Emmanuel Itier’s Provocative New Film “The Invocation”
Interview by Ron Gilbert
I have known Emmanuel Itier for over 20 years. After seeing his new film, The Invocation, I discovered things I didn’t know about him, so we let the fur fly in this interview.
IFQ: You are always full of ideas and projects since you are a writer/producer/director. What compelled you to come up with this film?
Emmanuel Itier: When I had my son five years ago, something snapped in my head. I got overly depressed, like a woman who has post-delivery syndrome. I remembered our conversation at Sundance. Your son Adam had just died. We shared this grief, and I mentioned how I felt about having my son.
Here we are on this crazy planet, and in wars, but what about his future? Is this world going to collapse? About two years ago, I was driving to LA to pitch another horror movie. While listening to The Ramones, I just started screaming obscenities and looking towards heaven when the revelation came, “I will make a movie about God!”
Immediately, in my head, I saw the trailer, the movie. This film was going to be my own salvation. I wanted God’s name in the title, so I researched the word, God. The verb means to invoke, communicate, or connect. I wanted the notion of God, but not like “Oh My GOD.” That is how I found the title, The Invocation.
IFQ: Yet, you got caught in Hollywood limbo.
EI: Exactly. I wanted to direct another film, but all the people whose films I made and earned thousands of dollars would not give me a single dime. I emailed all my friends and one of them knew Deepak Chopra. Here I am this director/producer who does films like Scarecrow asking Deepak to be in a film of mine. We went down to his office near San Clemente. He was so welcoming, so generous.
IFQ: And Sharon Stone?
EI: From the beginning, I also knew that I wanted a woman as the narrator to contradict this Christian notion of God being a male, and to challenge people. The scriptures say “God is all and all is God.” God is never defined. We assume God is a male being, but it is NOT in the scriptures. With Sharon Stone, I knew that she had to be my “Goddess.”
I contacted my friend Natalie Dubois, who had worked with Sharon and she told me to reach out to Sharon and connected me with her partner. I approached her and told her the idea, but she would not commit. I must have contacted Sharon ten times, and ten times I got turned down because she felt that it was a good idea, but not a good enough execution of the idea.
IFQ: In addition, you were still doing press junkets and interviews?
EI: That’s how I got Oliver Stone, Mark Wahlberg, Rosario Dawson, and Malcolm McDowell. I would be doing film interviews and I would tell them about my project and ask them to participate. I even had Jim Carrey in it. He was excited, but I did not have a release so his publicist and lawyer turned me down. My friend, Annie Lennox, also contributed fantastic songs, “Lost” and “Oh God!”
IFQ: So you were using these interviews and had already started to shoot the film?
EI: I put up my own money and credit and took my cameraman to film over 300 people on five continents, in 20 countries. We spent ten hours on a bus in India going to interview the Dali Lama. We were in danger many times, like in the slums of Cairo, or in Israel where you feel the tension.
As I was shooting, I begged people to give me money. A woman gave me $40,000, another person gave me $5,000, another $10,000. In the middle of the movie, I ran out of money. I approached all the distributors I knew and told them who was in it. They thought I was nuts. Finally, Lightning Entertainment gave me the cash I needed to finish the movie… and voilà!
IFQ: The next step was post-production, right?
EI: Yes, by now my cameraman was working for free, and I had no money left for post. I called The Asylum with whom I have done many movies. I begged them to help me and they came aboard as a producer. I had most of the footage and pretty much locked the film, so I sent Sharon the DVD. She responded two days later by email, writing me that this is the best movie she had ever seen, that everyone should see it, and it should be in all of the schools. She even said the movie should be at The Smithsonian Institute. I kept her email!
By now, I was bankrupt and I could not pay her. She told me that she didn’t want any money but to just make her a partner. I told her that I would give her a percentage of my profits and make her an Executive Producer. Last November, she drove to Burbank in that 110 degree heat and did the narration. This was a very emotional moment for the two of us. She was amazing, so generous, and so spiritual. This city, Los Angeles, can be so cruel, yet this star comes in and helps this French guy for no money. Now this is an example to follow!
IFQ: Now you have the finished film, with all these well-known stars and spiritual personalities. Did all the film festivals screen it?
EI: Cannes did not, despite an email from Sharon Stone. Same thing with Venice. All of the major film festivals passed on it. It seems like they are more into movies preaching war, such as Restrepo or The Tillman Story, than peace. But, it was accepted in the film festivals in Bermuda, Palm Beach, Santa Barbara, and Santa Fe, with packed audiences.
We just won Best Documentary and Best Concept at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. In September, we were at Orlando Global Peace Film Festival (www.Peacefilmfest.org) where it was sold out! We will then be in Tel Aviv for the Spirit Festival (www.spiritfestival.co.il) in October. Also in October, the newly established Beverly Hills Film, TV and New Media Festival (www.bhfilmtvnewmedia.com) will honor the film with a “Humanitarian Award”.
Mexico should be the first country to release The Invocation in January. We have sold it to many countries such as England, Spain, Australia, and Scandinavia and it will be shown in churches and yoga centers in the U.S. I hope we have a theatrical release here, and then onto DVD and the Internet. Hopefully, my investors and I should see a return on profits in the next six to ten months…I hope!