Midi Z talked with Mondocurry about his film ICE POISON in 2014

With The Museum of the Moving Image running a six film series of the the films of Midi Z including his latest NINA WU starting Friday here is a chance to look back to 2014 when Mondocurry interviewed Midi Z and his star Ke XI Wu about his then current film ICE POISON which is running as part of the MOMI series.

One of the more well-hidden discoveries of the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival was ICE POISON, a cinema veritae-inspired tale of poverty and drug affliction in the breathtaking rural environs of Burma and neighboring parts of China. To make the film, director MIDI Z returned to his native Burma after a lengthy stay in Taiwan, where he studied filmmaking. Populating his film with both professional actors and natives of the provincial areas where he shot the film, he sought to achieve a truly lifelike depiction of the Burmese people, with their relatively lethargic pace, in the face of increasing worldwide industrialization. Z, along with Taiwanese lead actress Ke-xi Wu, discussed the inspiration for the story, challenges of maintaining a sense of realism, and adventures of filming in areas without permission.

MondoCurry: You lived in Burma at a very young age. How much of situations shown in your film were familiar to you growing up?

MIDI Z: I was born in Burma and  went to Taiwan when I was 16 to study Chinese. In 2008 I returned to my hometown for the first time in ten years.  I met my mom and my childhood friends. At that time a guy who escaped from Thailand was arrested at the border and put in jail. He used crystal meth, or “ice Poison,” and got crazy. He’s still living in my hometown. I met with him but he didn’t realize who I was anymore. And I did some research about the family and wrote this story.

(The story) is about how Burma is changing. Many businessmen come to Rangoon to for trade. And most of the people, the lower class people, like the farmers at the base of the mountain, will plow the fields but the harvest is very poor. So most of them imagine what they could’ve done to make a better life. They imagine making a better life…like in this story, the father buys a motorcycle to run a scooter taxi…But mostly (these native Burmese) aren’t suited for this modernized life.

For me this is a common story that is happening everywhere. In my view, this is not just a story about Myanmar. It’s about globalization everywhere.

MC: For some viewers, there may appear to be various forms of drug use. Can you give some context to clear up any possible confusion?

M Z: (the old men smoking in front of houses) is nothing bad, it’s just like smoking tobacco cigarettes with a water pipe. But crystal meth is also so easy for people to get. For example a boy, after graduating from junior high school, can get a job and then get the ice very easily. One reason people get into it is to help escape something.

MC: There are a few very surreal and distorted visuals when characters are taking ice. Can you talk about how you came up with the way you showed the drug’s effects?

M Z: It is based on the truth. I interviewed so many friends after I did research. Actually, one of my classmates in Burma was just 13 years old when he started to use ice and. It’s a common situation…You bring a bag of ice to a hotel in China, and then waiting in the hotel for the buyer…In his case, before the buyer came, he was just curious so he started using. After that he fell asleep for two nights. When he woke up, he was arrested by the police. His memory became distorted.

MC: Did you work with a lot of non-actors on the film?

M Z: Yes, in my previous 3 films most of the supporting actresses were not professionals. But their real life was connected to the story. That is why it is really easy for me to get their performance. But the main character, like (Ke-Xi Wu) has always been played by a professional.

MC: How do you work with the nonprofessional actors to get the performance you want?

M Z For the nonprofessional, it’s very easy. I don’t tell them how to act. I just told them the main structure of the story and main point of the dialogue, but they can be free to act their own way as long the main subject of their dialogue is maintained. They can move wherever they want. Sometimes it is difficult to capture them because they move. But the professionals, they realize the camera too much. We should discourage them from showing their realization of the camera. 

I think for the professionals, they feel their character needs to cry or act or perform. And it’s very easy for them. But sometimes I’ll just say to the actors to sit there, and do something very natural, for example, have a conversation with the mother. It’s no performance…

MC: How did you feel about improvisational acting?

Ke-xi Wu: I was a stage actor before and I especially liked improvisation. To me it’s not very stressful. It is very challenging. In the beginning, around 2009,  I had a lot of experience to learn about this way of acting.

MC: Oftentimes it appears that only one camera is used, and scenes are filmed with one long shot. Was this done to capture the Burmese pace of life?

M Z: Yes, mostly one camera was used and filming was only one take. In such type of story, timing is important. It’s all about waiting.  The poor people are waiting for changes. They may be waiting for a phone call from Mainland China, so the long shot from the camera will show this timing….

MC: The selling of drugs comes across as matter of fact, not so dramatic…

MIDI: They show up like a guest and just come in and give the person something and get the money. It’s so normal and simple.

MC: Was it a typical situation that police would be there waiting, like what happens in the film?

MIDI: Maybe the police would come to arrest the woman. They would let her go if she pays. They wouldn’t just be arresting her because of the law. No…everyone everywhere has his own reason to do something. Here they are doing that to make their living.

MC: The reaction of the male lead also seemed very genuine, and not necessarily heroic…

MIDI: Yes, that is very human. Actually Ice Poison is a very mainstream narrative, a dramatic story. But I didn’t allow it to happen in a dramatic way because I wanted to make a film very realistic.

MC: The setting has a natural beauty. Did you know what you were looking for when seeking out filming locations?

MIDI: I was very familiar with the setting because I lived there for 16 years. Doing research, I found some places. There is one scene on a hill. Just 100 meters from this hill is the CIA station. During the shooting, they came to us and asked ‘what are you doing?’ Then I went to negotiate with them.

K W: That scene was shot without a D.P.

MIDI: I just told the actress ‘ok, now the cinematographer will be the director. You are going to be shooting and I am going to negotiate with the police.’

K W: We quickly finished two shots and then pretended we were tourists.

MC: Is there anything else that you feel might be misunderstood by an international audience that you would like to make clear about the film?

MIDI: At the beginning people may think it’s political or about drugs but really it’s a story about globalization. It occurs even in America and Europe.

MIDI Z’s next project is expected to be a love story about immigrants in Thailand. ICE POISON has been screened internationally at various festivals.

me on twitter = @mondocurry

Mondocurry looks at IF CATS DISAPPEARED FROM THE WORLD NYAFF2016

IF CATS DISAPPEARED FROM THE WORLD is one of the three films I can't see at the New York Asian Film Festival.  Mondocurry saw it yesterday and was so high on the film that he has almost talked me into going to see it.

Here's Mondo's piece over at Mondocurry.com for your review and which will hopefully get you to run out and see it Monday at 9PM.

Mondocurry covers NYAFF

Mondocurry is putting in hard time covering NYAFF over at his own place Mondocurry.com. He's hit a bunch of films I'm seeing at the screenings and he'll be seeing ones I won't get to- so keep checking his site to see his take on things as well as stuff Unseen won't get to,

Authenticating Anguish: an interview with Oh Seung-uk, director of THE SHAMELESS (South Korea, 2014)

The film that hit me hardest among those shown at the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival was Oh Seung-uk’s THE SHAMELESS. I’ve noticed some bones being made about his acclaimed debut in 2000, Kilamanjaro, and unfavorable comparisons drawn with this long awaited followup. Full disclosure, I’ve yet to see the director’s debut, but I cannot imagine it could have dampened my affinity for his recent follow up. Its slowly circling narrative about characters trapped by their vice-laden surroundings had a hypnotic effect along with visuals that truly seared themselves on the brain, making it the one film I knew would be essential to watch again in a state of the art theater.

I had a chance to speak to the director right before the film’s New York premiere. It was not without trepidation that I prepared to speak with the esteemed veteran. But I need not have worried. It took only a few simple questions to get the garrulous director, himself full of character, to go into great lengths about his process and experiences around making this moody film as genuine a crime drama as possible. Below is an approximation of our talk.

Mondocurry: I understand that you have been teaching filmmaking at a university. Was there an inspiration to return to filmmaking?

Oh Seung-uk: I’ve been teaching for about 12 years and it is more like a survival job for me because I have to pay the bills. The place where I’ve taught filmmaking is the Korean Film Academy, which is a government funded institution. My role is more like that of a filmmaking coach rather than an academic professor. I did have a gap of 12 years between this film and my last, but during that time it was not like I was totally removed from filmmaking. I kept on writing my own screenplays. Although some of my projects fell through, I’ve kept writing them for myself as well as other directors. So I don't feel like it has been a complete gap.

MC: Was there something crucial to getting the making of THE SHAMELESS underway?

OS: I have this sort of distinctive work process where in the beginning I work with the art director of the film. The art director I’ve worked with has been a close friend of mine for fifteen years. For this film I was also adamant about working with him. I started writing the screenplay around 2006 and from that time I was with the art director and we would talk together and find locations and design sets together. If I don't see the location and the space where I am going to be filming first, it’s kind of hard for me to actually start the screenwriting process. Even while screenwriting I would talk with him and exchange ideas. Meanwhile, I had been meeting new staff members and new crewmembers.

MC: There are indeed many intriguing views of the surroundings throughout the film. Is the story set in Seoul?

OS: On a macro level, the whole film takes place in Seoul. But I had a concept that as these characters descend more and more into their own destruction, they are pushed away into the more surrounding parts of Seoul. Satellite cities such as Incheon and Seongnam are the places where the characters slowly descend into their destruction. These characters start out in the main city and then are slowly pushed away.

For the character Kim Hye-kyung, we had the places where she was living in Seongnam but there came a point that we couldn't film there so we had to find a place that resembled Seongnam the most and film there. There was also the last scene, where the lead character is walking out. That was supposed to be filmed in Incheon, but circumstances prevented us from filming there so we found a place that was really on the outskirts of Seoul and filmed there. We had to play along with the locations we had. But I wanted the actual addresses in the film to match the onset locations.

MC: The movie has a kind of calm suspense, not as much action as a typical South Korean action movie. Was this something you were conscious of?

OS: It was kind of my philosophy that in order to best express the pain and suffering that human beings are going through is to not use cheap tricks on screen. I feel that the realistic way is to never go over the top or embellish anything. I also wanted the overall feel of this film to be rough around the edges. I think the biggest reason I could achieve this was because I had talked with the actors and DP about the process I wanted. I made it clear that I wanted the characters to only move around at 2 or 3 in the morning or sunset. There is no sun when these people are out and about. That was a priority so we would film when there was no sun.

MC: It also feels as though it is a very realistic depiction of underworld activity. How did you research your subjects?

OS: It was like going through endless interviews with actual people. In the case of interviewing the detectives I felt that if I tried to interview them directly they wouldn't open up to me. So I sent the smartest and cutest assistants that I had to them and they went undercover and talked to them. For interviewing gang members I did that myself because it’s dangerous, and I like dangerous stuff. In the case of the hostess bars, I actually interviewed a lot of men who had experience living with some of the hostesses at the bars and I also interviewed a lot of the hostesses themselves. So a lot of the lines in the film originated from what they really said and several details come from that as well. You can see there are cigarette burns over here (gestures to arm) and that actually comes from personal experience of talking to some of these women. I actually met a lot of women who had descended into this hellhole of a world to really go through the details.

One of the really striking things that I experienced while I was researching for this film was that one of the women I interviewed who really was a part of this underworld asked me: do you know what my number one weapon is when dealing with people who are shady and always lying? And she told me that her number one weapon was honesty. In a world where everyone is lying and cheating and dishonest, she said honesty was her biggest weapon. You can see in the film the character Kim Hye-kyung never lies. All she says is the truth.

MC: The aspect of the film’s plot involving pheromones used as an interrogation method was very unusual…. Did this also come from research?

OS: That actually all came from interviews I had done ten years ago. Those are all based on real life events that cops had told me about. Actually the detective who used pheromones is the guy who this whole film was mostly based on. I based the character on him because he would use pheromones to get confessions out of women. He was this really tall guy, looked like Song Seung-hun who is a really tall popular actor. So he would only wear really luxurious items and was very captivating. The film was actually spawned from that character.

For more information about the New York Korean Film Festival, visit its website here.

What Makes A Good Man? an interview with Lee Do-yun, director of CONFESSION (South Korea, 2014)

Lee Do-yun at the 2015 NY Korean Film Festival for the New York premiere for CONFESSION

One of the more passionately discussed films at the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival, held at the Museum of the Moving Image, crept up rather by surprise in the form of the thoroughly independent production CONFESSION. Its somber and unostentatious presentation of a moral quandary faced by three authentically depicted friends left viewers with plenty to think about. I had a chance to speak to the film’s director Lee Do-yun before he presented his debut feature at its New York premiere. Our brief conversation revealed that there are some heady ideas on the mind of Lee, which will continue to pervade his work, as he is already at work on his next feature.

Mondocurry: What made it possible to get the backing to make this, your first feature film?

Lee Do-yun: This film has been on the shelf for about four years. It sort of went from production company to production company without finding the right investors. I’ve had a lot of investors saying we can’t make it because it’s not a commercial film. Then Opus Pictures, which is the production company I worked with this time, they were because they dealt with production and were also an investor company. The producer from that company took a look at my screenplay and said he wanted to try his hand at production and also wanted to try to finance the film. So we were able to do that together with the production company. If it weren’t for that company, this project would not have been able to take off at all.

MC: Was this the film you always had in mind for your first feature?

LD: This has been a film that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. This is a little behind the story but there is actually a second film I confirmed doing for this production company. It has just been confirmed. But that's a commercial film. When I was talking with the head of the company, he said he wanted to do that first. But I told him that without doing CONFESSION first, as a director I felt I would be burdened so much. So In a way I was stubborn about having to do this film before going on to the second film. Making CONFESSION actually sort of helped me turn a page in my life, if you will, as a sort of ending chapter of one stage in my life. It’s like a turning point that I’ve been able to move on from.

MC: The movie has a very genuine feel to it. Is it based on an personal experience?

LD: I feel like it’s not formed only from a particular experience in my life. I thought about it as a film about values. When you look at human relationships, they aren’t just black and white or good and evil. In real life, a person you’re having a relationship with may seem like a good person one day and on the next they seem like a bad person. I think that is exactly what human nature is like.  We are constantly shifting. So I thought that it would be interesting to tell a story about that through a group of three friends. I think, ultimately I wanted to pose a question to the viewers:  ‘who am I?’ and  ‘what would I do?’ So I would say it doesn't come from a particular event, but from 36 years of being alive on this planet and having relationships. That experience sort of seeped into the story that I wanted to tell in CONFESSION.

MC: Was it originally conceived as a movie or another medium?

LD: When this story was originally thought of, I wanted the medium to be film. I think it differs… Some stories are told better through words and others through imagery and I thought CONFESSIONS in this case is more the latter than the former. When I first conceived of the story, it started from an image of a man asking the culprits that murdered his parents to help him find who were the culprits. That was the image I started from.

MC:  It seems there are many societal forces affecting character’ actions. Did you want to say something about one’s surroundings influencing their decisions as opposed to their inherent human nature?

LD: I basically believe human nature is very susceptible to one’s environment. For instance, we right now all are cozy in this New York world but around the world there are wars going on and people are suffering… I think the thing that really defines who you are as a person comes when we are placed in extreme circumstances and it depends on what choice we make in those circumstances. I feel that Korean society nowadays really forces a choice against our wills. Unfortunately it’s just the way things are. Basically I really want to challenge people about their beliefs that they are being a good person or a bad person. Would those really hold up in an extreme circumstances? That's what I want to question. I feel like I’m more interested in characters that are not born to be heroes or villains.  I like to deal with characters that become a hero or villain depending on the choice you make. The stories I really like to tell are about characters who are not in that decision making process at first, but we see them go through it. And then they become a hero or a villain. I think that is also my goal as a director: to portray human beings in that sort of context.

MC: You mentioned another film is in the works and will be a commercial one. Will it be very different than CONFESSION?

LD: I wouldn't say it’s entirely different from CONFESSION because, although it takes on the genre of an action thriller film, it’s about a journalist and terrorist who are trying to get what they want. Both of them have different goals and they’re trying to get them but I think that similarly to CONFESSION it keeps on dealing with the choices we are confronted with and the consequences that arise from the choices we make. So yes I think it still follows the same thread in that I want to ask the question of how we maintain our integrity as human beings.

MC: Is there anyone you have an aspiration to work with, or anyone you worked with on CONFESSION that you would like to collaborate with again?

LD: I’m about to work on the screenplay of the next movie. Ju Ji-hoon, who played in-chul in CONFESSION, is actually unofficially confirmed to play one of the leading roles in it. It was a great experience for me working with the actors on CONFESSION so I’m happy to be working with him again. During the time between filming CONFESSION and now, he’s grown quite a bit in visibility and popularity so he’s a good asset to have on the film. We’re still in the casting process right now. There are some very good actors in Korea, so I need to get back and see who I want to work with.

For more information about the New York Korean Film Festival, visit its website here.

Triple Threat Chat: A Talk With the Directors of the Documentary LUCHA MEXICO

A few weeks ago, as DOC NYC, the annual festival of documentary films, drew to a close, I managed to get to an encore screening of the wonderfully insightful film on the world of lucha libre pro wrestling in Mexico, LUCHA MEXICO. Although disappointed to miss the chance to talk with subjects of the documentary and bona fide pro wrestling stars Shocker and John Strongman, who appeared at the documentary’s US premiere, it was still a thrill to see the movie on a big screen and have a spirited talk with co-directors Alex Hammond and Ian Markiewicz about the making of the film (with Chocko providing some much appreciated outside interference and camera work to be shared down the line).

Below is an approximation of our chat...

mondocurry: You mentioned that you’ve been a long time wrestling fan. Did your viewing always veer toward lucha libre?

IAN MARKIEWICZ: Lucha libre has always been interesting to me, and whenever I can watch it, I do. I think it’s harder to find on TV in the US. You’ll see it there for many months and then all of a sudden it’s gone. So it's not consistent. I always had this idea that I was going to do something more about wrestlers in the US, but loved the idea of one of them going down to Mexico, because that happens a lot: guys go down to rehab themselves, or maybe work there early in their career. It's a side of wrestling we aren't as exposed to. That’s kind of where the Jon Strongman angle comes in.

MC: Can you talk about the period of time over which the documentary was made?

ALEX HAMMOND: We started shooting 4 years ago, around 2011, 2012. Every few months we would fly down to Mexico and shoot as much as we could, getting to know the different companies and finding stories.  We would be working on freelance stuff at the same time, and even finished another feature documentary while shooting Lucha (Better Than Something: Jay Reatard). 

IAN: There was maybe a year in there, give or take, of research.

ALEX: The beginning was all research, finding the characters we were going to use, and some of that never even made it into the film.

IAN: Earning their trust took a long time, and that was before we could even turn the camera on. You’re asking somebody to let you into their lives, which is rarely easy.

MC: Were there wrestlers who were difficult to speak with because they were guarded about their non-wrestling identities?

IAN: I’ll be honest with you, most of the masked guys don’t want to give you too much. Only some of them will. Blue Demon was really there for us and we spent a lot of time with him. And there were others who were very nice and loved the idea of what we were doing, but knew it wasn’t something they could be fully involved with. In those cases it wasn’t like there was a real barrier - they were very honest and said that while they didn't mind appearing in the film, they couldn’t show what’s behind their character.

The only person who totally refused to participate was El Hijo del Santo… because he wanted the movie to just be about himself. If it included other wrestlers, he didn’t want to have any part of it. Of course, he’s not the original Santo… But it still would’ve been nice.  

MC: Was there any one individual, or individuals, who helped you to gain access to others you ended up following in the movie?

ALEX: Well, the first company we worked with was with Triple A (AAA, one of Mexico’s major pro wrestling promotions) and we got quite a bit of access early on, but ultimately they were the company we ended up following the least. It was on one of our later "research" trips that we finally connected with CMLL, which was not easy, and started meeting and interviewing more wrestlers. We have to thank Sandra Granados, the head of PR at CMLL; she kind of runs the show, and was one of the first people to really get what we were trying to do. I'd also add that at the first CMLL press conference we went to, we met Jon Strongman, and he introduced us to Shocker. And Shocker introduced us to a lot of the other guys, like Fabian El Gitano, and this whole world opened up.

Having filmed with two of the major wrestling companies, we knew we also had to meet with Perros Del Mal, the hardcore/extreme promotion in Mexico. Perro was a different thing. We met El Hijo del Perro Aguayo at the major Lucha Expo, where everyone goes once a year to meet their favorite superheroes. From there we started hanging out and going to shows with him, he was very generous with us. 

MC: The music in the film is fantastic. Sometimes it was like traditional and modern sounds meeting one another. Can you talk about your ideas for it and how it came together?

IAN: That blend of modern and traditional was exactly the idea.

ALEX: We worked really hard on that. The music was always going to be a long process because we wanted original music as much as possible, but we also knew there would be famous songs like (wrestlers’) entrance songs, and we wanted to have some authentic Mexican music in there, stuff that’s popular, and music that was cinematic.  Two composers that created original tracks for the film were Jonathan Snipes, a film composer in LA, and Tucson-based musician/composer Sergio Mendoza. They both brought a modern and Mexican mix to the soundtrack. 

MC: There is incredible close-up footages of matches that to me looks better than broadcasts of lucha libre that I’ve seen in the past. How did you approach filming?

IAN: I think that was very purposeful. We wanted to show a different perspective. You can see this stuff on TV and now you can see it all online, so what’s the point of just showing the match as it's already available? Wherever possible, we wanted this to be our own version.

MC: Did you bring in experiences with other types of filming to your project? Did filming the wrestling matches force you to adjust in any ways?

IAN:  We've shot a lot of live music stuff, like concerts. Performance and dance movement - wrestlers are no less performers than any dancer. The biggest challenge was dealing with the standard six man tag team matches. You may have one guy you’re following, but you can't capture his match if he's the only one you shoot, and there are usually at least three different points of action. And we’re only a two-person crew. So you have to find a way to navigate the chaos. 

ALEX: There are times you miss things in the ring. It’s awful. We shot so many shows, and after the years we put in we got better at working around the ring. You become more in tune with different wrestler's styles. So our shooting got better along the way, but I have to say it's never easy running around and making sure you follow the action while also trying to compose something beautiful without getting in their way. 

IAN: Wrestling is just hard thing to shoot.

ALEX: You have to predict and then be very quick on your feet.

MC: It was just the two of you filming?

ALEX: Yes, Ian and I took turns shooting the verite scenes, and then we both shot the shows whenever possible. The only time we had three cameras was for one of the big CMLL Anniversary shows. 

IAN: An old friend and colleague of mine, Sean Williams, came down to shoot for a few days. I love working with him, and we had a ridiculous amount of fun in Mexico. 

MC: Were there any moments while filming where you felt like you were in a dangerous situation?

IAN: We were never in danger, really.

ALEX: Ultimo Guerrero almost fell on you…

IAN: He ended up breaking a photographer's camera right next to me. You do see some collateral damage. And there were times guys got me in a lock up just to mess with me while we were in the match. That was for fun, though. I think the worst was when the crowd started throwing stuff. I had a guy throw a full Gatorade bottle at my head.

MC: That brings to mind a wild scene in the movie when Ultimo Guerrero is riling up a fan sitting at ringside. He responds by throwing a drink. Can you talk about that kind of scenario? Was it typical?

IAN: That night was chaos. In that arena in particular, Arena Coliseo Guadalajara, you can see crazy shows. They have discount beer, a lot of interaction with the wrestlers, and the people don't hold back. Arena Mexico is a little bit more calm. There’s a lot of security. It’s a rowdy but controlled crowd. It all depends where you are.

MC: Have either of you experienced a change in your perception of lucha libre, or professional wrestling in general, since working on the movie?

ALEX: I think I’m going to be a fan for life. Making this film is definitely the reason for this, because I honestly didn't follow Lucha Libre or pro wrestling before. I have to say I think Lucha Libre really brought me closer to Mexico and to my culture. I'm half-Mexican but grew up in the U.S.  Every time we're in Mexico, I seek out a lucha show and of course go to the Arena Mexico. I have a new respect for wrestlers now.  I do believe they are athletes, hard workers who risk their lives for our enjoyment. It really is a fascinating world. 

MC: How did you reach a conclusion to filming? Was there a certain point where you felt like there was enough footage?

ALEX: There are so many little details of lucha libre that we could have included another hour of scenes and details of the sport… We didn't want to make a movie that was going to hold your hand and tell you the rules of everything. 

Honestly, we found it hard to stop shooting, because we really enjoyed shooting this movie and kept finding new things to shoot. But there came a moment where we knew we had the film. We actually finished a cut, and two months later, Perro (Aguayo Jr) died… and that was really hard. It was a total shock for us. This made us go back to the edit, and we basically spent the rest of the year re-cutting the movie.

IAN: We had the movie before that but… You can’t have something like Perro Aguayo's death and not address it. We were as shocked as everyone else - there are only a handful of wrestling deaths as tragic as his. We felt like it would be dishonoring his memory to sweep it under the carpet in any way. And not only that, but he was a really big supporter of us and the project. He really loved what we were doing and always made the effort to help us. We had to pay that back on some level.

MC: Are there any relationships that formed while making the film, and has the experience informed your next projects?

IAN: Shocker is a great friend, and John (Strongman) is wonderful. They've both given us the shirt off their backs more times than I can count. And that's just the beginning of a long list. We were very fortunate to have been able to work with people we could actually be close with. On top of that there were a lot of incredible people we spent time with but couldn't fit in the film… 

ALEX: Yes, there were many wrestlers we got close to but only so many you can explore in an hour and half movie. We made quite a few friends, some we'll have to return to in future projects. Of course, we have many other films we'd like to make before continuing work on this one!

IAN: At some point you have to say "the film is done," but every project is different. We probably will try to bring out a little more of this stuff in whatever way makes sense. We're not planning to make a longer or different cut of this film, but we're open to exploring and sharing some of the other tangents if people are interested. 

Look for LUCHA MEXICO to make its mark on the West Coast of the US in the near future, with sights set on a theater release some time after.