Meet Alex Mar, a New York based Director/Producer who spent the last few years searching out America for people experimenting in alternative faiths. The result? An intimate portrait of 3 characters delving into their unique mysticisms. American Mystic was recently announced in the World Doc Features category in the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. We caught up with the films Director to ask a few questions about her journey.
(Director Alex Mar on the set of her documentary, American Mystic)
Jauretsi: Major congratulations. First, can you tell us a bit about your background in Directing/Filmmaking?
Alex Mar: I took a really untraditional route into filmmaking. I have a background in TV and journalism, but I actually started out in video and performance art. Inspired by some of the renegades like Joan Jonas and Mike Kelly, I moved to Amsterdam out of college to make work. While I was there, I hoodwinked some of the top Dutch actors into making strange little art films with me. I remember shooting a musical number in the gear room of an 18th-century windmill in the middle of the night — we had to dodge the blades while lighting the scene. And then there was the dream sequence we shot in the dungeon room of a bordello on the edge of town — when I first approached them about using the space, the madame thought I was looking for a job.
(American Mystic)
J: Describe your 3 characters, a quickie breakdown — and the “why” and the “how” you chose these people to tell this bigger story?
AM: Kublai, a farm hand in upstate New York, is training to communicate with the dead; Chuck, a Lakota Sioux in the South Dakota badlands, is returning to the scarring ritual of sundancing; Morpheus, a pagan priestess, is building a witches’ sanctuary off the grid in northern California.
Finding the right balance for the film was a huge challenge. I spent six relentless months traveling the country casting, from rural Tennessee to the mountains of California. I visited with snake handlers, witches’ covens, and a whole range of underground religious groups in different regions, at one point assimilating into a community that required that I live as a covered woman, waking up to milk goats at 5am. It’s hard enough to try to capture people’s spiritual beliefs in images, but it’s another thing to try to find subjects sympathetic and accessible enough to make some of these exotic practices relatable to a broader audience.
(American Mystic)
J: As a fellow documentarian, I can imagine your individual war stories making this — funding challenges, the joy of completing a vision, resource limitations, deadlines, emotional epiphanies. Can you explain the struggle yet the beautiful ride, and if you learned anything about “the process” to share with other filmmakers?
AM: There were definitely physical challenges — sweating through 104-degree days, or sleeping in abandoned boats buried in the dirt on tarantula-infested land. And since this was my first feature, I certainly had moments when I doubted whether or not what I was shooting would even become a movie. But the biggest revelation for me was learning that you simply cannot shove people out in the world into some idea you have — you miss great things that way. After a certain point, no matter how stylistic your approach is, the subjects shape the film, and the project takes on a life of its own. For a control freak, this was a pretty major breakthrough.
J: What were you doing the day you got the phonecall for the Tribeca Film Festival? What went through your mind when it got accepted?
AM: I was actually getting out of a matinee of Audillard’s “A Prophet” at an Upper West Side arthouse theater, surrounded by old ladies. I had a slew of texts and voicemail messages. When I rang one of the programmers back, I did my best to play it cool: “Well, I’m very pleased, thank you, isn’t that nice.” I actually think it was brave of them to support a film that refuses to pass judgment on people’s spiritual beliefs.
J: Can you explain what you intend your audience to feel when they walk away from watching this film?
AM: You may have almost nothing in common with another person, but we’re all connected by the need to believe our lives have meaning.
J: What’s next for you?
AM: A strange, beautiful horror film I’ve written. We’ll be shooting later this year.
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To purchase tickets for American Mystic at the Tribeca Film Festival, go to:
Tribeca Film Festival / World Documentary Features
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