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Meet the Filmmaker: Josh Berkowitz, “Jimmy Los Angeles”

Q: Why did you become a filmmaker?
A: I became a filmmaker to be able to control my destiny and so I would not be subject to whether someone picked me or not.

I love movies so much that I absorbed a unique style that was cultivated overtime. My imagination is not the type where I can pretend the camera isn’t there. I address the camera in almost all my films because I feel like it and I want to be free.

Q: What are we going to see at the EFP? Has it screened elsewhere and what are your plans for it?
A: You are going to see some madness. Jimmy Los Angeles is my alter ego and he is a nasty dude. Its an odyssey wherein he battles witches who kidnap his dogs potentially for his own good. He is out of control.

Q: What else are you working on?
A: I just had an art exhibition open on April 15 and will be on display for a month right in the heart of the Santa Fe Art District at SassaBird Fine Art Gallery (840 N Santa Fe Drive). Please come to see it on First Friday in May or on April 15 between 5:30-10:30.

Q: Tell us one weird thing about you and/or your movies?
A: The workout scene was completely improvised. The ladies egg’ed me on and questioned my manhood which led to a very bold and spontaneous choice.

I do pseudo-documentaries for 90% of the films I make .

Q: Where can people go to find out more about you and your work?
A: https://www.sassabird.art/josh-berkowitz

Q: Is there anything you’d like to say about The Emerging Filmmakers Project?
A: They have great taste in movies. Thanks for picking something as risque as this one!

Jimmy Los Angeles will screen during The Emerging Filmmakers Project on Thursday, April 21st, 2022 at The Bug Theatre.

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Meet the Filmmaker: Josh Berkowitz, “Shame, Compassion and Defence”

Q: Why did you become a filmmaker?
JB: I became a filmmaker because of John Cassavetes and David Lynch but that was much later on. I have been making films with the best friends I have had my whole life and still make films with these same people. I decided at a certain point somewhere in adolescence that being weird was way more important than being cool until I began to influence people through my films and that being weird was cooler than anything.

Q: What are we going to see at the EFP? Has it screened elsewhere and what are your plans for it?
JB: I made Shame, Compassion and Defence in my junior year of college when I was going through a really painful revelation of a childhood trauma and this vision came flying out of me and has snuck its way into other peoples psyche through its music and unexplainable nostalgic haunting quality. It has screened during a retrospective of my film work in 2017.

Q: What else are you working on?
JB: I am currently working on a play called The Family Rules, The Family Jewels, a psychodrama in three acts which is about all taking traumatic memories and turning them into song, dance and slapstick.

Q: Tell us one weird thing about you and/or your movies?
JB: I always write about real things and the realer I get the less real it seems. I guess that is what I love most about life, the absurd and the surreal. I believe that magic comes from manure.

Q: Where can people go to find out more about you and your work?
JB: all inquires can be sent to joshberk11@gmail.com

Q: Is there anything you’d like to say about The Emerging Filmmakers Project?
JB: Super grateful that they appreciated my wackiness and essence.

Shame, Compassion and Defence will screen during The Emerging Filmmakers Project on Thursday, September 16th, 2021 at The Bug Theatre.