"You can change yourself into gold"

My favourite film of all-time, sharing the place with last years "Mandy".

Happy 90th. Birthday Saint Jodo!

Not only my favourite filmmaker, but my all-time favourite artist and a guiding spirit for me not exclusive in my artistic discovery, but throughout my personal life, as well. As a human as well as an artist. Someone who taught me to transcend mediums and conventions. To never categorize myself as one thing, but exist as everything. Someone who taught me that whatever tragedies or difficulties the Universe throws at you, you can transform who you are for the best and defy all logic. That art is magick and there's pure alchemical ways to construct therapeutic experiences through expression. Seeing horror and science fiction films as a youngling made me want to make films when I got older, but seeing Jodorowsky for the first time made me an artist. It showed me a way in which I could put myself into my work and make it personal. To filter my mind and heart into whatever I was working on. To be free. To exist as myself and be confident. I remember my first encounter with Jodo at the age of 15. It was as if something cataclysmic went off inside of my mind. I felt altered. I had a rush and excitement never felt before. I felt these films were made specifically for me and yet still very much beyond my young mind at the time, nonetheless I knew I had found something that spoke to a deep, dark part of myself that was filling more and more with a shining light of discovery. "The Holy Mountain" in particular, it opened my mind to possibilities not available to me at the time. It changed my outlook, how I looked at art and spirituality, experiences with psychedelics. It opened up so much for me in so many personal aspects of my life and it's never let me down. It's a sacred text that I regularly visit. It's been my favourite film for 12 years and I still learn and discover something new about it every time I go back to it. No film outside of last years "Mandy" has come close to capturing the emotions and deep personal connections I felt with "The Holy Mountain" those years ago. His influence gave me the courage to dive head first into making my own cinema a year and half ago, finally completing the first short in a planned trilogy. Without the influence of Jodo, that film wouldn't exist in that form, without fear or constraints. Just free flowing conscious ideas, straming down a river of washed out B&W expression. Whether I'm watching his films, absorbing his sounds, getting lost in his pages, embracing chaos with his performance, or experiencing rebirth with his magick, I know that I'll be challenged, mystified, and embraced by an artist with a vision. His influence looms over contemporary cinema, comics, and music as the cult Godfather he is. A mystical saint. A true renaissance artist. May you live eternally through your art. All Hail and Praise!