ERASERHEAD, 2min., Czech Republic
Directed by Denis Rustamov
https://instagram.com/denysrustamov

Get to know the filmmaker:

1. What motivated you to make this film?

Despite the declarative priority of ideas over technologies, because the latter are ultimately considered a product of the same ideas, it is the touching of new technologies, the search for new forms and sounds in art and music that attracts me most.

Without the electric guitar there would be no rock-and-roll. Without the violin and clavichord, there wouldn't be Mozart. Without AKAI MPC there wouldn't be hip-hop as we know it.

The modern ability to blend real video with AI-generated content, where directing means prompting, makes me very excited.

2. From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this film?

2 weeks.

3. How would you describe your film in two words?

AI-noir

4. What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?

Putting together the right words for prompts while generating AI imagery and making it look organic with the real video.

5. What were your initial reactions when watching the audience talking about your film in the feedback video?

This is a good find, making you feel like someone cares about you.

6. When did you realize that you wanted to make films?
When as a child I saw the 8 mm Aurora movie camera.

7. What film have you seen the most in your life?

Here it should be taken into account that voluntary statistics on this issue differ significantly from the real ones. I was born in the Soviet Union, where, like everyone else at that time, I was content with what was available, and not with what I could choose, since there was nothing to choose from. The film that was most often watched in the Soviet Union at that time was Eldar Ryazanov's New Year's comedy "The Irony of Fate." Everyone watched it at least as many times as they celebrated the New Year. In the Czech Republic, where I live now, at the same time they watched the Russian film Morozko, and in my entire subsequent life, I met only one Czech who had not seen this film. In this sense, we, like the hero of the book by Anthony Burgess and the famous film by Stanley Kubrick, were all inside Ludovico technique apparatus. Me, my droogs, and the millions. Of my own free will, I have reviewed many times Angel Hart by Alan Parker and Mulholland drive by David Lynch.

8. What other elements of the festival experience can we and other festivals implement to satisfy you and help you further your filmmaking career?

Surprise everyone with unpredictable promotion tricks.

9. You submitted to the festival via FilmFreeway. How has your experiences been working on the festival platform site?

It is a good tool!

10. What is your favorite meal?

The kind of meal that I can share with good company.

11. What is next for you? A new film?

Maybe poems turned into short films.