I am a composer, musician, organisational development consultant and maker of short films. My experience as a neurodiverse person has led me to explore questions of difference, divergent perspectives and agency. Much of my practice is also informed by Cognitive Behavioural and Neuro psychologies, as a basis for exploring, through film and music, how we might attempt to understand ourselves, our actions and motivations within the context of the complex paradoxes we live on a daily basis. For me, the combination of music and the moving image are the perfect companions and collaborators to explore and express these ideas and experiences.
–What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
When I moved to London as a young man, I was introduced to the, then, many repertory cinemas; it was my first real encounter with the poetry of film. A thread that joined the likes of Marcel Carné, Clouzot, Bergman, Godard, Roeg, Tarkovsky, Jarman, Wenders were the early influencers for me. They showed me the possibilities that film making could offer beyond the realm of mainstream narratives.
-Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?
Navigating polarities is certainly the nature of the world we live in, and cinema expresses this like any other art or discipline; it can and has been used to influence change, broaden perspectives and excite empathy for others. Cinema can shape trends, inspire movements and bring joy to millions. Yet it can also merely be a bland displacement or distraction activity, or one which reinforces prejudices and stereotypes.
–What would you change in the world?
Change has been the prevailing theme of my professional life, both as an artist and as an organisational development consultant. In my experience, knowing how to change one’s own mind and align it with one’s passion and values could have the most demonstrative impact on the world. Cognitive Behavioural and Neuro psychologies are fantastic practical tools for this, while music and film are the crucible for imagining the potentials and possibilities of our future.
–Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?
Although technologies will inevitably change how and where audiences participate in cinema, the power of film lies in the shared experience it provides, the beliefs and perspectives it challenges and the debates it cultivates.
A young man with immense love for cinema, sports, and my country. With a burning desire to elevate Mexico’s name to the highest level. And revolutionize the film industry by introducing one of the first short films created with artificial intelligence.
-What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
Since I was a child, I’ve always loved movies. I appreciate every aspect, from the music to the production and visuals. I love cinema because it’s a way to convey the emotions and human feelings that characterize us as a race.
-Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?
Of course, I believe that cinema has transformed and changed society since its inception. It is a form of art in which directors convey their visions through films that generate emotions in the viewer and invite reflection.
-What would you change in the world?
Hatred and cancel culture. This is a phenomenon in the world that limits creativity and the art of each production. And remembering a maximum law. Treating others as I would like to be treated myself. I believe that to change the world we don’t need to do big things, but small actions that become a snowball that keeps growing more and more.
-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?
I believe that human hand and machine work together to create the best and most innovative productions that could be made in our times. My short film “Who is God?” aims to be a pioneer of this impending change. Being a short film that introduces artificial intelligence in a friendly way and with a story that makes us reflect on the consequences of not treating this technology responsibly.
I am a visual artist and filmmaker, living and working in Pescara, Italy. Involving different communities of people and embracing inner thoughts, my artistic research shows social experiences as a simple representation of the eternal changing of life in a continuous dialogue with our own spaces. Using moving images, words, and sounds and referring to specific human conditions (in choosing participants for videos and actions), this representation lets the emotional and spiritual dimensions emerge, creating a connection with the world in which we live and within us.
-What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
Creating has always been a way for me to protect myself from danger.
The reason that moves me in my research is the deep will to wonder about the importance of human connections, keeping an open state of mind to attract new experiences and relationships, sharing in the way of listening and being heard/seeing and being seen through collective eyes.
I make films to have the possibility to unify words, images, and movements, creating a connection between those elements and direct contact between me and the other.
My research started with painting, photography, and performance, but that was not enough for me. The more I practiced, the more I understood that I wanted to say, feel and give more.
Still images were not enough. I was looking for time. Well, performances are time-based, but (I apologize to all performers for saying that) those are not, as someone says, deeply connected to life: Cinema belongs to life. All other art forms are just a part of it.
Think about Parajanov, Kiarostami, Pelechian, Tarkovskij, or Bergman among others…
So, I started seeing creation as a way to live in the outer world, normalizing social patterns, wondering about what being human means, as well as being conscious, being present, and last but not least, experiencing freedom.
-Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?
Cinema, or better, moving images is the only way to unify our emotions and intuitions with literature, painting, photography and daily experiences.
Through moving images, we can say more than words, more than experiences, more than still images (of every nature). We are natural beings and cinema is the only way to represent our deep nature. Videos are freedom.
Being free to express ourselves reduces the need for affirmation and our survival mode. Each of us, in some way, experiences this condition: living in the run, hide, or fight mode.
If our collective and biological memory, the idea of ourselves and others, the space in which we live and aggregation rituals affect the connection between us and others, exploring cultural behavior and experimenting through art can help overcome social patterns.
Indeed, we can use words, sounds, and images as the basis of coexistence: they are fundamental to creating dialogues, sharing and progress. They are our instruments to build a society based on empathetic understanding using the first things we have since we were born: senses.
Every human being has those elements to create his reality confirming that every human is a creator, an artist.
-What would you change in the world?
Nothing that exists outside of myself. Everything happens for a reason, as a lesson to learn. Only when we stop repeating mistakes and acting with mediocrity the true essence of the world open to us. Beauty is in everything that surrounds us, but we must dream with open eyes and act with awareness in order to live with beauty. Letting go and
being open to receive is the way I live, without the need to change things we cannot control: we can only control our reactions to happenings.
-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?
There are lots of fields that are not being explored enough yet. One of those is poetry. I imagine human psychology, emotions, and poetry being explored through moving images. I imagine a throwback to our true nature: being emotional by living collectively and avoiding ego. I imagine memories, dreams, desires, and life experiences becoming the reality.
Cinema is still young and will grow in inspected ways.
A Midwesterner by birth and temperament but an internationalist at heart. My primary discipline is theatre which I have a master’s degree in from University of Illinois at Chicago. Acting and directing since youth, I trained with Chicago’s Steppenwolf ensemble and Moscow Art Theatre when they were in residence at my university. I also performed several one-person shows and live storytelling gigs in Chicago, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan. All this led to trying my hand at moviemaking from home. Today, I repurpose commercially available film footage in small-scale montages.
-What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
During the year of quarantine, I decided to transfer my narrative skills to desktop moviemaking. I didn’t agonize over buying an expensive camera and hiring actors. I just exploited the software and creative tools that came with my computer. My micro films allow me to do a lot with a little. I gravitate to themes of social alienation and can see my “mini takes” becoming useful for classroom discourse.
-Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?
From day one the cinema changed society. Battleship Potemkin to Barbie, movies have always challenged society to progress. I especially like international indie films because I can count on them to let me know what’s really going on.
-What would you change in the world?
The quackery. The crass dismissal of scholarly science in favor of personal beliefs; e.g., public health and climate threats among other things. Along with that, the arbitrariness of what’s considered legal depending on wealth status.
-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?
I assume humans will be linked up neurologically to the point where filmmaking will be done mind to mind.
I am an aspiring filmmaker in love with animation! I have loved cartoons my entire life, growing up watching them on Saturday mornings. I’ve always dreamed of making my own. I have been working on my claymation for over a decade. I am also getting married in 28 days!
–What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
What inspires me to be a filmaker is the creative freedom to make your own world! I love the process of taking an idea and bringing it to life! I have always wanted to create a cartoon around a band so that kids could have something else to imagine about other than guns or violence.
–Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?
Cinema can and does bring change to the world all the time! Showing a different perspective or a new idea can open someone’s eyes and cause them to follow their dreams.
–What would you change in the world?
If I could change something about the world it would be all the violence. Erase it from our DNA where the thought does not even occur to us.
–Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?
The film industry I believe will take a leap forward with technology. I imagine a time where you can be submersed in to the action with augmented reality or load up your favorite old movie and live it as one of the characters.
My name is Reggie Austin. I am the director, writer, co-producer, and lead actor of the short film, The Marked, currently making the film festival circuit (www.themarkedshortfilm.com). We’ve been fortunate so far to be included in over a dozen festivals, winning awards for Best Director, Best Ensemble, and more.
-What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
I joined the Screen Actors Guild in 1997. I have always enjoyed telling stories. But as an actor, you’re really a gun-for-hire. You are telling someone else’s story. As a writer and/or director, there’s more ownership over the story being told. Creating a story from scratch is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time (especially directing), so when I had the idea for The Marked, I was excited to finally take the plunge.
-Do you think that cinema can bring a change in the society?
There is something powerful about the arts. Cinema continues the grand tradition of storytelling that’s as old as humanity. Any good art points to something greater than itself, to lift our eyes to higher things and inspire change.
-What would you change in the world?
This is a tough question because the list is so long! There are so many things that need changing. But I think the most helpful thing that I can change is me. How can I grow? How can I improve? What can I learn? I think asking these questions is probably one of the most important things a person can do.
-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?
Well, I can’t tell the future, but when you look back on the last hundred years of film history and see the changes there, both artistically (black and white to color, silent to talking) and technologically (digital, 8K, 3D, etc.), you know that art always adjusts to the times. So, no matter what the future holds, there will always be storytelling around to document, reflect, celebrate or challenge the world around it.
Igor Stephen Rados is a controversial filmmaker with a curious take on life, constantly searching for the “other side” of an eternal riddle that needs to be solved.
-What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
Not just one thing or event makes one want to become a filmmaker. Often there is a movie that triggers emotions and leaves a permanent mark on us. At three years old, my aunt and her girlfriend took me to the theatre to watch Aldrich’s “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.” That was back in Belgrade, where this film was a hit in the sixties. Those two ladies were sure we would be watching a sweet movie, or if not so much, I would be sleeping through the show. They were wrong. It was a dark and scary movie, and I did not blink my eye. It was in English with Serbian subtitles. I did not understand a word, but I was captivated by the visuals. Nightmares have been chasing me for years with images of a ceramic-faced doll falling out of a car by the gate. I could not understand where those pictures came from, but I started falling in love with movies. Later in my teens, I have seen Rush’s film The Stunt Man with Peter O’Toole, playing an eccentric director. At that moment, I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker.
-Can cinema bring a change in society?
Art in any form may affect us and bring change to our being. Film, in particular, delivers much information and makes quick access to our subliminal mind. We often make spontaneous moves in life, quote famous lines, and pull the story’s moral. The artist’s job is to bring profound observations to the world. It may often deviate from a shared reality; however, it must point to the untold.
-What would you change in the world?
The world does not need to be changed. Life is beautiful the way it is. If anything, we should embrace it even more. The problem is within the people who feel entitled to change the planet or give us recipes for living.
-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?
Independent filmmaking become accessible more than ever with the new technology. As a response, full-budget productions become unreachable and high in cost. In analogy, we witness the corporate world taking over small boutiques and businesses. From a retro perspective, we had a golden era of filmmaking during the neorealism period. Filmmakers could send a word to society without being enslaved by studios and the financial system. Vittorio De Sica, and Francois Truffaut, were pioneers of the movement, and later on, John Cassavetes successfully pushed his independent carrier. Pulling that artistic stunt today is virtually impossible, but the world does not stop there. Devoted artists will push their projects with all they got, even a hundred years from now.
Besides being an independent filmmaker, Tommy Anderson is a multiple best-selling author and screenwriter. Tommy Anderson also enjoys his role as a motivational speaker and Host of “The Real Tommy Unleashed” on the IQ Podcast Network in San Diego and streamed over 10 stations. For example Tommy’s show is heard on multiple streaming platforms, Itunes, iHeart, Spotify, Apple Play, and more.
An accomplished screenwriter he has written and is a Producer on the award winning short film “Life After Oblivion,”, based on his award winning adapted screenplay. Tommy’s first feature film screenplay PTSD-A soldier’s Revenge is currently in production by Panther Trail Films – Hollywood.
Tommy also received his first directing credit on the pilot series “The Tale of Richard Pic”. Since then Tommy has directed and produced several award winning short films. In addition, Tommy is also routinely cast as an actor in commercials, television, and film.
Tommy is a founding member of VetPics Film Productions in San Diego, California. This is an all-veteran independent film production company which produced “Life after Oblivion.” Most recently Tommy was seen as the face of the national Spotify commercial as the man with the dancing dog.
His best-selling novel Haboob Wind is now a screenplay, and recently won Best International Screenwriter by 8.5 Film Awards. and his new novel Two Million Steps was released in March of 2021 and went to Best Seller on Amazon in two weeks. Tommy has recently adapted this to a feature screenplay and in addition Tommy has written another feature screenplay called “The Flight of the Deborah K”.
Before moving to the Los Angeles area, Tommy lived in Madison Wisconsin and had a full career as a firefighter/medic with the Madison Fire Department and later retired from the U.S. Air Force Air National Guard. Tommy is a member of various organizations, including the Hollywood American Legion Post 43, Veterans in Media and Entertainment, the U.S. Press Association, and has served as a photojournalist for ABC7LA News along with being a member of the California American Legion Press Association.
-What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
The transition to filmmaker didn’t come overnight. After I left the fire department I went into professional photography and worked as a freelance photojournalist. After working on several events in the Los Angeles and Hollywood area I was asked if I could do production photography and I did while I also did photography for ABCLA TV news. While doing this I wrote several books in addition to several published magazine articles. There was interest in my first best selling novel “Haboob Wind” and I was told it should be a screenplay. I completed that and several others and have been pitching them. The screenplay that I had written was called PTSD a Soldiers Revenge. It should be wrapping soon and I had a small role in the film. I was contacted by a talent agency in LA who wanted to sign me and as a result I was cast in several television shows, films, and commercials. This was a constant progression of advancement through the ranks, and relationships that I had forged in the industry.
-Do you think the cinema can bring a change in society?
I believe film has always connected people, given an escape into fantasy for some, pushed social change, and there is nothing like a good drama. I believe with all the tensions in the world this is the one medium everyone can enjoy and with that develop better relationships between strangers.
-What would you change in the world?
If I could accomplish anything I would eliminate the negative feelings towards individuals and others that social media does create. Social media, once a promising form of research and communications, has been so abused by some it truly threatens our creative mission.
-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?
I wish I could say, I feel the rise of AI could cause the destruction of the thing we love, films, if not regulated responsibly. There is a great fear that AI could replace actors with computer generated stars of yesteryears and eliminate roles for current actors. AI threatens those of us who are also creative and write the screenplays for a film. AI itself has no heart, empathy, or caring to fully express those characters into an audition. We really need to stay on top of this.
I was Born in 1988 in Trento, Italy. Interested in cinema from an early age, I qualified from high school in graphic arts. I graduated in 2012 in Expert Mass Media – Cinema and audiovisual communication studying cinema in L’aquila (Italy) at the “Accademia dell’immagine”.
After graduating I took an additional one year course in filmmaking at the London Film Academy in the UK, which enabled me to gain a deep understanding within all departments of cinema production specialising myself In directing and sound recording.
-What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
When I was little my father taught me that the camera could be used to make objects and people disappear and then visually reappear in another place. With the stop motion technique, I gave life to my toys by creating animated stories. From there I understood that cinema could create magic, could give life to everything. Also I love surrealism. At the age of seven I saw the film “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” by Terry Gilliam, a film I fell madly in love with.
As an adult, I studied the dynamics of silent film comedies, especially those of the extraordinary Buster Keaton. I often try to blend surrealism and slapstick comedy in my films because they are two pure genres capable of subverting the reality of everyday life to propose it to us in a completely different and unexpected interpretation.
-Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?
I am convinced that cinema has always contributed and will continue to bring about changes in society. If a film is well done, it can make us notice things from different and unusual points of view, making us reflect on things that we find hard to notice during the daily routine.
-What would you change in the world?
I personally would like to contribute in any way to make all the narcotic substances disappear. I think they are one of the main cancers of our society. I am currently writing a story about this topic, and I hope one day I can turn it into a movie.
-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?
Over the years, thanks to digital and new technologies, making cinema has become simpler and more immediate and will be even more in the future, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence.
However, this process of simplification reduces commitment and discipline and risks decreasing the quality and innovation in the stories that are told. Once upon a time few people had the possibility of making a film because it had a high cost and therefore there was more quality selection.
Now everyone with such accessible technology and low costs can make their own film independently. This does not mean that it is wrong and that there are no more original and beautiful films but they are simply more difficult to identify and bring out.
But I am confident that by recognizing these mechanisms and applying meritocratic rules, original and meaningful stories will still emerge in the next hundred years.
I am a Czech-Swiss award-winning filmmaker based in London.
After an exchange year in illustration at the University of Applied Arts Prague, I graduated in ‘Visuelle Kommunikation’ (BA) at the HSLU Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland, followed with a MASTER in Communication Art & Design at the Royal College of Art (London, UK). About my work: I am passionate about raising public awareness of human stories and undertaking critical reflection on social development. My films aim to view the world through different lenses. Through my creative approach to documentary filmmaking I let people share their soul with the world. Through film I aim to explore my very personal themes like identity, migration, social and ecological sustainability. I create a platform for gaining an insight of different communities.
In 1997 my short documentary idea ‘Emil Manser’ (Das Luzerner Stadtoriginal) found realisation in a collaboration, followed by a re-edited new version in 2004, (in memory of Emil’s death). Manser was a Swiss street artist and self-proclaimed mayor of Lucerne. Because of his humorous, socio-critical sayings, which he carried on cardboard signs around his neck and because of his constant presence in public space. In the 1990s, he was seen in Lucerne as a city original.
In 1998 ‘Czech It Out’ (14min) was screened at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.
‘Czech it Out’ is a documentary about migration and the necessity to leave a country and to settle in a new country. Every migrant has a story of hope, courage, despair, of exile and belonging.
From 2001 until 2011 my work did focus on animation mixed with live action, dealing with social critical content of ‘punky’ female subjects through surreal, dream-like imagery. My vision was to create highly intricate work inspired by various phases or moments of life. I have directed several short animated films, music videos, title sequences, including the award winning ‘Water?’, Gold at the ‘Prix Leonardo’ in Italy, ‘Lattice Award’ at the RCA and shortlisted for the BAFTA, ‘Hangover’ was screened at the L.A. Films Festival and Animadrid.
My work was shown at numerous film festivals all around the world, including CBS Jumbotron Time Square New York USA, 51st Melbourne Film Festival, BFI Southbank London, New York Film Festival, USA, Florida Film Festival, USA, Green Vision Film Festival St. Petersburg, Russia, Zaragoza World Expo, Spain, CO2penhagen Festival….. etc…. etc. In 2008 the Robbie Williams Music Promo, The 80ies ‘Skiving‘ was in the running for the British Animation Awards and screened at 48 cinemas around the United Kingdom as well as at the British Filmweek in Singapore. With my short ‘Love Notes‘, I won the Maple Leaf Award at the Canada International Film Festival in 2009.
In 2011, becoming a mother of two daughters, I began to focus on editing and moved my focus back into documentary filmmaking.
My first feature length documentary ‘Cabaret Cuba’ (65min) is built on collected film footage on numerous visits in Cuba over the last 10 years. I have collaborated with film production companies in London, Prague, Madrid, New York and Havana (Cuba).
-What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
In the 1970’s and 1980’s during my childhood years in Switzerland, I was inspired by my father Cenek Duba, an award winning Czech Film Director who fled the country together with my mother due to the Russian occupation in 1968.
I loved to hear my fathers thoughts when we were watching movies together; from ‘Apocalypse Now’ by Francis Copola, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ to Czech filmmakers who gained worldwide fame like Miloš Forman and Jiří Menzel. We would talk about the storyline, the visual style and what it would involve to make the movie happen.
I was growing up hearing my father’s typewriter clicking while writing his film scripts, and the smell of coffee would spread around the flat. I would draw little comic stories. Drawing and painting was, and is still my passion today. When I was 9 years old, my first assisting job was to click the stop frame camera in my father’s short animation clips, during his industrial documentary productions in Switzerland. These childhood memories stay forever in my mind.
Later I became a fanatic of Wim Wenders movies. Don’t get me wrong, I also liked the blockbusters and the high end glossy film productions. However, films made by Luis Buñuel, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Michael Winterbottom, Ken Loach or Woody Allen fascinated me with its very rich desolate imagery and observational cinema form. With themes of memory, loss, time, nostalgia, and restless movement, it embodied a new sensibility in my form of visual thinking.
-Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?
Definitely! Cinema can be very powerful. Throughout history, many leaders have used the power of film to help achieve their goals. During WWII, for example, both Hitler and Stalin used movies as propaganda and did so very successfully. Cinema can easily change people’s opinions and their outlooks on life.
During the Russian occupation my father’s scripts were amended by his film union, according to the national systems communistic beliefs. If my father would refuse the script changes, his films would not be produced due to suspicion of hidden contra political messages. Eventually, filled with frustration, due to this unfortunate situation made him leave his beloved country Czech Republic. His movies would still be shown in cinemas and TV, but his name was cut out, so the audience would slowly forget his existence.
Movies change society by influencing the beliefs, opinions, and behaviors of the people who see them. Nature documentaries will bring us closer to the reality of the state of our planet. Documentaries of refugees fleeing their countries would give us a reality check of what it really means to be in such a terrible situation. Through movies (moving image and sound) we are able to open up, relate and experience a subject through our emotions.
Individually, people are bound to get affected by movies given that the main goal the cinematic art form has, is exactly to impact and send a message. There are numerous ways in which movies affect society and the modern world we live in: some of them negative, some of them positive. Overall, the impact and influence that cinema has on our society is immense.
-What would you change in the world?
I wish for world peace within and among all people and nations on Planet Earth by respecting each other while maintaining different cultures, religions, philosophies, and organizations.
In the words of Dalai Lama:
‘Universal humanitarianism is essential to solve global problems;
Compassion is the pillar of world peace;
All world religions are already for world peace in this way, as are all humanitarians of whatever ideology;
Each individual has a universal responsibility to shape institutions to serve human needs’.
These are human values that unite us all as a single family on this planet.
I wish for a more friendly, more caring, and more understanding Human family on this planet.
-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?
AI is already earning comparisons to the agricultural revolution, industrial revolution and internet revolution. It is moving fast and gathering speed. The most profound effects have probably not yet been imagined.
Yes, AI will take over many industries and professions. However, what would movies be if they didn’t come from us, our emotions, what we believe in, what we feel, what we aim to communicate and change for the better?
‘From idea to output’.
At the end it is the audience ‘Us’ who decide if we are going to watch a movie or not.
However, the years will show what the future will bring.
