Will Be One Part Of An International Anthology Film Produced By Vice Films
When we first learned that Harmony Korine was teaming up with Val Kilmer for a mysterious Nashville-set project about a motivational speaker it seemed like a match made in Awesome Heaven. As it seems with most Korine projects these days, it’s been flying under the radar moving to its own, probably bizarro, beat, but it seems there is much much more to this already idiosyncratic undertaking.
The folks over at IndieWire have come across the creative brief of something called “The Fourth Dimension” an undertaking that will feature U.S., Russian and Polish “chapters” with each portion using local directors and cast members. No word yet on who the other filmmakers or cast will be, but Korine/Kilmer are obviously filling the U.S. slot in the film, which is being produced by Grolsch FilmWorks. But, there’s even more. Penned by Eddy Moretti, a producer for Vice Films who is also behind the project, the creative brief outlines three pages of instructions the filmmakers must follow that are clearly a take-off of the Dogme rules and are also kind of brilliant. For brevity’s sake we didn’t include them all, but here are some of the highlights (plus all three pages of the brief for your own perusal below):
This film must be the best film you have ever made.
You must forget everything you know.
This film has to have real life.
It has to have more real life than anything else you have ever made.
It needs to stop people from going about their day.
It should blur the line between what is real and what is fake.
We must never know the truth.
We need to be shown things we have never been shown before.
We need to see things that are secret to most.
We need to go places that we may not have been before.
We need privy and access to an unknown culture.
You need to take us to a different world, an unknown world.
You cannot be afraid.
The hero must have greatness thrust upon him or her.
The hero must have a missing tooth.
The hero tells bad jokes. But they’re good.
A stuffed animal needs to make an appearance.
The story must be something that has actually happened to the writer/ director in real life, something that they have never revealed to anyone else.
A character must say “Don’t worry, I’m sure you will survive.”
There needs to be a character named “Mickey House.”
You cannot fail.
So yeah, “The Five Obstructions” ain’t got nothing on this. We’re mostly intrigued by the element that the film has be based on something that happened in real life although we’re pretty sure — at least on Korine’s part — he will be playing pretty fast and loose with “the truth.” No word what on when/how this will get released, but Korine is consistently upending our expectations and delivering strange, hilarious and highly original work so we can’t wait to see what his pairing with Kilmer, combined with this set of rules, delivers.
Creative Brief for Harmony Korine