This weekend, I will be hosting the Concrete Dream Film Festival, founded by Mulholland Drive actress Rena Riffel. Part of preparing for this event has been to take a deep dive back into my film school days to rediscover avant garde, experimental and arthouse film.
Here are some gems I found!
Alejandro Jodorowsky
“Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.”
“Failure doesn’t mean anything, it just means changing paths.”
“One does not go to the theater to escape from himself, but to reestablish contact with the mystery that we all are.”
“For a true artist, difficulties become opportunities and clouds become solid present.”
“Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles.”
Maya Deren
I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick.
Jonas Mekas
As a film-maker and a poet, I feel it’s my duty to be an eye and an antenna to what’s happening around me.
I live, therefore I make films. I make film, therefore I live.
Man Ray
To create is divine, to reproduce is human.
An original is a creation motivated by desire.
David Lynch
Life is very, very complicated, and so films should be allowed to be, too.
Yoko Ono
Art is like breathing for me. If I don’t do it, I start to choke.
Art is my life and my life is art. Yoko Ono
Andy Warhol
Art is what you can get away with.
Kenneth Anger
Making a movie is casting a spell.
Luis Bunuel
Mystery is the essential element of every work of art.
The Concrete Dreams Film Festival is June 11-16 in Los Angeles, CA. For tickets and information, click here. This year, there will be a special guest appearance by cinema icon Phillipe Mora, who will be presenting the Phillipe Mora Award for Filmmaking.
Kristin West 