This week, we sat down with Nikhail, an artist whose work traverses the realms of filmmaking, acting, music, and more. A&R Factory explored the sparks that ignited his multifaceted creativity. Nikhail shares his evolution from a budding writer to a versatile creator, discussing how phases of his life, from unrequited love to personal challenges, have fuelled his artistic expression. This interview delves into how his experiences and the transformative power of art have shaped his career, revealing the depth behind his pursuit of understanding and expression through the arts.
Nikhail, welcome to A&R Factory! Thank you for the opportunity to sit down with you and discuss your uniquely expansive career, which spans multiple creative fields including acting, filmmaking, light painting, and music. Is there one spark that ignites all of your creative modes of expression?
It’s sort of been an evolution I would say. Initially – when I started being creative, I was a writer and I spent many years, until now, writing feature after feature, though I was stuck in this inspiration box where my life and work were being turned into some very acclaimed movies, and a lot of that in the beginning was finding my voice. I remember when I started, I would try to develop a style similar to films I liked, which were older films when I was younger, and as I developed through my twenties, I felt a little stiff with my work but I was always told I had a knack for good ideas. A lot of that was because of the environment, because of the long-term experience of gaslighting, and my own immaturity. Then when I got to grad school, I started to dig much deeper and process these old and at the time current feelings of unrequited love. And that became my creative spark for a while. ‘Something Round’, my short, is the classic example of that. And a lot of the time, it wasn’t this feeling of just sad helplessness. I mean, in shorts I made, people might’ve assumed that, but if you were to read the features, there was a lot more, you could say, angry creative protest at mistreatment. There’s something about thinking about love at school, as opposed to in a working life situation. At school, you have the chance to be creative and there’s a lot more play you could say and there’s more time to think and explore emotions and such — so it was an environment that fed into creativity and I guess I had not much choice but to continue this artistic play environment even after finishing grad school for years after — till now. It is unfortunate that this unrequited love aspect — was a starting spark — because it was a situation of being gaslit, misled, and manipulated, and other negative things by people online — and I used to blame myself a lot for that — but I realize now so much of the neglect I’ve had played into me being quite naive when I was in more of a community setting — but it did ignite this start for music, I made my first song ‘One Way Road’ in grad school about the pain of my journey, feeling like this one-way road, and along the way having experienced a lot of struggle and at times trauma that I didn’t see any of the other people in society around me experience at all. It was a very cathartic expression of the loneliness and isolation I felt in my journey as an artist and how people didn’t seem to care which made it harder. And it was kind of like the unrequited love caused me to want to express in whatever manner — what I had been through in the hope of gaining some understanding.
Eventually, I grew up a little more, and I started expressing different variations in films and such — of gaslighting because that was what I was experiencing but I didn’t even know what it was — it’s funny for example like in ‘My Boyfriend the Boogeyman’, I’m holding a lighter and I didn’t even think about how that was a metaphor, I was just trying to express how this toxic relationship resulted in me sort of hurting/burning in a way.
So for a large time a lot of my music, light paintings, writing, films were sparked in response to how I was experiencing the world, like how people were treating me, and my response to that, and how I was trying to protest it or explain myself, always feeling this slight guilt knowing there was something wrong with many situations but not quite understanding why, and then expressing the feelings in my creativity allowed me to understand what was wrong.
As we move through life, our creative spark changes, and after some difficult experiences in LA, a mixture between for me extremely disheartening but also embarrassing – I would create out of ways to manifest I guess. Hoping the art was like a way of me pushing into the world some desire for change or for help and just putting out there my feelings of things not being right and along with that came some protest art as well regarding my personal situation with love and creative exploitation and being stuck in this box etc. There was a lot of sadness given my situation and many times that also ignited into cool work. It pushed me at times for this desire for connection and while I had this doublespeak connection with many celebs, it reached a point where I was like I’m just going to reach out and I made my voicemail feature the Invite as a result.
Then much later again – I encountered another phase of heightened emotion which inspired a bunch of music and made me want to be creative again. Heightened emotion throughout the past year, in positive and negative ways. Usually, there’s definitely more negative instances unfortunately than positive ones – but I moved on from this artistic drive of being inspired by feelings for a person, into being inspired by my story, and what I want and how I feel more so. I learnt from experiences with guys that I didn’t want to make art where a person would get this greater esteem out of their exploitation of me in a sense. So I started to focus on myself instead. And even, then yeah, still love tends to be the strongest drive, though it also is the most embarrassing and scary and can be painful and the one thing I’m still learning to be much more chill about. But I always catch myself falling into that bad cycle like in the past, then I stop and I’m like okay — you’re a pro now — you need to express your story and things you want and your perspective and what is more personal to you. At least that’s how I feel for now – and in the past year all of my work has been about — attempting to be a hero or anti-hero in one’s life and trying to make sense of difficulty and stand up to injustice at times. So recently most of my art has not been about unrequited love at all – it’s been about you could say self-love but not in that I’m super confident etc. way, self-love in the sense of this is who I am, this is what I want to do, this is what I’m good at, this is me, and this is my soul. And as I developed a stronger sense of myself, not saying I won’t be inspired by things in love again, but when I started focusing on me, my work started teaching me how expansive and non-limited I could be as an artist – though it has been much more draining and lonely in a sense – but it also taught me vital lessons in independence and now it’s not even like one spark will ignite my expression – it’s become a way of nature where – I can just get to it and create – if I wasn’t taking it a little slow now because of being tired with the exploitation and an unexpected situation in my mom’s house, where my helper left because of cancer so I’ve been allowing the dog to sleep on the floor of my room, and it keeps me up all night so it’s a bit of a stressful time.
Another small thing that ignites my creativity – is I guess kind of a strange odd thing – which is circles – I guess since being isolated for so long and just having dealt with many stresses emotionally and psychologically and as a human so forth being in this ‘box’ I started to get obsessed with circles as a theme in a lot of my creativity, and I’m not really sure how to stop it but it’s become a part of my brand and I call it spotting, and ‘Something Round’ was a large moon and about unrequited love and in the end spotting I guess is really this question you ask – what ignites your creativity – and for me, I’d ask — what do you spot? To spot is to be creative, what is that thing that makes you go out of your way to be creative, that gets you obsessed, right.
Having transitioned from being ‘put in a box’ to directing your own films and shows, how do you ensure your unique voice and vision remain intact when navigating the commercial pressures of the industry?
I wouldn’t say I’ve transitioned from being in a box, I’m definitely still in it – however, it is a little different than it used to be. I’m no longer, that I know of, medically gaslit as much, at the same time I am experiencing the most isolation and silence that I ever have and because of the injustice, I do complain a lot, and the box is so much bigger than before it takes places in various cities that I travel to.
But — going back to your question, regarding directing, because I’m still in this box, I can’t ensure my voice and vision remain intact – navigating the commercial pressures is not something I’m quite dealing with — its as if big artists that take from me etc., are the ones that navigating the commercial pressure, and they use my work or style or whatever and I don’t have a say to how my voice or vision is done, I will see some art taken from my life or work and it will look so so cool, and other times it may not, and there is a varying level, obviously depending on the artist, the really great artists we all love always do amazing work. At the same time — I’m trying to get out of this box, and I’m using right now my one-man shows as a way to keep fighting and holding on for hope and not turning into a vegetable, but I am extremely exhausted, not at the work but at the futility of how everything feels. But I do desperately want to get out this box and navigate these commercial pressures myself. When my work is remade or used or whatever – firstly I don’t receive money or credit directly in my name, I’ll see credits in similar names to mine, and that does bother me a lot as I do struggle and suffer — and that is a huge pressure on me as an artist in terms of survival and my existence and my career and my future and my being as a human. And at times, when you see for example a film remade of mine or a song influencing another, making a ton of money or being critically acclaimed, there is a small part of me that does get this vicarious success at the same time the commercial pressure is for the others to deal with and in a sense, I’m protected from that. But I definitely want to get my freedom and I know it’s weird to say I want to deal with this pressure, but I want to make great things and I want to have more control over my voice and vision and I want to work with others in a proper collaborative space and a more in the real world artistic life. Also adding to this, as a writer/director, with my own films I’ve always had autonomy over most of the project so I’ve never had to worry about my voice so much with that — there was a big script I was writing a while back ‘Boogeyman: The Crossing’ and working with the studio for that — was a challenge and yeah there were times I would have disagreements regarding my voice and such — they wanted me to write a line with a person using a diaphragm for example and I was like no one uses a diaphragm these days! And it can be frustrating — I think in the end from what I’ve heard it depends on the studio you work with and a unique, fresh and exciting creative voice will always stand out.
In your film ‘The Foal’, what personal experiences did you draw from, and how did these influence the narrative and thematic elements of the movie?
So I would say ‘The Foal’ — which is about a miscarriage — was a story I developed from hearing of my mother’s experience. Honestly, I was in grad school at Chapman and I wanted to make a drama and I was torn between this miscarriage story which actually evolved from the story of a girl being afraid to go in the pool during a party because of her period, however, I didn’t have access to a pool and safety regarding equipment so the story evolved into a much smaller environment and I was deciding between that, or doing a vampire tale — and my roommate suggested combining my ideas. And with regards to that — I based this miscarriage tale off the slightly abusive relationship my parents had — and there were these really old-fashioned elements to the film such as the costumes but also combining that with a more modern sensibility of the hangover and involving the fantastic genre and the colors. I enjoy making you could say modern classic fantastic films. That kind of summarized all the films I made in grad school. And the horse was a metaphor at the same time for the child and the playfulness of that. Personally I have experienced a sort of condescending overbearing relationship with many guys, who till now, take this online boogeyman aspect and make it seem like it’s okay to take advantage of me, so there was this relationship metaphor I have experienced as well where you like someone and you don’t want to upset them, but at some point, you have to stand up for yourself, which I think is a very relatable thing for many people.
Your work in light painting is both unique and visually captivating. Could you elaborate on how this medium allows you to express themes or emotions that might be more challenging to convey through music, traditional filmmaking, or acting?
Light Painting allows me to express emotions and concepts through illustration in light with my body and my performance much quicker than the other forms. Usually, I think of a concept or theme or title that’s only a few words long and then I draw out what that means to me. An example being recently, my Reset series where I had a bunch of different characters hit a reset button as a way of my expressing how throughout this past year, I have sent A LOT of emails, complaining about A LOT, and sometimes I said things I shouldn’t have and so forth, especially if I get too drunk and get too carried away on my phone, so it was kind of like how I wish there was a button after making a mistake you could reset, right, and thinking about that for example it’s weird because I realize in the year, it seems whether or not I made these email mistakes, I don’t think anything would’ve changed with my situation as of now, I don’t know. So the light painting is a way to pose with expression, or use colors and lines in abstract ways to express a moment or thought where you don’t have 3 minutes like a song or a much longer time like a movie to explain. And I actually hope one day I can combine both my light paintings with music, and create more of an interactive experience for people at a gallery or something.
With songs like ‘Lonely Island Star’, you touch on deep personal struggles and desires. How do you balance the vulnerability of sharing such personal experiences with the public expectation of your artistic persona?
I think, I don’t know because I’m kind of isolated and a little in silence, but I think I’ve already expressed so much vulnerability that I don’t think anyone is surprised at this point. In fact, how so much of my life and work has been exposed to so much of the industry, and when I go online I see so many references to things in my life, that it’s almost as if I’m used to being overexposed, and yeah sometimes it’s not very nice and it can be embarrassing, but if you look at my films again referring to one like ‘Something Round’ or ‘Flu’ or ‘The Check In’ you see very personal aspects of me… so because of that it’s not really a balance for me regarding sharing because so much of my life has been shared without choice — and regarding the public expectation, I don’t really know what that is yet, because my social media is oppressed and there’s all the silence. I can go out in public and people may act a certain way towards me, but right now it’s all very hard to rely on or judge because this boogeyman stuff goes on if I go out on a Friday night, and I get messed with a lot, I get picked on, I’m not perfect at all but there are lots of times people take advantage of this ‘box’ situation and exaggerate or make up stories to hurt me – then I get confused and a little angry and then I don’t act the best in public such as insulting a stranger purposely cosplaying as an aspect of all this — then I hide in my room for the next few weeks. So regarding the public expectation – it seems like it’s quite a mess – and I think an artist like me can be looked at quite differently by different people, there’ll be people who seem like huge fans, and there’ll be others who will call me homophobic slurs. And without anyone talking to me or more, all I can do is what I know how to do. With songs there is an even more vulnerable aspect, because of the singing that’s required — that takes even more guts — especially without professional equipment or editing etc. And I just try to share aspects of my soul and emotion – and I tend to be a very honest person, at times it does allow me to get in trouble, but I struggle lying so if I end up for example with ‘Lonely Island Star’ being very vulnerable and honest, I will likely find other ways to compensate with either some comedic or edgy work — I think part of why I do so many facets of art is also as a way of compensating, a way of compensating of being too much or too little with one, or too emotional or too stoic – and I should probably find a way to make all the artistic aspects more complementary of each other — but I do think ironically because of this box, there is an ongoing theme with so much of my work and because of the isolation, these aspects of loneliness and love and come out in various ways – so in a way the vulnerability is sticking to theme.
Also this song — I wrote it one night – quite quickly — a person I thought was going to be my friend, ended up not, and I was sad one night and I made this song and I think it’s important when you feel a wave of inspiration to create to go with it, whether it’s too vulnerable or not, and then regarding your artistic persona or what — you can work with that later, but any moment you get a desire to create that is just like it needs to come out, you have to do it, and sometimes when that’s the case you come up with the most vulnerable stuff. Not to mention – my first song was ‘One Way Road’ and after this exploration in the arts over a few years – to return to a similarly themed song in ‘Lonely Island Star’ – it just was an ongoing of the same vulnerability I felt for so long – in a sense it rounded off so much experience and it’s weird because it does mention difficulty and struggle and it makes me think about where I was years ago and despite so many achievements where I am now – and just the injustice of this ‘box’, how I feel so helpless in life because nothing I do seems to make a difference and just that ongoing pain of inequality, and how many people have watched it and known for so long but chose to remain either silent or bystanders, and here I am just taking one step forward after another step in this direction of my life and work and it feels a little like my body is so tired and I’m dragging myself and I look around and people are watching but no one’s really doing anything, some are contributing to the narrative artistically, some are taking advantage — and I just keep going even though it’s not helping and it’s kind of hurting me at this point because I don’t know where else to go or what else to make of life when there’s no actual direction it seems I’m allowed to head towards or a destination I can see in sight because of the futility.
Having worked extensively in both the U.S. and Hong Kong, how have these diverse cultural environments influenced your creative process and storytelling techniques?
Well in terms of creative process and storytelling – it’s definitely been an interesting journey because people in different countries make art differently. After my undergrad in the States when I started writing stories, it was comedic, it was less stilted, dialogue was more important for me, and its just the culture of America, it’s more talky. It’s more witty, more liberal. However, I returned to Hong Kong after a few months at NYFA, and due to the effects of gaslighting and trauma, my writing became more stilted. However I was able to work on being more visual, I watched more films and learned more about what films I liked and I took some classes with Gordy Hoffman and he was very less is more, be more visual, and that is def. the type of work that wins more awards, but more streaming services have more a commercial line-up of films — so I spent a lot of time learning with my storytelling not to say too much, and then when I got to the States, everything became about adding more, so all my scripts became more talky, the culture of the community, at least around me, enjoyed films that were more safe, less controversial – I was told once even that a really popular script of mine ‘Ripe’ – the title in relation to fruit, that later won the Big Apple Film Festival, would never get made, because it was too edgy, however in fact there are parts of it that were remade into Babylon and Saltburn. But as I stayed longer in the states, I got more talky as well than I was in Asia because of the culture and the people, and increased freedom. And I was writing these films that had more wit. Also being in the US was exposed to such a stronger talent pool, that I improved so much with my directing, people were so much more creatively brave which is part of how I started doing so many other creative things as well – I could work with actors that were more trained, I learned a lot more about visuals so it was like everything I wanted to do but missed out in Asia because of limited opportunity and language barriers, I was able to spend time to make up for and learn when I was in the states. And it made me enjoy so many more aspects of film, from costumes to cinematography to acting. And when you enjoy what you do – the work is much better hopefully. And the states was like this huge breath of fresh air, and my creativity was like able to finally be free because in Asia I felt so oppressed and unable to properly think beyond. Then at the same time, coming back here, so a while after lots of time in the US — my storytelling changed again, obviously in ways as I’ve done many more one-man shows and I’ve had to be limited in that regard, but also I started to trust myself much more. So after a lot of mentorship, in school then for many years after, I started to storytell again and it was weird because it was as if I forgot all the lessons I learned, and I was just able to completely express myself without thinking too much about it — and I started to remember more of myself again — the films I liked, the styles of filmmakers I like, and I feel like in the states it’s easy to get caught up on what others or the media or what is popular– American runs on popular culture– and so being away for a while it’s nice to be able to storytell in a way where I’m not trying to do it to fit in with the crowd in a sense — and its nice to remember what I think is good art because I was def. influenced by that popular culture of cinema in the US — however with my resource limitations abroad and other issues, it does feel like I’m getting a bit of cabin fever and I do need new inspiration.
Your one-man shows such as ‘My Boyfriend the Boogeyman’ and ‘The Check In’ are intensely personal. What drives you to this format, and how do you prepare mentally and emotionally for these performances?
I guess these two films I made as one-man shows because I wanted to act and make films and no one would cast me and I don’t have the resources to spend much on everything. ‘My Boyfriend the Boogeyman’ started as a web pilot pitch, as I was trying to turn it into a show and series. I took a difficult situation I was dealing with, made a metaphor out of it, with a fantastic element and it was really cool and cathartic. It wasn’t hard preparing for this mentally or emotionally. In fact, when it comes to acting on everything I’ve acted in, not talking about Instagram fun videos because I don’t prepare for those because I don’t really place importance on them, but with film acting, I’m quite fast. I learn the lines and then I do the scene over a few times, and usually, I just get into it. Sometimes I worry I may blink a bit much or my hand used to make this weird shape – but now that’s stopped which is great — but otherwise emotionally – I’m quite good at getting into it very quickly — though I am making these films alone so the preparation is not like on a set where I see actors in films I’ve directed needing a little more time because they’re in front of so many — I would like to be able to perform with more people personally because I do want to get better and I can’t keep doing that on my own.
For The Check In – well I was in Mexico, it was during COVID, I thought I was going to die, I was there for three weeks and I decided I was going to write and direct a film. I didn’t have much time, I just jumped right into it. So much in that film — came from my actual fear and sadness at the current moment, I do wish I didn’t have to wear a mask at times — but it was scary — I thought I was going to die and actually almost did one night as I got lost and stumbled into a compound where these guys with guns and dogs screamed at me, and I felt trapped, and I had much to say about the injustice of life and work exploitation so I just went into it. I actually wish with that film I had more time to prepare, certain scenes if I prepared a little more could’ve been even cooler. But that was hard because there was a time limit, at the same time, I didn’t know the area, I was just at this hotel, and I was alone – so it was like it’s now or never, and again these reactions to the gaslighting which was a theme in the movie — came out of very personal experiences.
I think when it comes to mentally and emotionally preparing for these one-man shows — its really just getting up and being motivated to do the show — Obviously each performance is different, when I do horror the expressions are different to when I do dramas and I don’t have formal training except from A levels (which is basically an in-depth study for the last two years of high school) so I try to think about how I walk, how I sit, the cadence of speech, the deeper study of character motivations isn’t something I focus on because I’m only acting in my projects and I’ve never acted a big part in someone else’s work, when I direct I do talk to the actors about that, but when I act I try to make each role unique but I do look young so making things more realistic I do tend to play younger roles – and once the camera is in place — you just have to perform. And this format became something I had to force myself to do if I wanted to continue working in film because of a lack of investment, the silence and isolation, the lack of money and everything literally. Right now I have one show I have to make and it’s set at night and I keep falling asleep too soon and lacking motivation also because of a difficult situation recently — so for this one — I def have to find ways to mentally and emotionally prepare — but it’s not about the role I’m preparing for, it’s about preparing to maintain a certain amount of energy during the shoot and preparing to go for it and set a goal and achieve –
sometimes with these one-man shows it feels so much harder than the bigger sets – even though more work is def put into the bigger sets – these one-man shows — feel tiring, because it’s fun when you get to set and you have your role whatever that is, as an actor or director or with camera team and for me to do it all — is just you have to think in so many stages – and there’s no real calm – it’s like okay camera, okay now act, okay check to make sure it worked, okay fix the set, okay costume change, okay next camera shot… so it’s a lot you have to individually do and plan without support. I think you prepare for that you just have to believe in your project and go for it.
You’ve inspired and been inspired by big names in the music industry. How does this circle of creative influence and recognition impact your approach to new projects?
It is this weird double-edged sword – on one hand, it’s a huge privilege and honor and so cool. It’s not just my music it’s like my light paintings, films/scripts and life. And it does sort of give me this feeling of belonging to a group even if for now it’s from such a far distance. At times it’s very hard to keep up as well – these guys are always on the move, always doing something, always busy. So it’s a lot. And there’s a lot of people, and I can’t pay attention to it all. At the same time, I do feel a little demotivated with new projects — it’s just inspired is a little bit of a euphemism for it all – after so long at least — and there is an exploitive element because of the fact I get nothing and they all get so much — so I do feel a little tired, like I have done a lot for my age in terms of work — but it does get a little tedious in the sense of like is this going to continue for how long and what happens to me and where or how do I get equality justice and freedom right. And there are definitely times the creative circle inspires me to suddenly take on a new creative project, like my song ‘Let Me In’ was inspired by after Britney did ‘Mind your business bitch’, and it was a way for me to explain the other side of that in a sense — and then for example it seems to be implied with Billie Eilish’s upcoming album she has a song called ‘Open the Door’ – or like my filmatic surgery film – I’ll see that sort of costume on the stage of certain singers like Beyonce, then Britney did such a dance as well, then Billie will have an Egyptian sounding song with a video corresponding to the end of that film… so it’s all this weird circle stuff… and I’m just listing a few examples out of the many — at times when I go out because I have no one to really talk about it all with — or acclimatize with the situation or get excited about it all — like I’m still waiting to get free and have that one friend where I can finally be in an environment where I can share in excitement all the cool art music film stuff — when I go out I end up just listing so much, I’ll be like Kylie did this and this person did this and so forth — and usually people get weird and I’m just waiting for that breath of air to experience some joy in all this.
I find a sense of strength in myself and in my one-man shows — I find a sense of independence when I see how many are inspired —
it’s just hard for example when no one that is in direct contact with me in my life — like my immediate family — none of them want to see any of my films or read my work or support my art. In my mom’s house or with my sister, I’m not allowed to talk about Hollywood or the music or my art and how it’s used. But the creative contributions of others give me a strength to remember who I am even when people around me, purposely make it hard, and that encourages me to keep going at times and ignore the negativity of some of those around me, but also harbor a little anger and look down on them a little bit.
— at the same time I would do more if I was getting more than just inspiring from a distance while I essentially suffer — I think if things were equal I would’ve gotten my green card so many years ago, I’d be independent, I’d have a much happier and healthier life — and as I age and this continues I worry – I worry about the future a lot — I worry if the last 16 years were all a waste —
Also, I’m so tired because I see how they all are inspired but they get to go places and they get to experience all the wonderful things of being a known successful artist so I’m a little like it’s unfair because I’ve been in this position – however my art evolved – I’ve been in this position for 16 years and I don’t get to do any fun stuff, I still have this very limited experience of life and have to deal with many equality and rights struggles.
But I definitely learn also from some of it — coz when it relates to your work you’re like oh that’s a really cool sound or you’re like oh that’s a really cool way to have looked at something or that’s a really powerful way to have interpreted something. And as I learn it does impact how I work, like with music it may affect the style of the next song I might make, like whether it’s dance or trip hop or will I once again use 80’s synths. Or with films — I start to really push myself with creative ideas because I feel this privilege where I don’t have to rely anymore on something too small and simple (though I actually very early on started writing some quite high budget ideas) — though once in a while I will still write something easy to do — at the same time — this isn’t a privilege, it’s kind of a weird exploitive curse because I witness bits of my work but I don’t seem to get anything apart from being forced to go along with being in this ‘box’ situation that gives me a lot of emotional, psychological and socio-economic difficulty.
Though the circle of creative influence has also helped me plan for new projects in a healthier way. A lot of times growing up, I would get influenced or swayed creatively by people I liked at the time, and literally with each person, they had a more lowbrow sense of art than what I enjoy. So, there have been moments when I have, in a sense, weakened or dumbed down my art to appease certain people, stupidly. And the more successful circle of people are good at encouraging and reminding me what better art is and not to stray too far from good taste.
With your background in both traditional and new media, where do you see the future of filmmaking heading, especially considering the rapid advancements in digital technology and online platforms?
When it comes to filmmaking, I do think A.I. with tech can be quite useful. Now, I know there were protests and such, and I do think there should be limitations. For example, artificial intelligence shouldn’t replace artists—whether they are writers, singers, directors, or actors. I think the human race needs humans to continue making art. In my opinion, if you were to find the meaning of life for you, or the purpose of humanity or whatever deep, meaningful philosophical things you want to learn about—art is the bridge, I believe, between people’s souls and the world around us. I can’t think of anything else really that is that bridge, in a sense. So, humans need to be allowed to continue to make art and be rewarded for it properly. At the same time, recently I was making a poster for a new film, and I went online and for the background image, I discovered this site where you could just type into the text box a description of the image you want, select a style, and A.I. would make that image for you, and you don’t have to pay a stock photo fee or anything, and I was like, wow, for a person with very limited money, this is going to change how I make movie posters. So, there are definitely some advantages, and I think A.I. will assist aspects of visuals in films and things like that. But, funnily enough, I was reading something that was like, we need A.I. to be able to do things like chores so that we can focus on being creative, rather than A.I. doing the creative stuff so we have to do more chores—which is very true. As for online platforms—if you’re talking about social platforms like Twitter, I’m not sure as I don’t use that, only Instagram and mine is oppressed—but streaming platforms are very vital for filmmakers. They allow people to see our work and I honestly think there should be more, especially some catering to low-budget stuff, but also at the same time, I do wonder how many people subscribe to all the platforms, like there are so many, and I do think it makes films more accessible. I do wish there was some combination of both where there was an online platform that allowed you make films with the help of A.I.
I also think when you hear interviews from older famous directors, they always talk about how shooting on film is best, but obviously time and budgets these days, digital tends to be more accommodating, and I do think because of that there’s this historical aspect to the craft that is dying out, and I find it tragic. I do wish I had learned more on film, actually when I attended my first film class at New York Film Academy in 2009—we had to make our first film with an actual film roll and it was black and white and it was very cool. I do wish I had stuck it out and made things more exciting with film roll back then. Anyway, as digital comes to the forefront, there is a whole aspect of cinema that might be forgotten and I think it’s up to schools and filmmakers to prevent that.
You’ve expressed a hope for freedom and equality through your art. Can you discuss a project where you intentionally addressed these themes, and what impact do you feel it had?
Many of the films I made since 2022 express that. My script Miracle chips about an exploited potato chip maker is the ideal example. With my music Looking For Earth, Cali Sand, Needed a Break, Lonely Island Star, Let Me In, all have lines with a hope for more in life, with trying to find understanding, with trying to show a sense of humanity and display the need for change amongst this hardship. With The Larvae I talk about wanting to rejoin nature. With The Check In, I show a difficult situation of being trapped and gaslit. With Seed I show how a witch exploits a teen to grow her garden. With the Invite I showed the desire to connect and see people. With Lobster Tongue I show a person searching for their love whos in a dark place. With UV I showed a flower buried that wants to get up. With Filmatic Surgery, I show a complicated mummy who feels trapped. With Floaters I show a situation of family loss as a result of these mysterious floaters. With Housefly I show a sense of loss through gaslighting. With Present I showed a desire to regain control of ones life, with Pocket Dog I showed a desire to escape. So – those are a lot of films where I try to express a hope for freedom and equality by demonstrating the difficulties, horrors, comedic tragedies and pain of the protagonist. I hoped people would understand and my situation would improve however, instead, people have been using these situations to in a sense re-enact them around me – so I experience a lot of difficult actually as a result and for many around it seems to be just like a game, like there’s a clear lack of empathy or understanding for some reason – maybe because it’s a movie — I don’t know — people’s reactions to this box really show a lot of their humanity , and most of the time I’ve been disappointed with how human beings have been, but also maybe Im just always looking at the wrong ones or am at the wrong places. Also, I feel like because I do these one man shows then people see the remakes etc – they assume I’m well and fine — when that’s not really the case — I think these projects had an impact on perhaps certain directors or producers or writers or actors, clearly not in the way I wanted but they see something that they want to get involved in that relates to my work. So — I was hoping some people would see how far I tried to go for freedom, how much I deserve such things like equality and so forth — but also I think it’s also kind of isolated me because people don’t know how to relate, in one way to my situation and in a second way to the creative circle that is part of so much of my work. So I don’t know. I do think it made people realize aspects about me as a person, that even though Im not perfect that I am more capable than how many initially thought of me and I do hope all of these efforts give me freedom and a future more equal just and so forth. But I don’t know to be honest. Oh but there was one moment in Italy where I screened filmatic Surgery and there is a very soulful moment in the end, and afterwards, it was the first time, an audience member came up to me and said they really enjoyed the film and took a photo with me and so in that moment I felt like that film made an impact.
How do your philosophical beliefs influence your artistic decisions and the themes you choose to explore in your work?
I’m not very sure, to be honest about philosophical beliefs—I like to explore themes of things I’ve experienced or want, from unrequited love, to obsession, to body insecurity, to gaslighting, to relationship hope, to connection, to alcoholism, to women’s rights, to LGBTQ rights, to mental health, to socio-economic struggles, to generational differences, to immigration.
I mean, it’s a long list of themes, to be honest—I mean, in my portfolio, I could list twenty more themes because the work is so widespread. I try to approach my films and exploration of complicated situations with a sense of love for characters that are flawed. I have this huge desire for escape and as a result, a lot of my work is magical realism. I like projects that have a reminder of my reality but also take me to another time or place or personality. Grief is a recurrent theme in lots of my work, and I think as each year passes, it’s a reflection of how I grieve about life. I used to also write or make work that was a little more disturbing—I once believed good art makes the comfortable uncomfortable and the uncomfortable comfortable. However, after everything I’ve experienced and the last years or so—and I’ve experienced a bunch of real-life horror—I don’t believe in that quote anymore because I want to feel more joy in life, I still believe good art should make people think and question and challenge the status quo norms, but also as I get older, I feel like to find peace you need to be peace, so maybe to find more joy, you need to be joy and that will therefore mean influencing my artistic choices to not bring me down emotionally—and it’s not that any artistic decisions should cause me to feel extra negative but there are many aspects of this box where my work, replays in a sense against me in real life which doesn’t happen to others—and it can be painful or scary at times and I suffer—so I do want to find a place where that doesn’t happen anymore and I can pursue any genre of film without the fear of story in the film affecting my life—because naturally as an artist I do like to explore different genres.
–
Listen to Nikhail on Spotify. Follow his work on Instagram. Discover more on his official website.
Interview by Amelia Vandergast
