FILM INTERVIEW: EMMANUEL ITIER
The Writer, Producer & Director Talks 'Invocation' & Attempts of Unified Peace
Emmanuel Itier and I sat down in his suite at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood to discuss his journey. I have known him for over 20 years, and after seeing his film, The Invocation, I discovered what I didn’t know about him. We let the fur fly on this interview and there were no holds barred.
Ron Gilbert: You are always full of ideas and projects since you are a writer/producer/director. What compelled you to come up with this film?
Emmanuel Itier: When I had my son five years ago, something snapped in my head and I got overly depressed like a woman who has post-delivery syndrome. So here we are on this crazy planet and in wars, but what about his future? Is this world going to collapse? Two years ago, I was driving to LA from Santa Barbara to pitch another horror movie while listening to rock and roll music — The Ramones, I think — and I just started screaming obscenities and looking toward heaven, and then the revelation came. I will make a movie about God, and immediately, in my head, I saw the trailer. But I wanted God’s name in the title, so I looked into the derivation of the word. “God” has Indo-European roots, and the verb is to invoke or communicate or connect. Now I knew that I wanted the notion of god but not like “Oh My GOD,” and that is how I found the title, “The Invocation.” This film was going to be my own salvation.
I wanted to direct another film, but all the people whose films which I had made and had earned those thousands of dollars would not give me a single dime. To get unstuck, I needed to reinvent myself. So I emailed all my friends, and one of them knew Deepak Chopra. Here I am this director/producer, who does films like Scarecrow, asking Deepak to be in a film of mine. So we went down to his office near San Clemente, and he was so welcoming, so generous. Then I went to Sharon Stone for the narration. From the beginning, I knew I wanted a woman as the narrator to contradict this Christian notion of god being a male and to challenge people. By the way, in the scriptures, it is said that “God is all and all is God.” God is never defined. It is not true that we should assume naively that God is a male being overseeing us in the clouds. It is not in the Scriptures — only in the male ultra-dominant vision of society at large. With Sharon Stone, I knew she had to be my “Goddess.” I contacted my friend Natalie Dubois, who had worked with Sharon, and she told to reach out to Sharon and connected me with her partner. This was over three years ago.
RG: So Sharon said yes, of course…
EI: I approached her and told her the idea, but she would not commit, and that lack of commitment lasted three years before she said yes. I must have contacted her ten times, and ten times I got turned down by her because she felt the movie wasn’t there — that there was a good idea but not a good enough execution of the idea.
RG: In addition, you were still doing the press junkets and interviews?
EI: That is how I got Oliver Stone, Mark Wahlberg, Rosario Dawson, and Malcolm McDowell. I would be doing these film interviews and I would tell them about my project and ask them to participate. I even had Jim Carrey in it. He was excited, but I did not have a release with me that day, and his publicist and lawyer turned me down even after I told them that Jim wanted to be in it and I had his footage. My friend Annie Lennox also contributed her amazing music. She gave me two fantastic songs: “Lost” and “Oh God!” This is truly divine overall — what happened with this film. It proves the point that whatever you believe in or not, from a single thought, an entire universe can be built!
RG: You were using friendships and these interviews and had already started to shoot the film?
EI: I put up my own money and credit card and took my cameraman to film over 300 people from five continents — 20 countries. We spent ten hours on a bus in India, which was a very tedious experience going to an interview with the Dali Lama, which we had to do. We were in danger so many times, like in the slums of Cairo or in Israel where you feel the tension. As I was shooting, I begged people to give me money. A woman gave me $40,000. Another person gave me $5,000; another $10,000, and in the middle of the movie, I ran of money and I approached all the distributors I knew and told them who was in it, and they thought I was nuts. Finally, Lightning Entertainment gave me the balance of the cash I needed to finish the movie…and voilà!
RG: So you finished shooting, and the next step is post-production, right?
EI: Yes, by now my cameraman was working for free and I had no money left for post, so I called The Asylum, with whom I have done many movies. I begged them to help me and they came aboard as a producer. I had most of the footage and pretty much locked the film, so I sent Sharon the DVD and she responded two days later by email writing me that this is the best movie she had ever seen and that everyone should see it and it should be in all the schools. She even said the movie should be at The Smithsonian Institute. I kept her email! She just went on to say that the whole Congress should see it and show everyone that we can be at peace instead of fighting like idiots. By now, I had no money left and I could not pay her and was almost in bankruptcy, in which I am now. She told me that she didn’t want any money but to just make her partner, and I told her I would give her a percentage of my profits and make her an Executive Producer. So last November, she drove to Burbank in that 110-degree heat, and did the narration with a little direction and her suggestions, and in between takes, this was a very emotional moment for the two of us. She was amazing — so generous, so spiritual. This city, Los Angeles, can be so cruel, and this star comes in and helps this French guy for no money. Now this is an example to follow!
RG: So she does the narration and now the film is ready for festivals and for distributors to see…
EI: Not quite. It would have been too simple! The US Distributor and sales company had the final cut. It was the best deal and the worst deal because I finally get to finish the movie and I am the one who did all this, and they are being overly controlling and telling me what to do with it. Finally, Sharon came in and backed me up, and that was it. Once a film is that well-“packaged,” you’re finally left alone and nobody is bothering you. Also, what helped with my self-confidence and to stick to my guns was to receive a letter from the personal secretary of President Obama and of President Sarkozy from France. They were congratulating me for this unique and inspiring movie. I do not know if Obama and Sarkozy saw the film — probably not — but it makes your soul bulletproof and ready to face any idiots who dare to argue about the value and importance of the work achieved.
RG: Great! So now you have the finished film with all these well-known stars and spiritual personalities, and all the film festivals would love to screen it…?
EI: Cannes Festival did not even truly watch it, in spite of an email of recommendation sent by Sharon Stone. Same thing with the Venice Film Festival. All big, major film festivals passed on it because I was unknown and also because it seems like they are more into movies preaching war, such as Restrepo or The Tillman Story, than peace. But it was accepted in the film festivals in Bermuda, Palm Beach, Santa Barbara, and Santa Fe with packed audiences. Meanwhile, The Toronto Film Festival passed because they said the movie was too little!
RG: You mean Sharon Stone, Deepak Chopra, Mark Wahlberg, The Dali Lama, and Oliver Stone are little people?
EI: I know — that is crazy! We just won for Best Documentary and Best Concept at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. In September, we are at Orlando Global Peace Film Festival, where it will be sold out, I’m sure! We will then be in Tel Aviv for the Spirit Festival in October. Also in October, the newly established Beverly Hills Film, TV, and New Media Festival will honor Sharon Stone with a “Humanitarian Award.” Finally, Mexico should be the first country to release The Invocation in January. We have sold it to many countries, such as England, Spain, Australia, and Scandinavia, and it will be shown in churches and yoga centers in the US. I hope we get to have a theatrical release here, and then onto DVD and Internet. So hopefully my investors and I should see a return on profits in the next six to ten months…I hope!
RG: This has been a life-changing experience for you…
EI: What we have to do to be alive and what we have to do in this life is to change our ways. Love is really the answer, and this is at the heart of any scriptures. Whoever you believe in, it’s all about the love and not the religion. It’s about the oneness and not the individual-ness. We need to change the subject from “me, myself and I” to we. One people, one planet, one universe. Be “Peace in Action,” as Sharon is saying at the end of the movie. And I would add that truly we all need “to run for office.” We all need to get involved with our schools, our churches, our social clubs and so on. Don’t wait for the Messiah — become it! But it will take time to educate, to enlighten people so that the next generation can survive. I sadly think that, within the next five years, we will be going into an incredible crisis and there will be a collapse of the entire financial system and civil war, and people fighting over religion, culture, and government, so the planet will be in a mess. But in the long-term, I am an optimist and I believe finally we will build a better world — a peaceful world.
RG: Do you feel your film will change all of this?
EI: I don’t think one film can make all the changes, but it sure can help on the side of the other helpers — the other movies, books, speakers, prophets and so on. I hope The Invocation will make people aware. Right now I am shooting a new documentary, The Goddess, as a “sequel” to The Invocation. This film is a celebration of women healing the planet because we men screwed up — the real reason why the world is in the shape it is. Why we don’t have peace is because we do not have enough women in the positions of power to manage the planet, but also because there is a castration of the “feminine” within most of the men of this planet. The castration, which is used figuratively, tells us not to cry but toughen up, dominate, control, and kill. Men are programmed to kill, and that is a problem. As long as we will raise our sons to be killers, we will have a war nation all over the planet. Drop your weapons, brothers! Open your heart, let go of this “Superman complex” and dare to cry, dare to be weak, to love; dare to give and to embrace; dare to make one with your fellow man and woman.
RG: This is terrific! How much have you filmed of The Goddess?
EI: Half of it is done. It will take me another eight to ten months to complete it. The Goddess is full of the most important women on the planet, such as author Riane Eisler, who wrote The Chalice and the Blade and The Real Wealth of the Nation. Her philosophy shows how raising the status of women and how the status of the stereotypically “feminine” is central to building a more sustainable and equitable economic system for all. Sharon Stone will also be part of it. And we have so many Nobel Peace winners, like Laureate Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire, and Shirin Ebadi from Iran. Next we will be filming in Kenya, Liberia, Russia, and China. This is the second part of a trilogy about the notion of peace. The third movie will introduce a new economic system that goes beyond capitalism and socialism — what I call “communitarianism.” Right now, America is teetering on the precipice of economic disaster. Commentators blame deregulated markets and a few bad apples at the top, but these are symptoms of deeper problems. Eminent social issues – such as poverty, inequality, war, terrorism, and environmental degradation — are due largely to flawed economic systems, and at the core of it, again, it’s about the falling of “The Goddess” — about the killing of the feminine by the masculine. We are all the victims of over 10,000 years of dominant ultra-macho patriarchal systems telling us it’s okay to kill and death is a good business. Well, I’m telling you: Death is a bad business because when you will have killed all your customers, you will end up having to turn the gun on yourself…and then this is it!
RG: So those leaders at the top of the pyramid can see what is really going on, and it is not because of religions or greed or…?
EI: Religion, greed and so on are just the tip of the iceberg. They are the expression of that castration of the feminine within by the masculine. Truly, we need to rebuild humanity before it’s too late — before some right-wing extremist, some fanatic terrorist pushes the wrong button and sends us back to the cave age or transforms us into a “Mad Max” civilization. The choice is ours and we are running out of time, but not running out of solutions. So please: BE PEACE IN ACTION! We are the one: the past, present, and next one, as Einstein was explaining: “Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, all is transformed.” I believe we are in a phase of transformation, of transition, where finally we will realize the prophecy of Gandhi: “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” We are peace; let’s lead the way! Amen.
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