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I Love Your Stories is a soulful conversation series hosted by artist and creative guide Hava Gurevich, where art meets authenticity. Each episode invites you into an intimate dialogue with artists, makers, and visionaries who are courageously crafting lives rooted in creativity, purpose, and self-expression.
From painters and poets to healers and community builders, these are the stories behind the work—the moments of doubt, discovery, grief, joy, and transformation. Through honest, heart-centred conversations, Hava explores how creativity can be both a healing force and a path to personal truth.
If you’re an artist, a dreamer, or someone drawn to a more intuitive and intentional way of living, this podcast will remind you that your story matters—and that the act of creating is a sacred, revolutionary act.
And as you age, I've
been thinking more and more,
like, you know, overall, I guess,
where my thoughts have been is like,
what have I done and what am I doing now?
And what do I plan on
doing in the future?
I've come to accept the
fact that I'm kind of afflicted
with being a creative person,
specifically filmmaking.
And in the past, I got
into filmmaking, you know,
as a super eight
filmmaker in public school,
I always liked the
technology, I liked the creativity.
And in fact, my whole
life has followed that path,
naturally, I suppose, like I'm employed
by the Canadian Public
Broadcasting Corporation
as a technical specialist, you know,
I work, I would say semi-professionally
as a documentary filmmaker.
So you have your own company?
I do, and we produce some films together.
And I started out working in documentary
while I was at the CBC and
the two worked hand in hand,
you know, the technical and
the creative aspect of it.
So I think what happened
is that over the years,
I never really felt like I wanted to be
a Hollywood type filmmaker.
I was interested in
personal human stories,
I was interested in other artists,
and certainly iconoclasts
and certainly quirky stories.
And being from a border town, Windsor,
I think I was always more
interested in American stories.
And because I was kind
of brought up that way,
listening to more American stories, PBS,
certainly CBC and the NFB in Canada,
but I really was drawn to quirky
characters, Americana.
So let's go way back,
because I know there was a
story you told me a long time ago
when you were doing some
work for the X-Files, can you?
Yes.
Oh, well, that's actually a good story.
So while I was working
during the dot com boom and bust,
I actually used my skills and technology.
And I, you know, actually I was always
an entrepreneurial spirit.
So I really worked for
startups back in the heyday.
And my idea was with the
startups where we worked,
we kind of bridged
creativity, technology,
new media together.
And we're hoping that, you know,
we're gonna create this whole new media.
So I started out in video game production
in the nineties after film school.
Then I went into new
media as that evolved.
And we try to bridge
Hollywood productions
with new media productions online.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun.
But at the same time,
as that was kind of
being hyped and overhyped,
there was something to it.
But it was very difficult for us
to become the next big thing.
And, you know, but it
was nice to evolve with it.
In fact, I kind of
had a negative reaction
after the dot com boom and bust.
I said, I don't really
want to deal with technology
for a long time.
I want to go back to what
I was really interested in,
which was documentaries.
And so while I was
unemployed after the games company
and after the media
company, my friends and I decided,
we're gonna go after
this crazy story that's,
dare I say haunted us or fascinated us
since public school.
And it was about a psychic
photographer, Ted Serios,
and how he could imprint
his mind on photographic film.
And from that, I
learned everything I could
about eccentric
characters, crazy stories,
the fantastical kind of, you know,
ideas between technology and art.
And my friends and I,
while we were unemployed,
met him and we made
this film all on our own.
And it became like a
test for me thinking,
if I'm gonna make documentaries,
I have to finish this, pull
it off, and it has to be good.
And then I'll see, do I have
the chops to do this again?
And it was really good.
I showed it to my girlfriend at the time
and she cried at the
end, which was great.
And it was a great little story,
but I could never release it
because I didn't have
the rights for everything.
I learned about all of that.
But I was contacted by the X-Files
because Chris Carter had just finishing,
was finishing up his
last season of the X-Files
in Los Angeles.
And he was looking to
do his first feature film
and happened to be on this story.
So I was hired as a
researcher and specialist.
And I thought, well, this is a good use
of all my time spent on this story
to kind of fold it into his research
for whatever film he
wanted to make on the subject.
So I met with them and I
worked with them for a while.
And like any other story,
it's very, very
difficult for a film to get made.
And very esoteric story.
I wish he had made it,
but it was quite difficult.
Anyway, at the same time,
the whole new media
thing was taking off again.
And I kind of went around with that.
And I decided I'm just gonna work
in technology and documentaries.
And then eventually I ended up at CBC
where I thought it would be
good to know about broadcasting
and really like the
technical parts of things.
And I still made documentaries there.
So that's when I met you.
I had made my first
documentary on a Canadian filmmaker.
That was a big success.
Yeah, tell us a little bit.
What's that?
Tell us a little bit about that.
Cause that's when I met
you and it was such a-
That's when you met me.
So after making this
little film about Ted Sirius
and having a little
foot in the Hollywood scene
and seeing that and
actually having a foot
in the Hollywood scene
through our new media company
that I worked for,
even the video games
company prior to that,
I kind of got a taste for human stories,
not kind of big stories.
I don't know why,
but I think maybe it was
that psychic photographer.
And I just liked the eccentric,
singular, iconoclastic characters.
And anyway, I was always fascinated.
And what started me off in filmmaking,
experimental filmmaking in the early days
was this Canadian
filmmaker, Arthur Lipset,
fit the bill like a Ted Sirius in a way.
Nobody had made a film on him.
And I thought we
should, he's a Canadian icon.
He's influenced big
filmmakers like George Lucas
and Stanley Kubrick and people like that.
And again, those kinds of
filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick
and George Lucas are big
technical nerds like me.
So they're heroes of mine, right?
So from this little filmmaker,
experimental filmmaker in the sixties
who made these great films,
I made a documentary
that was very successful.
And the first person that got back to me
who wanted to be
interviewed about his fascination
with Arthur Lipset was
George Lucas of Star Wars.
And he invited us down to
Lucasfilm like "The Ranch."
And we did a great interview with him.
So the whole
filmmaking and technology thing
just kind of took off from there.
But it still had this focus
on what I was
interested in, the characters.
So when I met you, we
were wrapping that up
and I thought, well, this went well.
And the director and I, Martin,
decided we should do another film.
And I said, what are you interested in?
And he said, "Diss
Farmer" about the photographer.
And I said, perfect,
that's right up my alley.
Yeah.
A fantastic, unknown artist in Arkansas.
Quintessential like
treasure hunt, genius.
Yeah, so my path was
from a psychic photographer
to this iconic
filmmaker who influenced people
that nobody knows about, big filmmakers,
to this unknown,
relatively strange photographer
from Arkansas that
influenced all sorts of people.
Yes. Of himself.
Carl Bagerfeld, people like that.
And so I was right on
track and I thought,
okay, well, this must be my bag.
And it was always related to
image-making and photography.
So all of these stories had a thread.
They were also kind of technology-based
and kind of magical.
Yeah.
And then from there, I just kind of
continued on that vein.
The next film was
"Mugshot" about, you know,
Right.
Strange, you know,
fascination with mugshots.
Yeah.
This time I didn't want to
focus on a singular character.
I wanted to focus on a
variety of characters
without them being the
focal point of the story.
And that's what the mugshots were.
So I continued, and again,
it was about photography.
It was about art.
It was about the
meaning behind all this stuff.
And I continue to this day
to that kind of filmmaking.
I have a new project now
that if it gets off the ground,
it would be fascinating.
And it's about, if you remember,
"Raw Magazine" from the 1980s.
Yeah.
Art Spiegelman and Francois Moulins.
Yeah, so we're working on that right now.
Oh, that's amazing.
Okay.
Yep.
I just, I wanted to ask you,
I am reaching back to some
conversations we had early on.
And I remember I didn't
know much about documentaries
when you contacted me to consult on the
"This Farmer" project.
And the way you
talked about documentaries
was very eye-opening to me as a medium,
as a storytelling medium.
You know, it's kind of like fiction,
nonfiction kind of thing,
but sort of somewhere in between.
Can you tell me a little bit,
like why documentaries?
What is it about documentaries that?
No, that's a good question.
I like the reality.
I like the fact that
this is a true story,
but the stories I do
are so whacked out that,
you know, if you
didn't see them for real,
you'd think that, "Oh, I'm
just telling tall tales."
And so truth is stranger than fiction.
That's fascinating.
Yeah.
I find it fascinating, the
chase more than anything else,
going out and doing the research and
meeting these people.
And I love talking to people,
figuring out everything
I can about the story.
And that's kind of how we became friends.
And by the way, I have to thank you,
because when I first started and met you,
you did me a huge favor
because of your artistic background
and you made that fantastic poster
for remembering Arthur,
the Arthur Lipset film.
And today that's one of my
favorite pieces of artwork
I have in my home.
Oh, that's so awesome.
Thank you so much.
I have it right here, like
beside me, which is funny.
Really?
I love it.
Oh, that's so...
I'm gonna bring it up
and show you, just hang on.
Okay.
There it is.
See?
Yes.
Isn't that wild?
Yeah.
That goes back to like
when we first became friends.
Yeah, wow.
It was like a very
early version of Photoshop.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, we also worked
a little bit together
on another documentary, at least a
concept of a documentary,
which was a lot of fun.
You contacted me, what was it?
Like seven years ago, I think.
Yeah, just before the pandemics?
It was 19, yeah.
To do a documentary about
portraiture photography,
or portraiture, not just
photography, but portraiture.
That was really
interesting because in this case,
I had a chance to be sort of a
co-producer on this,
or co-director, or
whatever you wanna call it.
I wasn't part of the story
as I was with the Disfarmer project.
I was part of the conceptual team
and got to see all the sort of,
the inner workings of what it's like
to work as a team on a concept
and watching it go from
just a conversation we had
and then have it slowly
evolve into a bigger concept
and a bigger concept.
And when I make art, I work alone.
All the decisions are made by me,
which is nice, but also
can be really stressful.
Filmmaking is rarely a one-person show.
So I'm wondering if you
could talk about that difference.
Yeah, that's great.
A literary nonfiction
writer can just go out
like a flander or
something and walk around
and still think their own
ideas and write their own ideas
and create their own ideas.
Filmmaking, it's very
difficult not to make a film
without a team structure,
especially something a
little bit more complex
and just a smaller story.
So there's a
challenge of working together.
There's a benefit.
I couldn't make any of
these films without you
because your input shapes
everything in the story.
But the point is that
it's a great process.
Now, you still have to like yourself.
If you have a commission,
you still have to answer to a
commissioning editor.
And it does make it
sometimes more difficult
when you got to get the team on board
and then sell the idea to the
commissioning editor,
take their input back.
So it's quite a balance,
but I've always thrived on
that as more of a producer
where I've loved the financial, creative,
technical balance of it all,
the complexity of figuring it all out.
I think by the time we got to our
portraiture documents,
we were quite attuned,
one, working with each other,
and two, how we treated
the subject and the crew.
And at that point, what I love
is at the end of an interview,
or we would discuss it, it
would be well-researched,
of course, we would work together
on where the story's going.
We would have to juke and jive,
depending on what people said,
where the story's gonna go next.
And with the next
interviewer, always circling back,
always keeping an itinerary in our head.
It's a juggle.
But one aspect I always really liked
is at the end of the interview,
when you turn to the
camera person and say,
"Do you have any questions?"
Because they're seeing something
a little bit different than you are,
and they're listening.
And then finally, you
go to the audio person
and you ask them,
and they'll have a few questions
that you've never thought about either.
And I just love that,
the whole kind of wrap-up,
where then you feel like you've had
this complete observance of the subject.
It's just a little
aside, but I just remember,
we all worked very
well together that way.
Yes, we did.
I remember when the demo was finally done
and watching it,
and I was just kind of really blown away.
It was so good.
And then I experienced
the next sort of big thing
that happens with filmmakers
is that crushing disappointment.
Yeah.
That it didn't go any further.
I know.
It had nothing to do
with how good the demo was.
It's all other external factors.
And it really is, in a sense,
part of that world, right?
So many great, like you were
saying, the X-Files project.
It was a great idea.
Yeah.
I think the script got written,
but I was told a long time ago,
and I think it's from a famous filmmaker,
I don't know who, but it's so true.
It's a small miracle if a
film actually gets made.
Yeah, and it's kind of-
It really is.
But I'm always kind of
fighting an uphill battle
because doing these small esoteric
art-related projects,
it's pretty amazing that we
actually got as far as we did
with the portrait documentary.
In fact, we would have been in trouble
because the pandemic hit.
Oh, that's true.
And we would have been stuck with it.
So I think it was a blessing in disguise.
Yeah.
I was so proud of the work we did
because we actually shot 10 hours.
We had the greatest interviews.
I've never had things flow so easily.
I've never-
I know even that-
Experienced crew.
They thought this was the
best film they ever worked on.
It was really great.
It was just all, like there was no fluff.
Like there was all-
Yeah.
Conversation.
It would have been a great, great film
that really inspired people.
I know that for a fact.
And I'm glad we stuck to our guns
because we really were making the film
that we thought was important,
or the one that people would respond to.
And I think about that
experience still a lot.
And I think about different parts of it
because the "Diss Farmer"
film took what, two years?
Three years?
I think four.
Four.
It took a long time.
It took several trips.
It was watching something come together
and it was kind of amazing.
And it's still there.
And it's still like, it's
just amazing that this exists
and that I'm part of it.
The demo we did for the
"Portraiture" documentary,
I was part of that film crew.
Like I got a chance to be, you know,
like I can say I did that.
I mean, you did "Diss Farmer" too.
When we took over the
project to finish it,
it was you and Rob.
Yes.
(laughs) Who basically put the
story together, right?
And I just said, I agree.
I like that.
Yeah.
And, you know, I watch a
ton of documentaries now,
but I watch it now with
more of a discerning eye.
And, you know, I can see
when it's a really great
documentary, so that's been a really,
a fun thing to learn about
and have that as something,
you know, another context
because it is a form of art.
And as an artist, it's
always really interesting
to be involved in a
project that's so different
from what you do on so many levels.
But then the lessons that you learn
and the experiences that you have
come back to you again and
again in my everyday life
and in my own art practice.
So it's just been really wonderful.
Even just with the
"Diss Farmer" documentary,
like going after Bill
Frisell for the soundtrack.
And I remember that that was probably
one of the largest expenses you had
was licensing that music.
And at the time I was like,
why can't we just, I mean,
but I get it now.
And the fact that we have Bill Frisell
for the soundtrack of that documentary
is such a huge thing.
It's awesome.
And the fact that he was
doing his album at the time
and Dan Herland doing his puppet show.
I mean, it just seemed to
kind of all come together.
It was, it was a confluence of things.
You remind me of another
like incredible benefit
of making the films,
making these kinds of films
that are about artists
that are interviewing
and meeting new
artists is that I have made
lifelong friends throughout all these
films, including you.
And then they cross pollinate.
Like I'll go out and
ask somebody, they'll say,
hey, you know that person in your film,
you should meet with them
and they're a graphic designer
and they'll work on this together.
And it goes on and on and on.
I'm still in touch with
Bill Frisell, you know?
It's crazy. That's amazing.
And Dan Herland.
Yeah, like, so I mean, I
still like all these people
who shared something special.
And so we're all still friends.
We all still stay in touch.
It's really incredible.
I know that at some
point this demo that we did,
the portraiture demo
we did will resurface
in possibly a way that I
don't know yet how, but it will.
And so a couple of
months ago, I got an email,
somebody who follows my
art and he's redoing his home
and he is going to, he's
really excited to have some
of my art in his own when he's finished.
And I wanted to know
like, where did he find me?
Was it my efforts in doing
these stupid reels on Instagram
or was it a friend of
a friend on Facebook?
And I searched for him.
I couldn't find him anywhere.
He doesn't even have,
as far as I can tell,
a social media presence.
So I just asked him finally, I was like,
how did you find me?
And he said he was reading an article
about some obscure
photographer from Arkansas.
And he thought it was really interesting.
And he was reading the
article and my name came up
and he looked me up
and then he found my art.
Amazing.
Over the years, I still
do get occasional emails
about this farmer and
really grateful for that
because the project
ended a long time ago.
And as you know, when I was there,
what I wanted to do myself,
like I always thought like,
oh, I'm going to do some
kind of a documentary project
about this farmer. Yeah, right.
It inspires people to do that.
I had no idea what and
then it got derailed with
in other ways.
So my involvement with this farmer
would have just been forgotten
if it wasn't for the documentary.
Well, you bring up
another good point is that,
you know, when you make a documentary,
you have just loads and loads of footage
and interesting people and you can't put
all that information
into an hour, right?
But I've always carefully archived it.
So I love it years later when
some grad student contacts me
and asks me for
information about the project
and I'll gladly give
over every stitch I have
if they want it.
And so that's another aspect.
But you reminded me of the process
and there are only a few rules
that I've learned to
follow over the years.
When you're investigating a story
and you're talking to people,
it has to be path of least resistance,
like water down a mountain.
The moment you run into
resistance, even temporarily,
you know down the road
that that's going to come back
and you have to haunt
you for whatever reason.
So if it doesn't flow and it's not easy,
I don't even deal with it.
I mean, yes, that's a lesson you learn
doing a documentary, but that
applies to anything in life.
Exactly, it's obvious, but it's something
that I have to remind myself.
The other one is when
we get into the film
and we're getting
closer to the editing process
and editing, I always say to my editor,
I would say like, let's pick one person.
Who's the person you want to
impress the most in this film?
I'd like to always pick
somebody from the film
and impress them just
because it lets me focus
on what I think I
should be achieving, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And at the end of the
day, the last thing is,
is that I have to be happy with it.
I have to minimize all
the compromises, right?
And I try to say when this is released,
there's very little I
would change, right?
And you got to pick your
battles with people, right?
Yeah, that's how I remember that.
I remember that. Right
up until the end, right?
Right up to the end.
But as long as I can sleep at night,
and I think the best job I've ever done,
and I'm sure you probably
would feel it's the best job
you've ever done, is
sticking to our guns with faces
that the portraiture documentary,
like I can sleep at night knowing that.
We didn't, yeah.
That was the best
experience I've ever had on a film.
Least resistance, people were impressed.
I've never had a crew
with that much experience
more than I had, even to this day say
that was the best
project I've ever worked on.
Like our cinematographer said to me,
said I have never stayed
up and watched "Rushes,"
all of them all night long,
and then got up with two hours sleep
and was excited for a game. Did too.
I watched them again,
like after coming back,
I watched them again and again.
So there's something, a
thread I wanted to pick up on,
I'll get back to that.
But I wanted to ask something else,
and this has been on my mind,
and I know it's past your mind too.
So the "This Farmer" film,
for those listening
who don't know anything
about Michael "This
Farmer," and this is relevant,
he lived and died in a
small town in Arkansas,
and worked as a small
town portraiture photographer
from like the teens, 19, teens,
like pre, before the First World War,
during the wars, in between the wars,
and into the fifties.
And he lived and died, and
nobody thought much of it.
Locals there enjoyed going
and getting their photos made,
but beyond that, nobody knew who he was,
and then he was sort of like,
he had like a first discovery in the 70s,
and that discovery got
him this cult following
within the art community,
because his portraits
were really, really unique
and really powerful.
And there are some artists, big artists,
Irving Penn being one of them,
who was very much like inspired
by "This Farmer's Photographs."
And then fast forward to early 2000s,
when his work was rediscovered,
this time around got the attention
of a New York art
collector and art dealers,
and suddenly it became like a gold rush
of like finding all these photographs,
buying them up, and they
were like two big exhibitions
of his work in New York.
At the same time, there was
all these articles about him.
So within the art world,
he just kind of exploded.
And then you contacted me,
and when we started doing the
documentary, as you said,
the composer Bill Frissell was dedicated
the entire album to being
inspired by "This Farmer."
There's this really
amazing puppeteer, Dan Hurlin,
who was also super inspired.
And there's been several books.
There's been several exhibitions since.
And it continues to
be, he is now recognized
within the world of fine art photography
as a master, as an American master.
Fast forward.
Yeah.
Just a couple of years later,
at this point, social media is still new.
Facebook is available.
Buzzfeed is a big deal.
And the work of, okay, now I'm suddenly
forgetting her name, the
photographer in Chicago.
She was doing street photography.
Oh, oh, yes.
Yes, they caught on to
the social media wave.
It was, and she is--
We were just behind that curve.
We were, and I think about--
Vivian Meyer.
Vivian Meyer, the
most famous photographer
for this generation,
because it's a kind of,
there's similarities in the stories
in that she just did this,
was not recognized for
her talent in her lifetime.
Her work is really good.
It appeals to people on a visceral level.
And she just gained all this attention.
And she gets compared
a lot to this farmer
in terms of the overarching story,
that kind of potential loner genius
that gets discovered
after their death story.
But in my mind, and I
think I speak for all of us,
this farmer is, in a sense, his story,
his photographs, what he did,
he should be world known,
and how social media changes everything,
changed everything.
We were just behind it,
and I've always thought of that too.
My God, we would have been up there
and really brought our story out.
It would have been easier to
get it out there in a way too.
If it was one more
year, it was that close.
It would have made, I mean,
I stake it as a badge
of honor that we were--
Absolutely.
We were trying to be
sued by the same lawyer
that tried to sue the
Vivian Meyer people.
So at least--
And that's the thing.
Would we have been able to make our film
if this farmer had the
same level of notoriety
that Vivian Meyer did, we wouldn't have.
Yeah, and it would
have been more difficult.
And so even though they were out there
with the social media,
it also exposed them to the same rights,
potential rights issues that
this lawyer had brought up.
I mean, you couldn't
ask for a better premiere
than for us to take it
back to an hour outside
of Hebrew Springs and
premiere it like we did,
and it was the headlining film
for the film festival in Hot Springs,
which is a great
documentary film festival,
and to have the
parties and the receptions
and all the people that
were in the film come there
to see it, it was like kind of a fairy
tale ending for that.
It really was.
It was a culmination of everything.
Yeah, it was fantastic.
So that makes up for
the lack of social media
because the people that really mattered
were there in person, experienced it.
I guess what I'm trying
to say is the social media,
and I'm not the first one to say that,
it's a double-edged
sword on the one hand.
It can be, yes.
It really helps get a message out,
but also you cannot
control that message at all.
And it gains a life of
its own so fast, so fast,
that I don't think our
film could have been made
if this farmer was discovered
just a few years later with social media.
No, I think you're right.
I haven't thought of it that way,
but I think you're completely right.
We would have struggled.
There would have been
people throwing up roadblocks
in front of us trying to-
Yeah, I mean, we had some,
nobody remembers that anymore,
but all of that would
have amplified so much more
to the point that I think it
would have been really hard.
Hard to fight that on social media,
right, people have too many opinions.
But now we can say that
when there is attention
on this farmer, a lot of it is generated
because of our film.
Yeah, that's right.
That's kind of cool to-
And I just found the
final thing I learned
about filmmaking, the documentary,
is that nobody likes
like kind of a nasty,
investigative story
that makes cartoon villains
out of people.
In fact, and I'm not saying you have to
make a happy ending.
I'm just saying that I
think you have to have
a fair treatment of
people and let them speak.
And to find that balance in a story,
I've always thought that the final thing,
the way I structure a
film is I think of a
multi-faceted kind of diamond,
and you just roll it
over and over and over,
hearing from all these people.
And that helps shape the story.
You may not get
specific answers to things,
but you can get as close as can be
because of the people
who are at the center
of the story involved.
And then you present that to an audience.
And if you've done a genuine, honest job,
people respond well to it,
including the participants.
And that I can sleep at night
because all my films have, luckily,
I've had a nice genuine
experience with people
and still do.
And on the Disfarmer fact, get this,
next year will be 12 years
that it's been on TV Ontario.
They love that film.
Muck Shot's been on almost as long.
So they consider Disfarmer
to be one of the classic films
on their network.
And it's still up there.
Like to have a film,
they renew the contract,
to have it for 12
years is really unheard of.
And it's still popular.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Which is really incredible,
especially with the story of Disfarmer.
And I'm sure that's the
case with your Arthur movie.
And every documentary
that you do is that you,
basically you are now
contributing to the archive.
Yes.
Like 50 years from now,
when Disfarmer is part of the curriculum
of American masters,
the information is gonna be
gathered from this documentary
along with other sources.
Let me get back to-
My biggest goal, by the
way, of any documentary,
I would go to my grave happily
if I knew that Disfarmer was accepted
into the library of Congress.
That would be my ultimate goal ever.
That's how nerdy I am.
Yeah.
So one of the things
that as a documentarian,
you are by definition an outsider
looking in, telling a story.
And a lot of times like you being from
Windsor, from Canada,
and the stories are American stories.
Can you speak about that?
Because it gives you a
little bit of distance
to sort of look at that culture,
but it's a culture
that you know really well.
Because you're just
from across the border.
You do have that Canadian accent.
(laughs) That's true.
Yeah.
Well, it's funny because
I had thought about this
and I had this
discussion recently with somebody,
I forget what the details were,
but in a nutshell, I
grew up in a border town,
Windsor, Detroit.
I watched a lot of American
TV and a lot of Canadian TV.
And I liked
documentaries and real stories.
I loved news, action news as you know,
and all that kind of stuff.
And radio.
So I think as I grew up
and I made documentaries,
my mind always went to American stories.
Also as a producer, let's be honest,
American stories are more
marketable worldwide, right?
And if I'm putting
money and effort into this,
I want to be able to
distribute this story
outside of Canada,
outside of the United States,
international.
So Americana always sells.
Yeah.
And it's easier to
fund to a certain degree.
So there were practical
reasons and personal reasons
and one's embedded in me.
On top of that, to be honest with you,
I'll tell you the truth that in Canada
and in Toronto especially, it's a very
provincial attitude.
There are people that protect their turf.
Only Americans were the
nicest, most helpful people
I've ever dealt with when
it came to making films.
They would just say, "What do you want?
I'll help you if I can."
Canadians would waffle and
they would be protective.
Not once did a Canadian
documentary publication,
even though after I contacted them,
I had films and TIFF and whatnot.
Did they ever want to do a story
on the subjects I was doing?
And so I just gradually
also went to the United States
because it was easier
to make films there.
People were more collaborative.
People were more helpful.
People gave me things.
They opened doors for me.
That did not happen in Canada.
Think the fact though
that you are Canadian
is disarming to Americans.
And that's the second part of this.
So I come down there
without kind of any agenda.
When we made "Disfarmer," they said,
"You know why we're talking to you
and allowing you to just
come into our community
and do this?"
And I said, "No, I don't."
And would it be my charm?
No.
It was the fact that they said,
"You're from Canada.
You're non-threatening.
You're not from New York.
You're not from the North."
You know, this North South thing.
So they just figured, "It seems nice.
These people have no agenda."
Well, the funny thing is,
I still had to do all those
things too to prove ourselves.
And you do have to be careful.
But the thing is, is you're coming in,
no matter where you're from,
as long as they perceive you
as genuine and you truly are,
you know, you can go a long way on that.
And you're generally interested
in what they have to tell you, right?
But it does grease the wheels.
To be from off.
They used to say that you're from off.
And I didn't know what that meant.
And they meant outside of the country.
But what happened is
that after the pandemic
as film festivals and
funding and the nature
of the way
documentaries are funded and made,
that's all kind of now changing.
And the technology is changing.
I decided to pack it in
and do an early retirement
from filmmaking, right?
And so I thought like,
well, I really thought that was it.
I wasn't gonna make
any more films, right?
And then I started paying attention
to this relatively new way
of filmmaking, AI filmmaking.
And I thought, oh my God,
this takes me back to
making super eight films
with your friends.
It's like, you have a toy
box that you can make films
that you never dreamed you could make of.
So now I've just
immersed myself completely
for the last six months in AI filmmaking.
And I can tell quirky little stories.
I can even bring to life
some of the short film stories
that I had been working on
before I quote unquote retired
from filmmaking.
I'd gotten into more
affordable filmmaking,
working with a small
crew making short historical
quirky stories as
animated 10 minute films.
But even those are expensive
because you have to pay
the animators and whatnot
and the sound designers and whatnot.
The AI thing opened
up my eyes and my world
and brought me back to
why I love filmmaking
in the first place.
I can make little short stories now
that wouldn't be possible before.
So I've been making now silent films,
which I've always had a passion for.
So I make silent film
comedies all done with AI.
I can get up in the
morning, work all night by myself
and make these quirky stories.
I have an excellent working relationship
with my writer, Chachi B.T.
And I have an excellent relationship
with my art director, Cling AI
or whatever image making software I use,
Google AI, whatever.
And I entertain myself
making these projects.
And here's the funny thing.
I've been successful
in the sense that now
I'll be going to Amsterdam
for my first AI film festival invitation.
Oh, how fun!
That is, it's amazing.
I didn't know there was an--
They're in their infancy.
Yeah, so--
So they're in their
first or second years,
maybe third at the most.
That's so interesting.
And so I'll go and
meet other AI filmmakers
who are also filmmakers, creative people
and ad agencies and
documentaries, all over.
And it'll also be
where technology is going
and you'll meet the
creators of these companies.
And the funny thing is, I
think it is actually a peak now
in the way films and
financing will work into the future
because there is no money in public
broadcasting anymore,
unfortunately.
And I don't think that's coming back.
So the dynamic has changed.
And I think I have not planned this
but stumbled into truly the
next kind of area of filmmaking
that will have positives and
unfortunately negatives.
Yeah.
One of the reasons I wanted
to talk to you about the AI,
your forays into AI is because
it's been such a divisive subject
among the art, within the art community.
You have people who are
embracing it and playing with it
and having some success and so on.
And then you have people
who are like just hated
and there's just vitriol about AI.
And I see it as a tool personally.
There's always gonna be
people who try to steal
someone else's intellectual property.
But at the same time, AI is here to stay.
So this is my feeling about it.
And I'm curious what you think,
especially because you are using it
and it seems like you're
using it in a very new way.
That I remember with any new technology,
so even when
photography was in its infancy,
a lot of what photographers were doing
were trying to imitate
impressionist paintings.
In part because they
wanted to be seen as artists,
but also because it was just what you do.
You look at what is
available and you kind of do that.
And then in the early
20th century with Stieglitz
and Paul Strand and the F64 movement
and the modernism and photography,
photography came into its own
and became its own medium
that is about photography.
But it seemed like it had
to go through those steps
where it's imitating
what was there before
because before like goes
through the situations.
And now we have AI and
especially because with AI,
like you can give it some prompts,
but a lot of what happens with AI
happens behind the scenes.
You don't know exactly what it's doing,
but what it's done is
collect all this information
it has about photography,
video, digital art, painting,
and documentaries,
like all of this stuff.
And the first iterations of AI
are going to be
combinations and recombinations
of what's already there.
And then at some point
it's going to become a medium,
an art medium that is unique
to itself.
It has to like go
through all these iterations
and then come into its
own and that's exciting.