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Nathan Silver: My father showed it to me. I used some of it for the Kickstarter campaign video for Soft in the Head back in 2011. Then my producer Josh Mandel stumbled across the Kickstarter video last year and told me I should do something else with the footage. One night, I was extremely frustrated after not being able to figure out how to crack the trailer for Stinking Heaven, so I decided to mess around with the footage, and a few hours later, I emerged with Riot.
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No. I loved Stand by Me and recreated certain scenes from that, but I wasn't obsessed with movies. I felt bored by most movies. A lot of things you're shown as a kid have the same old structure, and so you know exactly what's going to happen when—they're insanely predictable—and I remember feeling trapped in movie theaters, impatiently waiting for all the plot points to be hit, so I could return home.What were your first thoughts when you went over the footage again? It's weird because you're both a badass toting a pistol and cigarette, yet you're also a total crybaby diva.
I was a jerk. A little piece of shit completely unaware of what I was reenacting. I don't know how my parents could put up with me to be honest, but parents' love is especially blind, I guess.Which of those versions do you relate to more nowadays?
I don't really relate to either. In the movie, it seems like I want to be a dictator director (which is a combination of a jackass badass and crybaby diva). Over the years, I've become an enabler of chaos. I don't like the idea of having control over the actors; I prefer them to dictate the course of the movies. I'm bored of my own ideas. I live with them 24/7, for better or worse. I want other ideas to pervert my original concept.You've now made a documentary short and a feature as well as narrative shorts and features. Do you see them all as an extension of your filmmaker voice, or are they different to you?
All my features are almost fiction, including Actor Martinez. Riot is the closest I've come to documentary, but I have no desire to enter the documentary world. I'm happy to be able to make movies in a realm where truth, reality, and facts aren't being constantly policed. As far as formats go, I'm much more interested in using cameras that distort reality and don't just serve up a mediocre version of it à la most affordable HD cameras, so whenever I can justify using outmoded technology, I will.Your films are still about the messy underbelly of society, told through outsider's stories. However, they're very character driven and "indie." Do you think you'll ever take up your nine-year-old mantle again and make an all-out action movie?
Yes, I would very much like to. I'm not sure what it will look like, but the idea excites me to no end.What are you working on now?
A multi-layered bizarro portrait of a good friend as well as a one-sided amour fou story to be shot in Paris.If you want to dig deeper, and I recommend you do, you can watch Silver's other acclaimed features Actor Martinez, Stinking Heaven, Uncertain Terms, Soft In the Head, and Exit Elena.Jeffrey Bowers is a tall mustached guy from Ohio who's seen too many weird movies. He currently lives in Brooklyn, working as a film curator. He's the senior curator for Vimeo's On Demand platform. He has also programmed at Tribeca Film Festival, Rooftop Films, and the Hamptons International Film Festival.