psycho! Devil!”

Later they must pawn the whole collection to make the rent.

He is troubled, from a poor working-class family, and single-parent household. Eventually he gets his own pad in an industrial neighborhood, gets a van, and when he gets evicted, he lives out of the van.

He is trying to juggle drugs, music and Kat and can’t handle it all… he crashes and burns…

Kat hears his music (which he is afraid to play to anyone) and thinks it’s amazing and encourages him – she becomes his muse – he eventually will DJ in a talent night at a club, and that gives him courage to start performing.

He also starts posting on SoundCloud and gets fans….

He is an amateur self-taught musician – he is trying to experiment merging rap-music with electronic dance music, incorporating vocals, words, even using bits from Katherine’s diary.

Once he even uses her voice into the mix. She is excited to be part of his creative journey… it makes her feel closer to him and makes her feel he really loves her….

He allows her to come on stage and sing one of her lyrics – they duet – to her it’s the greatest honor.

He likes to play seduction games with her, unable to face reality… his fear of intimacy. It leads to mind-fuck scenarios and violence in the relationship.

Jacob having been hurt in love, afraid to open up, carries the “baggage” of previous relationships with other girlfriends, as well as the loss/betrayal he felt from his mother’s infidelity/the messy divorce. When they are together there are not just two people in a bed, but three, or even whole entourages of the “ghosts” of his ex-lovers… he even talks to them in his drug out state.

Their relationship perhaps at first is more of a cat n’mouse courtship. She challenges him (like Effy from “Skins” might behave). They don’t come together too quickly and too easily.

Kat, like Effy, at first never talks – sort of a “death n’d dumb” mystery girl – only after the first meeting they talk and the first things that come out are riddles and fragments from her diary… she is a born writer, and that’s how her mind works.

DIMITRI AND LOLA

Jacob’s friend is Dimitri, who is a rich French Quebec kid who studies Philosophy at McGill and drives his parents Mercedes and hangs at their fancy million-dollar condo while his parents travel in Europe. Sometimes Dimitri “chauffeurs” Jacob around town as he delivers and sells his stash of pills and various drugs hidden into his ever present back-pack. Dimitri likes to hang out with Jacob, a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks, so he can study him. Dimitri is shy and loves how Jacob is so exuberant and has such a magnetic personality and great sense of humor that makes everyone laugh.

Dimitri is into Jean Paul Sartre and the Existentialists, and he interests Kat too – sometimes she is torn between Jacob and Dimitri, especially when Jacob is abusive to her. Dimitri sees Katherine as his “Simone de Beauvoir.” His interest in philosophy, books and her writings brings them together.

Dimitri dates Lola, half Brazilian, (fashion student at Concordia) who dresses outlandishly – creates a new crazy outfit for each day – Dimitri dates many girls and uses them as experiments in existentialism. Lola is free sexually, is bi-sexual, and does not take relationships so seriously.

After a night of drinking, partying and drug-taking when the two couples end up having sex and switching partners… something Kat does not fully remember because she was so high, Jacob starts a full-flung secret relationship with Lola on the side – but lies and denials it all to Kat.

Jacob is obsessed with Lola because she is visually so enthralling, stunning and such a free spirit. She fascinates him.

Kat, as a revenge sleeps once or twice with Dimitri, but has guilty feelings about it.

It fuels the violence and Jacob’s increasing abusive relationship with Kat.

STORY NOTES

WHY WAS JACOB SO ABUSIVE?

He grew up with a dysfunctional family. He watched as his mother screwed over his father from a very young age, up until the divorce 6 years later. That is all he knew. How to lie, cheat, be mean, how to bring people down.

WHAT TRIGGERS JACOB?

The fear of losing control over Katherine. The fear of her leaving him and being happy on her own. He is scared to be alone, and to not have control over her anymore. It makes him feel good and powerful, knowing that she’s under his “spell”. That she’s so blind about what is really going on and letting him make all the choices for her.

WHAT DROVE HIM TO BE ABUSIVE?

He started to be abusive once Katherine had each little “wake up call” and was beginning to see who he really was and what he was really doing to her. Once she started to catch on to the lies, cheating, and dishonesty. Seeing her realize who he really was, instead of that “perfect lover” made him scared. The thought of him losing control drove him towards the abuse.

The drugs were MDMA and SPEED. They made Katherine feel so good. Life was amazing, she was so happy, she felt warm and only saw good in the world, no matter what the circumstances were. She was oblivious to the real world, and towards her true emotions. The drugs covered up anything true, and bad; then made it seem amazing. She was living a lie.

THE DRUGS

THE NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE

The more drugs you take, the higher your tolerance is. The high is never the same as the first time; but the first time was the best feeling in the world. As months went by, the high wasn’t as great. The world wasn’t as perfect as it was the last high. Then one day, Katherine took a bit too much, hoping to feel good again. As the high took its peak, about to hit her, it wasn’t a weak high and it wasn’t a strong, pleasant one. It was different. It wasn’t warm and fuzzy. It was cold and a stiff feeling took over her body. Her head started to feel like it was mushy, and she fell to the ground. She couldn’t feel her body. She couldn’t access the thoughts in her mind. She couldn’t feel any emotions. Every time she tried to get up, she would fall back down. And so, she just lay there, letting go. Not caring that it could have been the end for her; and so she closed her eyes and let fate take over.

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

I see the movie as a sort of passionate-psycho, ecstasy-fueled, musical love-journey.

Several years ago, I was thinking of a movie about twisted young-love relationship where the guy messes with the mind, body and soul of an innocent girl who loves him unconditionally.

Some of these previous ideas for scenes would work well in Ecstasy.

Fun

“Fun” – a Rafal Zielinski film

based on a play by James Bosley, screenplay by James Bosley

In a suburban wasteland of freeways, fast-food and pre-fab housing, two teenage girls meet one morning, become fast friends, share their secrets and later that afternoon, on a rising wave of frenzy, murder an old woman. They did it, they later say, for “fun”.

John is a journalist given the challenge of making sense of this “senseless crime.” Jane is a counselor committed to breaking down the barriers that block the girls’ from expressing any remorse over their crime.

Bonnie and Hillary, 14 and 15, staunchly refuse to soften their stand that the killing was fun, and challenge their adult inquisitors to defend a society that offers them no voice, no understanding, no love.

The story moves from the juvenile detention center where the girls are kept, to the girls on the day of the killing. We see them meet, talk, confess painful details of abuse and neglect. They share pain and secrets and find joy in their discovery of a kindred spirit – at last. It’s like love at first sight. They “get high just on each other’s company.” They begin a journey of ecstasy and murder.

The Film

FUN, coined by Graham Fuller of “Interview Magazine”, as “the most provocative new movie at the Sundance Film Festival”, where it won two Special Jury Awards for Best Acting for each of it’s two young stars, Alicia Witt and Renee Humphrey, started out as a stage play written by James Bosley. Developed at the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference and first produced at the Manhattan Class Company, it tells the story of two teenage girls who murder an old lady for “fun” .

Rafal Zelinski, having just completed “Ginger Ale Afternoon” written by Gina Wendkos, also based on her play, saw FUN at the Burbage Theatre in Los Angeles, and was profoundly affected by it.

After developing it together with James Bosley into a full length feature script, he set out together with executive producers Rana Glickman and Jeff Kirshbaum in raising financing. During the next year and a half of frustrated efforts, several times coming close to having it packaged with stars, Rafal decided to forge ahead with FUN as a low budget independently produced production. Further financing was obtained by co-producer Daminan Lee who put together a Canadian tax-shelter deal.

The production team was joined by Sharon Ben-Tal – production manager/line producer, Gloria Zimmerman – production co-ordinator, James Zatolokin – production council, Jens Sturup – director of photography, and editor/associate producer – Monika Dorfman-Lightstone. Principal photography was completed in eight days. The prison sequences shot at the Central Juvenile Hall (a real working prison) were filmed in super 16 (later blown up to a b&w 35mm interpositive) and are filmed in cinema verite style. All the flashback sequences are filmed in 35mm AGFA color. The dialogue is to script although at times the intensity of the performances appear to be improvisational. A psychiatrist for abused teenage girls coached the actresses prior to principal photography. The color sequences were shot in Canyon Country, North of Los Angeles.

FUN endured budgetary restrictions, time constraints, and natural disaters (L.A.’s January earthquake) which contaminated the baths at Deluxe Film Labs in Los Angeles, as well as tumbling shelves of original negatives. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (winning the two awards for acting) and went on to the Sydney Film Festvial (voted 5th best movie), the Munich Film Festival (voted best American Independent Feature), the Edinbrough Festival, as well as the Montreal and Toronto Festivals.

FESTIVALS & AWARDS

“FUN” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it received two Special Jury Awards for Acting Achievement and went on to show at the Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver as well as other international film festivals including Sydney, Edinbrough, Munich, Vienna, London, Cambridge, Stockholm, Sao Paulo, Hawaii, Hamburg, Rimini, Mill Valley, San Jose, Warsaw, Oslo and Wales. The Film opened theatrically at the Film Forum in New York and received two nominations for Best Newcomer Performance and Best First Screenplay for IFP Spirit Awards.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY

Graham Fuller, Interview Magazine

Fun was the most provocative new movie at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. This fictional case study of two teenage girls who jaunt across suburbia culminates in murder has more sociological import than a fistful of Gen X movies. Hyperkinetic direction and blistering performances by Renee Humphrey and Alicia Witt, though having taken a some time to get released it’ll now suffer comparisons with Heavenly Creatures.

Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express

A Clockwork Orange for the ’90s? Two wayward teenagers get their kicks from a sinister form of fun. This is a dazzling and disturbingly plausible piece of ’90s cinema which refuses to let any of its characters–or viewers–off the hook.

Washington Post

Good, unnerving performances from its young actors give Fun more edge than the usual independent movie.

They carve their initials in your memory forever!

The Village Voice

Infinitely trickier and more satisfying than Heavenly Creatures.

The Melody Maker

Digs deeper, disturbs far more thoroughly and speaks a hundred times more forcefully about disaffected youth than Natural Born Killers!

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Gingerale Afternoon

A comedy about birth, love and betrayal, Ginger Ale Afternoonis set in the middle of a rundown Texas trailer park, where we find Jesse (Dana Anderson) and Hank (John M. Jackson) living out their lives and trying to understand why everything has to be so difficult. Nine months pregnant, Jesse is no more prepared to cope with life as a mother than she is about being a wife. She spends her days half-heatedly cleaning the trailer, lazing around outside in a bikini working on her tan, and fighting with Hank.

Life is fairly predictable, though not particularly satisfying, until Jesse discovers that Hank is messing around with Bonnie (Yeardly Smith), a plump little teenager given to shorts and halter tops, with a wisdom beyond her years. Words fly, tempers soar, egos bruise and we see deeply into the hearts and minds of three sensitive and generous people.

This intimate, warm, and touching comedy was written for the screen by Gina Wendkos from her original stageplay, directed by Rafal Zielinski (“Hey Babe,” “Fun,” ,”Age of Kali”,”Bohemia”). Shot by cinematographer Yuri Neyman (“Liquid Sky,” “D.O.A.”), Ginger Ale Afternoon offers a spectacular wall to wall music score by blues legend Willie Dixon.

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Hey Babe

“Hey Babe!” is the story of Theresa (Yasmine Bleeth), a rebellious, gutsy orphan from Brooklyn, who has dreams of show business success. She tries desperate schemes to launch herself into the public eye, until finally meeting mentor, Sammy Cohen (Buddy Hackett), whose own career fizzled as a result of alcoholism.

As Rafal Zielinski’s first film, it the opened the Taormina Film Festival, had it’s North American premiere at the Toronto FIlm Festival, and went on to play at AFI Fest as well as a number of other international film festivals. ”Hey Babe!” introduces the 13 year-old Yasmine Bleeth, who would go on to become a major Hollywood actress in shows such as “Babewatch” and “One Life To Live,” in her first film – alongside the legendary comedian Buddy Hackett, the much loved musical-comedy performer of such films such as “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” “The Music Man, and “The Love Bug.”

Written by Canadian artist Edith Rey, with music specially composed by techno-star, Gino Soccio, the movie contains plenty of disco fever that will keep viewers lighthearted and entertained.

It is an uplifting, bitter sweet and gritty journey which is at the same time whimsical, dreamy and full of magic. The combination of Bleeth and Hackett creates a provocative and often fascinating song-and-dance extravaganza!

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Tiger Within

OFFICIAL TRAILER:

written by Gina Wendkos

A young skin head runs away from home to New York City where she is befriended by a Holocaust survivor.

Casey, 16, is a loner…and a lost soul in search of love. The film opens on her disastrous first day of school in Michigan suburbs where she is humiliated and disrespected. At home, it’s not much better. Her mother’s new boyfriend is an abusive drunk, while her mother, Marge, has good intentions but is ultimately weak. When the boyfriend threatens to leave if Casey doesn’t, Marge sides with him and arranges for Casey to live with her estranged father in New York City.

Upon arrival at Kennedy Airport, Casey sees her father and his family before they see her. She hears her three half-sisters and step-mother complain about her reputation as a trouble-maker and decides not to step forward. After a while, her father reluctantly leaves without her. Casey can see the relief on his family’s faces. Now she is in New York alone.

She tells a cab driver to take her to a place “where no one will stare at me” and he drives her to the roughest part of town he knows. She joins the rest of the bums, punks, junkies, and prostitutes and wanders the streets alone. It’s only a matter of time before her bag is stolen; she’s approached for sex; and she sleeps where she can, including a Jewish cemetery.

The next morning, Samuel Benz, a Holocaust survivor, is making his daily visit to his wife’s grave when he discovers Casey asleep on her tombstone. At first taken aback by the swastika covered jacket which covers her shoulders, he decides to wait for her to wake up. When she awakes he invites her to eat and wash up at his apartment with no strings attached. She accepts the offer but is so exhausted that she eventually falls asleep in his bathtub. The next morning she thanks him and returns to the streets.

Three months later, Casey is working in a massage parlor – jerking guys off for money. She’s a little wiser now and number. She runs into Samuel a couple of times, then again on Christmas eve. Over dinner he reveals that he lost his two twin daughters in the camps and never had a chance to fulfill himself as a father… he then explains an old Chinese saying “embrace the tiger,” which means to learn to love ones fears “so you can control them and they not you.”

Taking this advice, Casey takes a cab to her father’s house in the suburbs. In a very awkward scene, he introduces Casey to his wife and three daughters. Later, Casey overhears his wife complaining about the new “trash” they’ve let into their house and what kind of “influence she’ll be on the girls.” Casey runs away again in the middle of the night…to Samuel’s house in the city, where she angrily confronts the old man for telling her to go in the first place. Samuel quickly comforts her and offers her his house as a new home. The only “catch” is that she must take the swastika off her jacket, and start going to school. She agrees.

The school won’t let Casey register without signatures from one of her real parents, so Samuel and Casey take the train to Michigan together to confront her mother and the boyfriend. Marge reluctantly agrees to sign Casey away. On the train back to New York, Casey asks Samuel why he’s going to all this trouble. He answers that he once made a promise to his wife to stop hating, and that initially he hated Casey…”You were the challenge God presented me that day in the graveyard… if I’d learn not to hate you, a child in a swastika, then I could learn to forgive all before I die.”

At school, Casey excels in poetry and makes friends with a young man named Tony. Before going on a date with Tony, Samuel helps Casey “prepare” by buying her a dress, some stockings and shoes. The date goes well. Later, Samuel takes Casey to a health clinic to have “the talk” with health counselors.

One summer day, Casey and Tony begin having sex on the beach. At the same time, Samuel is viciously attacked near his Temple by a gang of skinhead punks. Casey finds him in the hospital later that day. He is close to death. Within the next few days his condition deteriorates and Casey begins to withdraw back into herself, avoiding Tony, neglecting the apartment, sleeping in the bathtub like her first night there. When Samuel finally dies, she completely reverts back to her old ways…including the massage parlor.

In the parlor, about to “work” on some guy, Casey comes to a revelation and quickly bolts during the middle of the “session.” She goes to the cat section in the Bronx Zoo and sticks her hand in between the bars of a tiger’s cage in order to test her fear. The tiger roars at first, then licks her hand lovingly. Casey has embraced her fears.

Age of Kali

a Rafal Zielinski film

written by John Steppling

According to Hindu mythology, we are living in the Kali (“Age of Kali”), a time of decadence, desire and deterioration…

Written by LA’s “quintessential” playwright, John Steppling (screenwriter of Steve Buscemi’s “Animal Factory”), shot by Eric Steelberg (DOP, “Juno”, “Up in the Air” and Sundance 2006 Grand Jury and Audience Award Winner “Quinceanera”) and directed by Canadian director Rafal Zielinski (whose “Ginger Ale Afternoon” and “Fun” both premiered at Sundance in the Dramatic Competition), the film stars Taylor Nichols, a veteran of Wilt Stillman’s films (“Metropolitan”, “Barcelona”, “Last Days of Disco”), Sarah Zoe Canner who stars in Agnieszka Holland’s latest film “Prawdziwa Historia Janosika i Uhorcika“ and Whitney Able as Sabrina, whose new film Monsters was the rage of this year’s Toronto Film Festival and is about to come out theatrically in the US and Canada.

A young, recently married Los Angeles couple – Tom, a promising architect and Ellie, manager of a trendy modernist furniture store – are certainly on their way to affluence – they are sophisticates, but with some edges.

Sabrina, a teenager of questionable age with radical pretensions and a desperate, dangerous, flirtatious nature, becomes a force of “destruction” and at the same time “creation” Like the goddess Kali, in a way, she represents cyclical time-consciousness that transcends individual destiny.

A psychologically erotic triangle — a downward spiral of obsession and compulsion — a dangerous journey of self-discovery.

Director’s Statement:

Exploring Erotic Spirituality in India and in my film Age of Kali

My experiences in Living in Calcutta as a teenage, my passion for the three masterpieces (Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’, Antonioni’s ‘Red Desert’, Woody Allen’s ‘Manhattan’), fascination with the disturbing plays of John Steppling, and the never-ending search for some sort of illumination, created the inevitable necessity of making this film.

India is a land of deep spirituality, where the sacred and sensual have long been intertwined. As a teenager living in India, I visited many ancient temples adorned with erotic sculptures—symbols of the divine union between the physical and spiritual. These artistic expressions of eroticism are not just provocative; they represent a higher understanding of life’s cycles of creation and destruction.

In my new film, Age of Kali, now available on Apple TV, Amazon, and Google Play, I explore these themes through a modern lens, exploring themes that include narcissistic eroticism.

The Goddess Kali, often depicted as the fierce embodiment of destruction and rebirth, is central to this spiritual narrative. Kali destroys not out of malice but to pave the way for transformation—a theme that runs deeply in the film’s characters, who navigate their own journeys of obsession, love, and self-discovery.

In contemporary times, we may feel disconnected from these ancient ideas, but the chaos and upheaval in our world today reflect the same cycles of destruction and rebirth that Kali represents. Erotic spirituality in India teaches us that the path to enlightenment is often through confronting and embracing our desires, understanding that the sacred and sensual are not separate, but part of the same divine journey.

In Age of Kali, a young couple’s life is upended by a mysterious girl, embodying the destructive, yet transformative, force of Kali. The film explores themes of love, temptation, and the inevitable breakdowns that lead to personal rebirth—just as Kali’s dance paves the way for creation in Indian mythology.

Intrigued?

Discover a film that intertwines ancient wisdom with modern-day dilemmas, and let it spark your own exploration of the balance between destruction and creation.

PLEASE SUPPORT INDEPENDENT CINEMA.

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Bohemia

memory, darling

Gabi, an aspiring young Czech filmmaker feels compelled to create short films about her life; one of them –

Jack works as a writer in the world of advertising. He is discontent with his present life and the choices he made; he did not follow his idealistic youthful dreams of becoming a ‘serious’ writer.

Spending the weekend in a faceless Los Angeles hotel, with a view of a concrete freeway bridge, writing a cat litter commercial, Jack feels he has reached an all-time low. After finding an advertisement in the local paper that reads: “Scheherazade: I’ll tell you stories”.

The call girl (Gabriella) comes to Jack’s aid, for a price – this Czech beauty came to North America chasing her own dreams, she hides her pain in the fantastical stories she tells for which she charges her clients by the hour.

She begins her story with a young man named Jake, who takes an extended holiday in Prague, a haven for young expatriates, in search of culture and rejuvenation.

On the Charles Bridge, he meets Gabi, filmmaker and dancer. Pure, passionate, mysterious, enchanting, she instantly falls in love with Jake, her “American dream-man”. They have a whirlwind romance, exploring the rich, mysterious “Kafka-esque” city.

The exact opposite of everything that Jake represents, Gabi intuitively begins to help Jake uncover his lost self. By unwrapping the numerous layers of fear, denial and disappointment in which Jake hides, Gabi uncovers his true and innocent nature. Yet, alas, the two must part, and do so, sadly.

A story, within a story, within a story… Jack is Jake, or is he… Gabi is Gabriella, is is she…

Peculiar Objective Inc.

A Canadian Film Production Company

Author Archives: Rafal

Ecstasy

I was young.
I was troubled.
I wanted to get lost in distractions.
He was older.
He was the remedy.
He was the perfect distraction.