MM: That arrangement with Jerry gave you your finishing funds, right? That’s the one point in the movie where the purists could wince, because an hour into the film about the power of these plant medicines you see a graphic that’s a fairly blatant product placement for the Rythmia Center.

MZ: I totally get it. When somebody says the film has some infomercial elements to it, I don’t disagree and I don’t apologize—because I couldn’t have made the movie if I wasn’t willing to play some kind of ball to make sure that this worked commercially for somebody. As much as Gerry’s story fits the movie’s story, I was cool with it. I began by self-funding the movie, then I had some friends and family that believed in it and wanted to be part of it. In the end, Jerry did bring the finishing funds, which I think is really a great strategy for other filmmakers to do, where you kind of line up who could benefit from the movie coming out and being part of it.

MM: You did get some critical acclaim in Amsterdam.

MZ: The Amsterdam Film Festival that was the only one we entered. I’ve been to Amsterdam a couple times; I just love the place because every time I’m there it feels like you could tell that for hundreds of years this is the place where people are really tolerant of other people and have a lot of empathy. I ended up winning best director for me and Laurent. It was a great validation because in my life and in America they always tell you to fake it ’til you make it. And so I felt like the Amsterdam Film Festival, when I found out we won it, is one of the first times that I ever… I couldn’t fake it.

Michelle Rodriguez in a scene from Reality of Truth

MM: So you had a finished film on your hands. How did you start to get the word out and distribute it?

MZ: Well, it’s since available on-line through our deal with Rythmia. But we initially put the movie online on GumRoad.com where you could charge $4.99 to see the movie. This was a bit of a different strategy for filmmakers, but what we also liked about Gumroad is it also allowed us to let people share the movie in social media and have people give us their name and email and be willing to be part of being communicated with in order to receive a free one-time viewing of the movie. So we collected over 50 thousand people who have liked and watched the movie, given us their email, asked us to be in touch. We are now in the process of growing that initial list exponentially.

MM: As a father of four, I’m curious about the reaction at home—toward Daddy’s experiments with these drugs. Whether it’s the soccer games, track meets, parent teacher conferences… all of that middle-class lifestyle still reconciles with this journey that you’ve been on?

MZ: Yeah, it does because I’m now at the point, based on what I’ve seen and what I know, I feel like the answer to all the problems we have right now could be solved by enough people, a critical mass of people, going inside their minds with these plant medicines. If they did that they would instantly shift their perception and have more empathy. Psychedelics are the only things I’ve ever seen that can cause people to immediately change their perspective and have more empathy. Being a parent of a 10-year-old and a 15-year-old, I can’t just leave it alone because right now we are on such a spiral here. You’ve got people with nuclear codes and rogue people that want to hurt people—and the environment being destroyed. So we can’t just wait. We need right now that critical mass, so I’m just gonna rant if I’m at a PTA meeting, or I’m talking to my local newspaper. There is no other solution that I can see that will breed empathy and a change in perspective.

MM: And so there will be more Mike Zapolin films and TV shows in the future? About hallucinogens? That’s what I’m hearing.

MZ: Absolutely. We have the pilot shows in the can for Psychenauts, which will be a weekly healing event captured on video. And I have a secondary feature film that I’m going to put out that’s probably 70 percent in the can. On “Reality of Truth,” I had multiple constituencies to satisfy. On this next one I’m going to have final script and final approval on everything from script to the music, everything. I’m gonna make this film that I’m calling the first of its kind, which is a reverse psychology propaganda movie for psychedelics.

MM: You’ve got a big job ahead of you, but you seem to have the energy to do it.

MZ: The best feedback to me is when somebody says, “Hey, this kind of brought down my fear of doing this.” I remember when I screened it in Venice, California, at an old church that they call Full Circle. This lady came up to me afterward, a 60-year-old Asian woman, and she said, “I just want to tell you I think this film just saved my life. I have PTSD from childhood and I basically have a plan to kill myself. I had no idea bout these plants; in my culture at 60 years old I’ve never heard of this stuff.” She wound up going down to Costa Rica to Rythmia and did the plant medicine. Now she’s super vibrant and she’s really in a great place. That’s the success story for me.

Tech Box

Camera: 5Ds

Lenses: Zeiss

Lighting: Tungsten/Fluorescent MM

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