Director Statement

Oftentimes I’ve heard in my life: use what there is to use in life, you’ve only got one shot in life, don’t waste your time, you’ll regret for not having done this or having done that, life is so brief… If time is infinite, then truly life is but a millisecond long and it would be wise to ponder over just how precious our contribution to this millisecond is. As I am by nature an emotional being and life’s injustices often strike me as shocking, a fact which those near me will ascribe to my astrological aspect, my upbringing or to my biology, whichever it may be, I often wonder how is it possible that those who do harm to others are able to lead joyous, amorously fulfilled, materially satisfying and healthy lives? Will such people after their lives end up in some sort of ‘hell’? Why is it that those who lead wars, rape, cheat and inflict a plethora of evils live on to old age whereas my uncle, who was a marvellous person, left us in a millisecond due to his life being taken away in a road accident by no fault of his own? How many such similar cases must there be in the world? Must it be this way? How ought it to be? There is an ocean of questions, answers, musings, philosophies. Who or what is that entity that judges whether we were good or bad, leading us out either through the left or the right doors of the space in between life and death, whilst waiting for our merit to be measured and our final destination to be decided upon? Some will win, some will lose, but God always stays the same. Inspired by the works of Michael Newton, I ‘accidentally’ stumbled upon Andy Weir’s short story which very clearly confirmed that which I have been subconsciously weighing in my mind and internalising. In my thoughts, when freed from obligations, I’ve known for some time that I should or perhaps must adapt Weir’s short story, through wrapping up in this vision of mine and pulling through my own self the experiences undergone by myself and others. I wanted to portray a person who had it all, then ended up with nothing at all, a person confronted with ignorance and misunderstanding who was sent into a new cycle of instructing himself. That is my take, my vision, and I allow that I may be wrong; in fact, it wouldn’t be bad if I were since that is how we learn and open up multiple, hitherto only possible discussions around this inexhaustible and boundless topic; in the end, nobody has yet made it to the other side of life and made it back to us. Inspired as I am by the works of Christopher Nolan, Terrence Malick, Orson Welles, I admire these directors who, with the aid of simple ideas, construct and shape entire worlds in their movies, balancing the conscious mind with the subconscious mind in a colourful and layered manner, thus offering us the possibility of reflecting upon their chosen themes even well after the movie. I have attempted to bring the theme of reincarnation, as found in “The Egg” closer to the viewer, and to offer him or her several open-ended questions: perhaps, why, interesting, right or wrong, why that location… All things considered, couldn’t it have been something nicer? It could have, but with the art director I decided upon setting the entire movie in a CAVE - the womb and refuge of homo sapiens. The cave can be a shelter, the uterus, a hiding-place, and in my movie, with all these sounds, this darkness, this texture and crudity and cold, it becomes an uncomfortable room for learning, that is to say a sort of mental purgatory - according to the merits of one’s life as led in this world. In the movie there exists a fine line that divides the atmosphere of the cave from that of the beginning of nature as life’s exodus from the uterus into the living-space. In my vision, what interests me is the overall atmosphere and the contrast within and without the cave. Water droplets, water itself, rivers (see Mnemosyne), in the movie all this is a stream which runs across the cave as a metaphor which indicates the way “from here - unto there”, “in utero - into life”, as it carries along memories from this life into a new cycle of life in the form of intuition, lessons, learning, feeling, strength, the non-physical I. During the time spent on working on this project, I have become a father, and I can say that I’ve been blessed by that experience, and I have incorporated it into this cycle so as to open/close it in that millisecond of eternity, as well as attempting to add a larger dimension into the whole story as a man, father, director, and actor. Ultimately, that is my truth, and a vision that belongs to us all.

”You would know the hidden realm where all souls dwell. The journey's way lies through death's misty fell. Within this timeless passage a guiding light does dance, lost from conscious memory, but visible in trance”. Michael Newton