Myth Of Myself 🍌
Around a year ago I drove across America for the first time. A seemingly endless expanse of possibility, tamed and wild and shopped in and gawked at. A land of subtle then dramatic change. Driving through with a bolex on a whim, aspiring to glimpse an inner essence of a landscape. The result is this short. Enlivened by and with gratitude to the words of Mr. Watts and the music of David Axelrod’s environmental opus. An attempt at reckoning with what our place in all it is - how we continue to change it, and change ourselves.
Link in bio 🏜
director, dp, editor: 🐆
words: Alan Watts
music: David Axelrod
sound: @chrisviall
color: Loic de Lame
film: @kodak_shootfilm
scan: @negativelandfilm
1995 winnebego adventurer: @thethirdact
Directed this video for @goldpandamusic way back when on spec and was inspired to dig it up. A whirlwind running around NY chasing shapes and patterns, camera strapped to my dad’s convertible (thank you abba). Bonkers fun, take me back.
director & editor: 🐆
cinematographer: @davisfilms
ac: @kimkimcheree
grip: @thethirdact
color: @ttdobbertin
2 years ago on October 7th, teenager Ofir Engel was abducted by Hamas from his girlfriend’s home in Kibbutz Be’eri. He was released in the first hostage deal at the end of 2023. The remaining 48 hostages remaining in captivity are *tentatively* set to be released next week. It’s unclear how many remain alive. Let this war end.
Last week we buried my Saba. Abraham Chitayat. Abe. Family leader. World explorer. Storyteller. Student of history. Nudnick. Patriarch. A man of transformation and reinvention. A proud Iraqi Jew born in Baghdad. The oldest of 6 who led his family through the Farhud, through the exodus of the largest Jewish community in the Arab world, through airlift to Israel, through a new life as tent living refugees starting with nothing, through Arabic to Hebrew to English to Japanese, through the Air Force to living more lifetimes than most in Haifa and Tokyo and Hong Kong and London, through a return to Tel Aviv to be surrounded by family. Through it all living as a mensch. He will always be my hero. Love you, Saba of my dreams.
