Meet Ansel Faraj | Film Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ansel Faraj and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ansel, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
Ever since I was very young, I was fascinated by movies and “movie magic”, or more specifically – “how did they do that?!” I remember watching INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE and I believed absolutely everything that happened on screen – that guy did choose the wrong cup and drastically aged in front of me. And then when I was a few years older, my parents took me to see PHANTOM OF THE OPERA on stage, and all of the special effects were amazing to me, from the candelabras rising from out of the stage, the swirling fog, the crashing chandelier. I remember walking out of the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, and deciding right then and there at 6 years old “I want to do this”.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Being a filmmaker is both the best feeling in the world and also stressful – especially if you work in the independent side of things as I do. Money is always the problem, there’s never enough, so one must be very creative and resourceful in how you tell and execute a story. I’ve come from nowhere, I was just a kid with no industry connections, my parents didn’t know anyone who worked in film – I had to do it all by myself and teach myself. I grew up watching Turner Classic Movies and reading film books (both history and technique). I had been making movies since I was 6 years old, on my old VHS camcorder with my Universal Monsters action figures, before finally getting friends from school to act in my work. I tried to get into film school but was rejected… they said I knew too much and the best thing for me to do was just make my own independent movies – which is not what you want to hear when you’re 17, but it was probably the best opportunity for me at the time – because I dove straight in. And three years later, I was making my first ‘professional’ feature (still with no money at all), and that was DOCTOR MABUSE – a gothic noir which reimagined the classic supervillain in a brand new story I’d written. Suddenly, Fangoria Magazine was interviewing me, and the film had a limited theatrical release and everything I used to dream about in math class growing up was suddenly “real” and actually happening to me, and there was no other choice but to keep going and build on that momentum, and grow as an artist and filmmaker. It’s been a lot of hard work, it’s never once been easy, and I’ve had to fight for a lot – fight for the opportunity, for the recognition, for the films themselves, and I’ve definitely lost battles too – but it’s all part of the process. You have to be flexible and build a creatively supportive team in this business to survive and thrive, and luckily over the years I’ve found that team.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I would say let’s hit the beach. The beach is my happy place. There’s nothing like jumping into the ocean and letting the waves roll over you. I’ve spent weeks in a row just at the beach, sitting quietly and relaxing and enjoying the waves. But if they got tired of that, I’d happily give them a tour of Los Angeles and get into LA history, the weird unusual stuff that makes up our city. LA – as with any place – has quite a colorful urban folklore, and I tried to put as much of that into my film TODD TARANTULA.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played Maggie Evans on DARK SHADOWS, has been a huge ally of mine in life. What’s odd is I began learning from her vicariously through her books on DARK SHADOWS – how the series and the two movies were produced. I learned a lot about filmmaking and television by reading these books when I was younger, and did not know her personally. And then when I was 20, I made my first professional film DOCTOR MABUSE, and I was lucky to have Kathryn, Jerry Lacy, and Lara Parker all act in it together. And that was kind of the ‘through the looking glass’ moment for me in life, I’ve learned much from all of them – but Kathryn particularly has been the one to sit me down and wake me up and say “this is how it really is, this is how you really do this”, in all aspects of the crazy film industry. How do you communicate, how do you do an interview, how do you write a press release, how do you conduct business — she’s worked with some incredible people, and has passed a great deal of knowledge on to me, knowledge and support. She doesn’t hold back from honesty, and you need that in this tricky business. So I’ve gone from being a young kid reading her books and learning, to a grown man in his thirties working with her and learning from her. The little kid version of me never ever expected this.

Website: www.hollinsworthproductions.com

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@HollinsworthProductions

Other: IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4043796/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk