CINEMA NEWS: Maverick Movies

Fabrizio Federico

What do you think is the future of underground cinema especially in the United Kingdom ? 

If you watch ‘Anarchy In The UK: The New Underground Cinema’ you’ll get a perfect idea, it’s about the Misrule film movement and how we changed the film industry. Cinema is my religion, Im the John McEnroe of cinema because of my gusto. Im not saying Im the best, but I am. I make the best hyper-kinetic films and pick groundbreaking subjects, and I do it cose I want cinema to move forward as an artistic expression. Im a pioneer but I dont want to just be a poster boy for cinema chic just cose Im good looking. I want new blood to upstage me and no one has done that. So the best thing for me to do now is now be a recluse, to give others a chance at world domination because Im generous. My wild years were from (2010-2019), Im pre Corona virus. I was the last cinema maverick before this brave new world we now all live in. 

How has the Misrule cinema movement helped you grow as a filmmaker and as an individual ? 

Well obviously I’ve become more humble. I’ve been blacklisted but it was worth it because the industry needed shaking up, Im not scared about fighting back if they arent open minded about my movies, I cant stand being polite all the time just to be PC. Those moguls needed to be told that they were being unfair by not letting new filmmakers screen their movies, just because they were different and we use iPhones and non-actors. You can learn more from street superstar non-actors than professionals, they offer real emotions and they touch a raw nerve like a Diane Arbus photo. But you have to take whats yours, Im not a rich kid like a lot of the people in the film industry, Im rough and ready but also highly intelligent and they think thats dangerous, plus it scared them when Im encouraging all these untrainned filmmakers to rise up, hence, the Misrule movement. A generation gap is always going to be messy, a lot of blood gets spilled but hopefully in the future things will be easier for a new generation of filmmakers. 

What has been your personal influences as a filmmaker ? 

At the moment I’ve been watching Le Samurai with Alain Delon, and Bad Timing by Nicholas Roeg, I’ve had it on loop. Theresa Russell is omnipotent in that movie, I wish all actors were as fearless as her. The editing is phenomenal as well, everything is juxtaposted like a daydream mixed with reality. I call my style ‘Pick-A-Mix’ because I mix up many levels of zen consciousness, even the afterlife, because Im psychic. But I prefer villains and anti-heroes like HAL 9000, computers make fascinating enemies. I now also do art collages based on bacteria and germ colour patterns. My last two art pieces are called Coroner Boner & Banana Fish Love Card, and then in August I’ve got the Straight-Jacket Guerrilla Film Festival. How has the lineage of filmmakers from the UK helped you from when you started making films ? Well not really, theres been some great classic films but nothing exciting lately in England other than Teddy Bears Live Forever. No other new British directors come to mind who have put their necks out on the guillotine like Im doing. The Kitchen Sink Movement was great but it isnt as experimental as Punk Cinema, until I came along England only had those two cinema movements, but Misrule is too undisciplined for mainstream magazines and TV because its too radioactive. My favourite directors are either French or Russian, they are a lot braver then British filmmakers. Over here Im the only one making edgy films but across the world there are many more because its a worldwide movement. YouTube is our church. 

Have you ever made a porno ? 

God no but I love films like Betty Blue, The Last Seduction and La Belle Noiseus, those crazy erotic avant-garde films, because sex is a natural emotion and it’s one of the best occasions in life between two people. It’s so pure and intense, and you just forget the world, the world goes away during sex. If you combine sex & intellect together in a film its like dynamite. It also depends on the person watching and how carnal they are. Unfortunately a lot of people in power are very frigid so they think sex is not a natural emotion. I get most of my inspiration from graveyards and ruins. But when the devil fails he sends me a woman. 

What exactly was the liberation that Misrule movement wanted to gain, or was it just economical or was it a change in the set of ideologies, if so how have the other cinema movements helped in the process, like Dogme95? 

We wanted to make cheap, DIY films mixed with documentary and alternative images. See this is the thing that annoys me, Dogme95 is very tame. But the Pink8 Manifesto is the equivalent of Bebop or psychedelic rock, the actors improvise while on drugs and its mind expanding and easy to do, you dont even need a script just guts, passion and colorful people. When I saw Dennis Hoppers The Last Movie I discovered cinema nirvana, but that film was a critical and commercial failure, think about that. But the future was invented to spoil the present so I focus on the ’now’. Misrule is like cinematic voodoo, or an incantation, it’s meant for intelligent viewers of any age who want to elevate themselves and watch a new kind of reality, just follow the white rabbit.

Strawberry Fields Forever - Interview with filmmaker Fabrizio Federico

Fabrizio Federico

What do you think is the future of underground cinema especially in the United Kingdom ? 

If you watch ‘Anarchy In The UK: The New Underground Cinema’ you’ll get a perfect idea, it’s about the Misrule film movement and how we changed the film industry. Cinema is my religion, Im the John McEnroe of cinema because of my gusto. Im not saying Im the best, but I am. I make the best hyper-kinetic films and pick groundbreaking subjects, and I do it cose I want cinema to move forward as an artistic expression. Im a pioneer but I dont want to just be a poster boy for cinema chic just cose Im good looking. I want new blood to upstage me and no one has done that. So the best thing for me to do now is now be a recluse, to give others a chance at world domination because Im generous. My wild years were from (2010-2019), Im pre Corona virus. I was the last cinema maverick before this brave new world we now all live in. 

How has the Misrule cinema movement helped you grow as a filmmaker and as an individual ? 

Well obviously I’ve become more humble. I’ve been blacklisted but it was worth it because the industry needed shaking up, Im not scared about fighting back if they arent open minded about my movies, I cant stand being polite all the time just to be PC. Those moguls needed to be told that they were being unfair by not letting new filmmakers screen their movies, just because they were different and we use iPhones and non-actors. You can learn more from street superstar non-actors than professionals, they offer real emotions and they touch a raw nerve like a Diane Arbus photo. But you have to take whats yours, Im not a rich kid like a lot of the people in the film industry, Im rough and ready but also highly intelligent and they think thats dangerous, plus it scared them when Im encouraging all these untrainned filmmakers to rise up, hence, the Misrule movement. A generation gap is always going to be messy, a lot of blood gets spilled but hopefully in the future things will be easier for a new generation of filmmakers. 

What has been your personal influences as a filmmaker ? 

At the moment I’ve been watching Le Samurai with Alain Delon, and Bad Timing by Nicholas Roeg, I’ve had it on loop. Theresa Russell is omnipotent in that movie, I wish all actors were as fearless as her. The editing is phenomenal as well, everything is juxtaposted like a daydream mixed with reality. I call my style ‘Pick-A-Mix’ because I mix up many levels of zen consciousness, even the afterlife, because Im psychic. But I prefer villains and anti-heroes like HAL 9000, computers make fascinating enemies. I now also do art collages based on bacteria and germ colour patterns. My last two art pieces are called Coroner Boner & Banana Fish Love Card, and then in August I’ve got the Straight-Jacket Guerrilla Film Festival. How has the lineage of filmmakers from the UK helped you from when you started making films ? Well not really, theres been some great classic films but nothing exciting lately in England other than Teddy Bears Live Forever. No other new British directors come to mind who have put their necks out on the guillotine like Im doing. The Kitchen Sink Movement was great but it isnt as experimental as Punk Cinema, until I came along England only had those two cinema movements, but Misrule is too undisciplined for mainstream magazines and TV because its too radioactive. My favourite directors are either French or Russian, they are a lot braver then British filmmakers. Over here Im the only one making edgy films but across the world there are many more because its a worldwide movement. YouTube is our church. 

Have you ever made a porno ? 

God no but I love films like Betty Blue, The Last Seduction and La Belle Noiseus, those crazy erotic avant-garde films, because sex is a natural emotion and it’s one of the best occasions in life between two people. It’s so pure and intense, and you just forget the world, the world goes away during sex. If you combine sex & intellect together in a film its like dynamite. It also depends on the person watching and how carnal they are. Unfortunately a lot of people in power are very frigid so they think sex is not a natural emotion. I get most of my inspiration from graveyards and ruins. But when the devil fails he sends me a woman. 

What exactly was the liberation that Misrule movement wanted to gain, or was it just economical or was it a change in the set of ideologies, if so how have the other cinema movements helped in the process, like Dogme95? 

We wanted to make cheap, DIY films mixed with documentary and alternative images. See this is the thing that annoys me, Dogme95 is very tame. But the Pink8 Manifesto is the equivalent of Bebop or psychedelic rock, the actors improvise while on drugs and its mind expanding and easy to do, you dont even need a script just guts, passion and colorful people. When I saw Dennis Hoppers The Last Movie I discovered cinema nirvana, but that film was a critical and commercial failure, think about that. But the future was invented to spoil the present so I focus on the ’now’. Misrule is like cinematic voodoo, or an incantation, it’s meant for intelligent viewers of any age who want to elevate themselves and watch a new kind of reality, just follow the white rabbit.

Fabrizio Federico

IAN CURTIS' TRAGIC LYRICS INSPIRE MOVIES BIZARRE PLOT

This years film release Teddy Bears Live Forever takes its cues from Ian Curtis' vast catalogue of bleak but beautiful lyrics. Songs such as She's Lost Control, Atrocity Exhibition and The Eternal are some of the few that filmmaker Fabrizio Federico has named as the films inspiration, ''Ian's lyrics are like mini movies, they paint such simple doom laden pictures  that I found them ideal to form the main characters spiritual DNA, Ian is her divine guide.

The fact that Ian also believed in reincarnation also touched a nerve with the director,  ''before I made the movie I was hypnotised in a past regressive therapy session and I travelled far and wide back in time just like Ian sang about in Wilderness, during the session I found myself on a farm covered in blood surrounded by a dead family and all their slaughtered livestock, it was terrifying and that vision has haunted me ever since.''

April is a young faded ''It girl'' suffering in exile from multiple-personality disorder (brought on by a UFO Cult & Hollywood) and she decides that one of her six personalities must lose her virginity. 
As April suffers bizarre flashbacks in a solitary room, sleepwalking, telephoning rent boys, listening to The Carpenters and terrorising her old guardian with her untamed sex appeal. She ultimately set's out to become a modern saint.

''I made the film on intuition and a sensation to focus on some powerful messages (trauma, anti-establishment, false idolatry, existential angst and spirituality) wrapped up in an isolated feline martyr quality. 
The main character April is fighting to regain a state of grace that she lost as an ''It girl''  living in a superficial society obsessed with illusion while working in Hollywood. April is trying to penetrate the essence of her problems by being brave, screaming & articulating her pain through the film. She's trying to release the poisoned fragrance of her trauma. She's deprogramming her self by losing her mind. 

In the beginning of the movie we're shown a glimpse into her former ''It girl'' pop-culture life, at the complete absolute zenith of her fame, which is full of tacky excitement, flashes, games, disciples, vibrations and action. 
But then the film moves to the aftermath of all that, and to her current isolated life in London after rejecting her followers. But now she is battling her six personalities, so in a way she's leading six different realities and levels of consciousness. Each personality is a different level of consciousness, but music is her true prayer. She listens to The Carpenters while in exile, because she identifies with women who suffered, like Karen Carpenter, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe etc... but she also enjoys hanging herself by visualising her suicide. 

The film is also an insight into gurus, and how they deal with their followers problems, whether they are suffering from family or social suffering. The movies about spiritual terms instead of adolescent terms. 

So while she's living out Hollywood, April get's mixed up with this UFO cult, has an outer body experience and is raped by the cult. After this trauma and because she's already mixed-up with this narcissism of her glamour lifestyle, it finally turns her into a stretcher case. In the film we watch her fighting to win back her sanity. 
She constructs this mission to cure the most evil of her multiple-personalities, to lose her virginity and to feel touch, which gives her a fresh enthusiasm and a existential mission; the glorification to start communicating again. In general terms, she is coming out of a isolated fog and is looking for a universal consciousness. This girls story actually represents the whole elemental goal of humanity. 

Filmmaker Fabrizio Federico in Macclesfield

Feeling lost and sending signals into outer space, maybe that's why she joined a UFO cult to begin with. But she's still looking for an atomic attraction, or a spiritual push to come and save her. Dealing with six personalities will push anyone's sense's to the limit, but because she's in self-imposed isolation she cant really receive life's true miracle cure: human touch. 
Touch is the sparkling combination of feeling all of your senses all at once. So she decides to recapture her salvation by losing the virginity of the most evil, of all her multiple personalities, called Sam.

Sam is a mythological anti-hero personality, a complete freak who suck's on her bloody tampons, wears wigs and sexually terrorises her old guardian that she's living with. But in many ways April is sacrificing her sanity in order to purify her soul from Sam's sinister presence. In order to become a divine being again and to grow.

Brian Jones 'Lost Masterpiece' - A Degree Of Murder (Soundtrack)

The soundtrack by Brian Jones has never had an official release, possibly because of legal conflicts. Although the Yardbirds guitarist Jimmy Page, session pianist Nicky Hopkins, musician Peter Gosling, and Small Faces drummer Kenney played on the album Jones contributed many respective instruments to the recording sessions. It was recorded between late 1966 and early 1967 at IBC Studios in London. Jones stated that "the boys in the band played on the record" but Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman has said that neither he nor drummer Charlie Watts participated in the music making and Jones never elaborated exactly which members played on the soundtrack. Jones also stated that many session musicians play on the soundtrack but session logs reveal that most of the instrumentation was done by Jones himself. 

Jimmy Page talks about working on the soundtrack:
"Brian knew what he was doing. It was quite beautiful. Some of it was made up at the time; some of it was stuff I was augmenting with him. I was definitely playing with the violin bow. Brian had this guitar that had a volume pedal-he could get gunshots with it. There was a Mellotron there. He was moving forward with ideas."

British underground filmmaker Fabrizio Federico took inspiration from Brian's soundtrack for his movie Teddy Bears Live Forever (2019) proving Jones lasting influence in the cinema department: 
''It's a perfect film score, the tapestry of different instruments and sounds was a first in 1966, and on top of that this was his first soundtrack! God only knows what he would have created had he had lived, maybe he could have won an Oscar for best soundtrack at some point.''

In the tumultuous period between late 1966 and February of 1967, Brian reached the pinnacle of his songwriting success. Brian was dating the model/actress Anita Pallenberg and ended up composing the film score for the German-made film called "A Degree Of Murder" (Mord Und Totschalg) which starred Anita. Brian saw the project both as a creative challenge and something that would bring him and Anita closer. Keith Richards said of Brian's soundtrack:
"For a project nobody ever tried before-to write a whole piece of music for a film-it was good." 

The director of the film, Volker Schlondorff described the film and Brian's role:
"I liked Brian and trusted him. You could feel that he had a lot of creativity. He was very much in touch with his time and he was also very much in love with Anita, the only actress in the movie - and its soul. She was bound to inspire him, if he was to write the music for her. And it wasn't just that his music was special, it was that the score was so spontaneous, vital. Only Brian could've done it. He had a tremendous feeling for the lyrical parts and knew perfectly the recording and mixing techniques required to achieve the best sound for drums, his guitar or flute et cetera." "When the editing was done, Brian came back to Munich and sat in the editing room with me as we discussed, just as with any other professional movie composer, where to put music and what kind of music. It was just the true story of a girl who accidentally kills her boyfriend with his own gun, but instead of going to the police she hires two men for a few hundred marks to drive the corpse to the country where they bury him in the construction site of an autobahn. No moral implications, no guilt trips. It's more like an outing on a beautiful autumn day. Brian's score then was to provide a reflection of those rather callous feelings, while somehow managing to hint that of course she was mourning her boyfriend's death."

Brian wrote a theme, which is reprised throughout the film in various styles including bluegrass, folk, Eastern influences, R&B, rock and country. Once Brian had accumulated enough material for the project he turned to Glyn Johns to help put it together. Although the two men did not get along personally, they worked together smoothly on the project. Glyn Johns described his role: 
"Brian came to me and asked for help. He'd lost so much self-confidence by this time and really was in need of a hand. In a way I felt sorry for him. It wasn't that I didn't think he was capable of handling the project himself. But clearly he wanted help in the engineering. So I agreed. Brian worked very hard in his Courtfield flat on two little tape machines. He had all types of ideas which worked. He did it very well, and it came out amazingly. And we had a good time doing it. Brian was extremely together and confident while he was working on it. When it was finished he was both pleased and relieved. The rock 'n' roll bit which was written to fit the early murder scene was really good" 

The soundtrack was recorded at IBC Studios between late 1966 and early 1967 with all music composed, arranged and produced by Brian (with Glyn Johns engineering). The soundtrack also featured session musicians Jimmy Page (guitar), Nicky Hopkins (piano), and Peter Gosling (background vocals). 
Brian played all the other instruments including: sitar, organ, recorder, banjo, harpsichord, autoharp, dulcimer, clarinet, and harmonica. In the March 10, 1967 official press release, Brian explained that he used players: 
"ranging from one musician to ten. I ran the gamut of line-ups - from the conventional brass combination to a country-band with Jew's harp, violin and banjo. In the main the musicians were established session men - though some of the boys from the group also played."

Although the exact beginning dates of the recording are sketchy, we can pinpoint a general ending date for the project at around February 12th, 1967. Brian had been working on the finishing touches of the film score on this date when the infamous Redlands bust occurred. In fact, Brian had called Keith to tell him that he and Anita would be joining the party within a couple of hours, only to be informed by Keith that Redlands had just been busted. The following events might sound like a soap opera, but they involve both stories that both involve Brian's soundtrack and had ramifications to Brian being able to enjoy his success.

Next stop: Their Satanic Majesties Request....

Similarities of Tarantino's 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood' & Federico's 'Teddy Bears Live Forever'

Ahead of it's UK release Quentin Tarantino's new movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood briefly follows the exploits of the Manson girls as they roam around Hollywood obeying their cult leaders orders. These girls only feature in the movie shortly but another movie that was also released in 2019 delves into the psyche of these girls (that are prey to cult leaders such as Charles Manson) in a much deeper way. 

In director Fabrizio Federico's new movie Teddy Bears Live Forever lead character April personifies the Manson girl prototype, she is a young faded ''It girl'' suffering in exile from multiple-personality disorder (brought on by a UFO Cult in Hollywood) and she decides that the most evil one of her six personalities must lose her virginity in order for her to regain control of her inner demons.

As April suffers bizarre flashbacks in a solitary room, sleepwalking, telephoning rent boys, listening to The Carpenters and terrorising her old guardian with her untamed sex appeal. She ultimately set's out to become a modern saint in a strange quantum dimension in physical reality. 

''I made the film on intuition and a sensation to focus on some powerful messages (trauma, anti-establishment, false idolatry, existential angst and spirituality) wrapped up in an isolated feline martyr quality.

The main character April is fighting to regain a state of grace that she lost as an ''It girl'' living in a superficial society obsessed with illusion while working in Hollywood. April is trying to penetrate the essence of her problems by being brave, screaming & articulating her pain through the film. She's trying to release the poisoned fragrance of her trauma. She's deprogramming her self by losing her mind.

In the beginning of the movie we're shown a glimpse into her former ''It girl'' pop-culture life, at the complete absolute zenith of her fame, which is full of tacky excitement, flashes, games, disciples, vibrations and action.

But then the film moves to the aftermath of all that, and to her current isolated life in London after rejecting her followers. But now she is battling her six personalities, so in a way she's leading six different realities and levels of consciousness. Each personality is a different level of consciousness, but music is her true prayer. She listens to The Carpenters while in exile, because she identifies with women who suffered, like Karen Carpenter, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe etc... but she also enjoys hanging herself by visualising her suicide.

The film is also an insight into gurus, and how they deal with their followers problems, whether they are suffering from family or social suffering and how ultimately they can be tossed aside back into societies void to fend for them selves.

NEW FILM // TEDDY BEARS LIVE FOREVER (2019) 
OUT NOW // http://fabriziofederico.co.uk
Soundtrack by MAO - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDk74wTOHZE&t=2483s

Films Of My Life - Fabrizio Federico

Cult filmmaker Fabrizio Federico has been a fan of British kitchen-sink movies since watching then as a kid on Sunday afternoons on the BBC. Those wistful, cynical, melancholic, character driven class-conscious stories really struck a chord with the young director in the making. 

Since his young days he has made two kitchen-sink/experimental films Loon (2017) & Teddy Bears Live Forever (2019). They are at once jubilant, melancholic, defiant and vulnerable. It's as if Friedrich Nietzsche started directing episodes of The Simpsons, but made through an indie sensibility, where none of the cast know whats happening, with plot lines beginning and disappearing into thin air, creating an explosive longing for clarity that never materialises in a cobwebbed cinematic landscape of night stalker imagery and full moon voices.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

The Dream of the ’90s Is Alive in Fabrizio Federico's Punk Cinema

English filmmaker Fabrizio Federico sends up authority and celebrates slackerdom in movies that combine the energy of punk with the storytelling of hip-hop.

NEW FILM // TEDDY BEARS LIVE FOREVER (2019) 
OUT NOW // http://fabriziofederico.co.uk
Soundtrack by MAO - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDk74wTOHZE&t=2483s

CHAMPIONS OF THE UNDERGROUND *CINEMA SPOTLIGHT* Teddy Bears Live Forever (2019) Dir: Fabrizio Federico

A glimpse into the aftermath of ''It girl'' culture. April an ex-celebrity 'youthquaker' who at the absolute zenith of her career has a total nervous breakdown in 4D millennial Hollywood. The non-stop intense excitement, flashes, games, disciples, and bad vibrations all came at once to her door.

TEDDY BEARS LIVE FOREVER (2019) 
Dir: Fabrizio Federico

WATCH HERE - OFFICIAL WEBSITE
JANUARY 1ST, 2019

INSPIRED BY THE LIVES OF MARILYN MONROE, KURT COBAIN & JUDY GARLAND

DAZED & CONFUSED - FILM TACKLES INSANE CELEBRITY 'IT' GIRLS

Filmmaker Fabrizio Federico is that rare anomaly of everything that is anti-fashion that he becomes fashion. He is culturally relevant, part of popular culture. And he speaks to the outsider, non-conformist side of the film industry and transcends cinema. His audience reaches the outside of the movie industry. They are the people and influencers shaping our landscape. He is like a man child, vulnerable yet tough. Recently featured among the best independent filmmakers of 2018, he’s very of the moment but timeless as well. Fabrizio feels like change in a good way. Lets follow him, he’ll rise as a new star with his new motion picture Teddy Bears Live Forever.

Perma-wearing his sunglasses and pink beret he is a London film brat who represents the mystery and allure of the hard-edged British style re-packaged and taken global following the movie Anarchy In The UK: The New Underground Cinema. Mixing car crash cinema sportswear and poetic too-cool-to-care louche glamour beneath his dark-ringed eye sockets. It’s a lewk, darlings.

Fabrizio is no doubt more than what meets the eye… Known for showcasing his most personal thoughts and feelings in his films, Fabrizio has also been speaking up for real-life issues. If you ask us, there’s nothing better than a rebel with a cause. Following his own path of artistic freedom.

April is a young faded ''It girl'' suffering in exile from multiple-personality disorder (brought on by a UFO Cult & Hollywood) and she decides that one of her six personalities must lose her virginity.

As April suffers bizarre flashbacks in a solitary room, sleepwalking, telephoning rent boys, listening to The Carpenters and terrorising her old guardian with her untamed sex appeal. She ultimately set's out to become a modern saint.

''I made the film on intuition and a sensation to focus on some powerful messages (trauma, anti-establishment, false idolatry, existential angst and spirituality) wrapped up in an isolated feline martyr quality.

The main character April is fighting to regain a state of grace that she lost as an ''It girl'' living in a superficial society obsessed with illusion while working in Hollywood. April is trying to penetrate the essence of her problems by being brave, screaming & articulating her pain through the film. She's trying to release the poisoned fragrance of her trauma. She's deprogramming her self by losing her mind.

In the beginning of the movie we're shown a glimpse into her former ''It girl'' pop-culture life, at the complete absolute zenith of her fame, which is full of tacky excitement, flashes, games, disciples, vibrations and action.

But then the film moves to the aftermath of all that, and to her current isolated life in London after rejecting her followers. But now she is battling her six personalities, so in a way she's leading six different realities and levels of consciousness. Each personality is a different level of consciousness, but music is her true prayer. She listens to The Carpenters while in exile, because she identifies with women who suffered, like Karen Carpenter, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe etc... but she also enjoys hanging herself by visualising her suicide.

The film is also an insight into gurus, and how they deal with their followers problems, whether they are suffering from family or social suffering. The movies about spiritual terms instead of adolescent terms.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

PSYCHOCANDY - TOP 5 Inspiring Films About Madness

Movies about madness, psychosis & mental breakdowns go as far back as the 1920's as a thematic concern in cinema. Each director approaches insanity with gusto on screen, it's possibilities of dramatic tension are limitless, and to celebrate another cinematic link in this tradition here are underground filmmaker Fabrizio Federico's Top 5 inspirations which brought to life his new berserk film 'Teddy Bears Live Forever'.  OFFICIAL WEBSITE

THE STORY OF: Teddy Bears Live Forever (2019) - Interview with filmmaker Fabrizio Federico

April is a young faded ''It girl'' suffering in exile from multiple-personality disorder (brought on by a UFO Cult & Hollywood) and she decides that one of her six personalities must lose her virginity. 
As April suffers bizarre flashbacks in a solitary room, sleepwalking, telephoning rent boys, listening to The Carpenters and terrorising her old guardian with her untamed sex appeal. She ultimately set's out to become a modern saint.

''I made the film on intuition and a sensation to focus on some powerful messages (trauma, anti-establishment, false idolatry, existential angst and spirituality) wrapped up in an isolated feline martyr quality. 
The main character April is fighting to regain a state of grace that she lost as an ''It girl''  living in a superficial society obsessed with illusion while working in Hollywood. April is trying to penetrate the essence of her problems by being brave, screaming & articulating her pain through the film. She's trying to release the poisoned fragrance of her trauma. She's deprogramming her self by losing her mind. 

In the beginning of the movie we're shown a glimpse into her former ''It girl'' pop-culture life, at the complete absolute zenith of her fame, which is full of tacky excitement, flashes, games, disciples, vibrations and action. 
But then the film moves to the aftermath of all that, and to her current isolated life in London after rejecting her followers. But now she is battling her six personalities, so in a way she's leading six different realities and levels of consciousness. Each personality is a different level of consciousness, but music is her true prayer. She listens to The Carpenters while in exile, because she identifies with women who suffered, like Karen Carpenter, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe etc... but she also enjoys hanging herself by visualising her suicide. 
The film is also an insight into gurus, and how they deal with their followers problems, whether they are suffering from family or social suffering. The movies about spiritual terms instead of adolescent terms. 

So while she's living out Hollywood, April get's mixed up with this UFO cult, has an outer body experience and is raped by the cult. After this trauma and because she's already mixed-up with this narcissism of her glamour lifestyle, it finally turns her into a stretcher case. In the film we watch her fighting to win back her sanity. 
She constructs this mission to cure the most evil of her multiple-personalities, to lose her virginity and to feel touch, which gives her a fresh enthusiasm and a existential mission; the glorification to start communicating again.

In general terms, she is coming out of a isolated fog and is looking for a universal consciousness. This girls story actually represents the whole elemental goal of humanity. 
Feeling lost and sending signals into outer space, maybe that's why she joined a UFO cult to begin with. But she's still looking for an atomic attraction, or a spiritual push to come and save her. Dealing with six personalities will push anyone's sense's to the limit, but because she's in self-imposed isolation she cant really receive life's true miracle cure: human touch. 
Touch is the sparkling combination of feeling all of your senses all at once. So she decides to recapture her salvation by losing the virginity of the most evil, of all her multiple personalities, called Sam.

Sam is a mythological anti-hero personality, a complete freak who suck's on her bloody tampons, wears wigs and sexually terrorises her old guardian that she's living with. But in many ways April is sacrificing her sanity in order to purify her soul from Sam's sinister presence. In order to become a divine being again and to grow.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

REMEMBERING FABRIZIO FEDERICO - THE SELF DESTRUCTIVE FILMMAKER SABOTEUR WHO DID IT ALL WRONG IN THE RIGHT WAY

The cult filmmaker's newest film Teddy Bears Live Forever is being released in 2019

There’s never been a filmmaker like Fabrizio Federico. Chances are, there won’t be again. Not only is there an argument for this Brit being the 2000's lost movie-maker, there’s also the debate of him being the filmmaker that killed off the idea of 20th century cinema. As he explains it ''There is a new type of filmmaker that has been reborn and has replaced the traditional filmmaker from the 20th century, more bipartisan. I am a DJ Director, my passion is to glue video into a collage of vision, concentrating on personalities, mixing the styles of MTV, the News & Youtube vlog filmmaking together ''. His newest film is about a faded ''It girl'' suffering from schizophrenia due to an alien abduction and decides that one of her personalities must lose her virginity, even though she's already lost it.

Self-sabotage

That Fabrizio Federico is a star-shaped jigsaw piece in a square hole should have been clear from the off ever since surviving a house fire as a child. On the eve of the release of his feature film debut 'Black Biscuit' in 2011 he described making the film as being like ''Russian roulette”. He'd originally planned to make the film in North Korea but was denied a visa. He ended up filming in Nottingham with a Greek pimp and falling out of a tree and breaking his foot. Shooting the movie on toy Fisher-Price camera's and mobile phones, his apartment became a haven for the street superstars that he would meet on the streets and cast in his film, including a ping-pong champion, a dominatrix and Big Issue magazine sellers. Somehow he managed to re-finish the film after his computer exploded on the day of Michael Jackson's death.

Early perfection

This week the filmmaker announced that his next movie will be released in 2019. There’s the odd lollop of early Harmony Korine. The groove of Xavier Dolan. The cut and paste ingenuity of Jean Luc Godard. Arguably it’s stranger than any of his previous releases. He is the bedsit Lars Von Trier. Federico represents the filmmaker that for years chewed off his own limbs, simultaneously while editing footage blindfolded, listening to exorcisms on a diet of weed and yogurt, all on a micro-budget.

Raised on punk, emboldened by hip-hop, dance, free to be whatever he wanted – used to the ‘push the envelope, make magic happen, give it away for free’ ideal. On the eve of an era that saw YouTube filmmakers convert their vision into a world wide audience. But Federico delivered cinema folly in spades.

Doggedness, dadaism & drugs

In the beginning, he only screened his films at week-day film clubs, or left copies of his homemade DVD's on tables at bars and gigs. Then after his film 'Pregnant' screened in Essex and caused a riot his films were blacklisted from theatres, starting with a run at the Genesis cinema being cancelled and. Subsequently he has developed a large following in Mexico. 

Everything Federico did was tangential. When Empire magazine requested him for an interview, he agreed only on the condition if he would be asked the same questions as put to Stanley Kubrick during the making of The Shining. When he was invited at the Raindance Film Festival he arrived on crutches wearing a T-shirt that read, ‘If assholes could fly, this place would be an airport’. He refused to appear on children’s television. He claimed that YouTube is more popular then Jesus.

Such contrariness and blind scepticism felt genuinely exciting in the film industry that had turned dull.

He pulled karate moves and danced like a Native American shaman. It was presumed he liked drugs. Maybe. Maybe not. “LSD isn't a drug” he said confusingly, but he claiming it cured him from sleepwalking. 

Subsequently he went to the Bermuda triangle to get married, and learnt about voodoo and mysticism. Later also recording the soundtrack to his film 'Loon' at Aleister Crowley's abandoned Boleskine House, creating Zodiac Killer art, and introducing his cinema alter ego called Jett Hollywood ''a filmmaker from Mars''. After two films he released a suicide note which resulted in a missing persons investigation when the note went viral. 

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Not that he ever thought he was weird. “filmmakers like me should be the norm” said Federico recently. “I think it’s weird that very average, banal films are the norm, Im looking for cinematic nirvana”.

Official Website

THE GIRL WHO SOLD THE WORLD - 'The strange universe of Youtube Filmmaking'

An upcoming film dedicated to Kurt Cobain of legendary band Nirvana is being set for release in 2019 by outspoken ''Youtube filmmaker'' Fabrizio Federico, ''the film captures the spirit of Kurt's morals, not his life, but about how straight men like him can be in harmony with both their male and feminine side. We are Zen. I think Kurt was a great example of that vibe, he wanted to point us towards a more progressive society, saying 'why bother hurting each other, and all that other crap' you know, nevermind, as the lad once said.''

It's an ugly film, so ugly that it's the perfect experimental pop culture film for a new generation of 'Me Too movement' supporters. April's terrifying reality; spat out by the modelling industry, burned out, and now being tortured by her own inner demons is brought to light by the films soundtrack of doughy classical, Indian and trap music, including an end credits anthem called Wrong's by Mao, (their last album was recorded at Aleister Crowley's old haunted home facing Loch Ness) which is very uplifting in a Total Eclipse Of The Heart, way, that Kurt would have loved, his pop sensibilities were always the secret weapon behind Nirvana's power.

''The idea of the 'It girl' was first personified by actress Clara Bow in the movie 'It' (1927) which helped usher in the age of the wild flapper girl in the roaring 20's along with other intellectual sirens such as Louise Brooks. The role of the vivacious, sexual, youth-quake secretly fascinates every teenage girl early in life, and who must secretly and subconsciously try to, live up to/ or tame. Before either eventually self-destructing or simply growing out of it. 
In world culture, magazines, music videos, books and films have depicted this prototype historical personality of the goddess Maenad, her name literally translates as "raving ones". 
Over the years there have been many 'It girls' who have captured our hedonistic times, and our public's imagination with either cheap karaoke or artistic flair, girls like Kate Moss, Twiggy, Kim Kardashian, Cornelia Guest, Cara Delevingne, Paris Hilton, Kendall Jenner - but there are strange and tragic examples also of young ''it girls' lives being cut short by the seductions of glory and fame, such as, Gia, Donyale Luna, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Peaches Geldof and Edie Sedgwick.''

In the film her problems first started either after April become an edgy out of control teen model in Hollywood, or after joining a Las Vegas cult and being abducted by aliens while living near Area 51, nobody knows, it just started one day. 
Today she exists in five different realities. 

Now living in London, April is not a virgin, but one of her personality's, called Sam, wants to desperately lose her virginity at any cost. While she falls apart right in front of our eyes, she screams, scratches and bites away while combing her hair to smithereens, eating disgusting cold cheese and milk while switching personalities; whom one of them likes the taste of her own bloody tampons in a hot bath, wearing just a bright green 'Pulp Fiction' UV wig. 

Federico's been planning and toying with his new film Teddy Bears Live Forever for the past 2 years, capturing a sonic mess that resembles the warped feeling of destruction in Aprils own sweet bleached mind.
The female psyche is deeply explored in the film, Federico spent a week filming in a single room filled with 70's Carpenters albums, ladybirds, Disney films, paintings and snakes capturing the mindset of April's fragile like glass breakdown.

Teddy Bear's has a built in mythology, the idea of paradise lost. Ancient mythical allegorical lands like Arcadia, Atlantis and April's titanic memories of her disembodied identity, it's weird and just plain heartwarming. 

April's dream like sense of living in limbo, after retreating into an imaginary world without a place and purpose, is indulged by her old fashioned 60's Carnaby Street grandfather, but her multiple personality disorder keeps her isolated from the world; re-living her faded out unreachable past.
''The film was also inspired by the Fibonacci sequence, UFO's and men with a strong feminine side such as Kurt Cobain and the tormented but brilliant missing guitarist 
Richey Edwards.''

The films shades of greatness is best summed up by Federico and his enthusiasm for misrule cinema ''learning how to make a feature film nurtures independence, confidence and staying power. But it also free's your imagination and passion for making a connection with something beyond everyday drudgery.''

Q: What Nirvana song, comes to mind when watching Teddy Bears Live Forever?
A: Id say it's best summed up by 'Rape Me' & 'Come As You Are'
I grew up with him, I learnt a lot from Kurt when no one else could reach me.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: http://fabriziofederico.co.uk/