Ron Gilbert

Emmanuel Itier provokes in  “The Invocation” by Ron Gilbert Emmanuel 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. So we let the fur fly on this interview and there were no holds barred.  RGEmmanuel I just want you to know that since we are very close friends you can let me know about anything that you do not want me to put into this interview because our conversation will go into many areas  EmmanuelI have no secrets…none that I know of…ha! RGWell you are always full of ideas and projects since you are a writer/producer/director. What compelled you to come up with this film? EmmanuelWhen I had my son 5 years ago something snapped in my head and I got overly depressed like a women who has post delivery syndrome. I remembered that we had a conversation in Sundance because your son Adam had just died and we shared this grief and I mentioned how I felt about having my son.  RGYes. I remember your reaction and how you felt about the life of your son EmmanuelSo here we are on this crazy planet and in wars but what about his future and is this world going to collapse? RGHopefully not today. We need to complete this interview.    EmmanuelSo 2 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 towards heaven and then the revelation came.  I will make a movie about God and immediately in my head I saw the trailer, the movie but I wanted God’s name in the title, so I looked into the derivation of the word, God which 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   RGI understand that .You seemed to be caught in Hollywood Limbo EmmanuelExactly, 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 re-invent myself RGA metamorphosis Emmanuel Yes. So I emailed all my friends and one of them who knew Deepak Chopra. Here I am this director/producer who does films like “Scarecrow” and 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 and I knew that 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 that 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 3 years ago…RGSo Sharon said yes, of course…? EmmanuelI approached her and told her the idea but she would not commit and that lack of commitment lasted 3 years before she said yes. I must have contacted her 10Times and 10 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… RGIn addition you were still doing the press junkets and interviews? EmmanuelThat 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 and .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 hade 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…! RGSo  you were using friendships and these interviews and had already started to shoot the film? EmmanuelI put up my own money and credit card and took my cameraman to film over 300 people from 5 continents, 20 countries We spent 10 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 $5000 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! RGSo you finished shooting and the next step is post production, right EmmanuelYes, 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 2 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 Smythsonian 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 that 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 take, 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!! RGSo she does the narration and now the film is ready for festivals and for distributors to see. EmmanuelNot quite, it would have too simple! But 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 over 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 you soul bulletproof and ready to face any idiots who dare to argue about the value and importance of the work achieved.  RGGreat. 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? EmmanuelCannes 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 in movie 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 meanwhle The Toronto Film Festival passed because they said the movie was too little!!!  RGYou mean Sharon Stone, Deepak Chopra, Mark Wahlberg ,The Dali Lama and Oliver Stone are little people EmmanuelI 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 ( www.Peacefilmfest.org )  where it will be sold out I am sure! We will then be in Tel Aviv for the Spirit Festival ( www.spiritfestival.co.il )  in October. Also in October the newly established Beverly Hills Film, TV and New Media Festival ( www.bhfilmtvnewmedia.com )  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 6 to 10 months…I hope!  RGThis has been a life changing experience for you. EmmanuelWhat 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 on the long term I am an optimist and I believe finally we will build a better world, a peaceful World. RGSo you feel your film will change all of this? EmmanuelI don’t think one film can make all the changes but it sure can help on the side of the others 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. It 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 position 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. RGThis is terrific! How much have you filmed of “The Goddess”? EmmanuelHalf of it is done .It will take me another 8 to 10 months to complete it. THE GODDESS is full of the most important Women on the Planet such as author Riane Eisler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riane_Eisler ) who wrote “The Chalice and the Blade” and “The Real Wealth of the Nation.” Her philosophy which 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 2nd part of a trilogy about the notion of PEACE. The third movie will introduces a new economic system that goes beyond capitalism and socialism, what I call “communitarism”. 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 victim of over 10,000 years of dominant ultra macho patriarchal systems telling us it’s ok 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! RGSo 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…? EmmanuelReligion, greed and so on are just the tip of the Iceberg, they are the expression of that castration of the Feminine within and by the Masculine….truly we need to rebuild Humanity before it’s too late, before some right wing extremist, some fanatic terrorist push the wrong button and send us back to the cave age, or more like transform 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! RGWell my mother, grandmother, sister and all my aunts who were all influential in my life will be very pleased with this interview and your upcoming film. Thank you so much for your insight and mission. Looking forward to the next one… EmmanuelWe 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 not way to Peace, Peace is The Way”. We are PEACE, let’s lead The Way!! Amen.   www.WonderlandEntGroup.com http://www.theinvocation.com/