Compelling Filmmaking For The Ages.
Ali created Hermit Pictures for two reasons: to bridle his pangs of ennui and to make compelling cinema for the ages. Even as a child, whenever the scruples of listlessness raised its Medusa head, he would retreat into the sanctuary of his mind where possibilities were immeasurable and even inanimate objects were given life. He would conjure stories whispered from the ether; the Muses would visit him circumstantially, bathed in a Nirvana light; he'd be inspired by a real life occurence played out like an improvized scene before him. These experiences precipitated both his creative and critical faculties. These miscellaneous reveries have only intensified with age, hence the formation of Hermit Pictures to transport these epiphanies into celluloid.
Great cinematic spectacles have ignited awe and wonder for as long as I can remember, and there is nothing more fulfilling then replicating that feeling of awe and wonder from my interior world unto others. - ALI KINTEH.
Think of The Ten Commandments scene when Charlton Heston's Moses parted the Red Sea before the Israelites. Or the helicopter gunships sailing over the Vietnamese paddy fields into combat to the tune of Ride Of The Valkyries in Apocalypse Now. Or the epic alien abduction of the young boy in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. And, from the same film, the three alien aircraft of varying sizes being pursued by a police car with its sirens flashing!
Cast your mind to the first appearance of Harry Lime in the last third of the film The Third Man to the arresting zither strings of Anton Karas. Or the camera panning the desert ocean in Lawrence of Arabia to Maurice Jarre's unmistakable soundtrack. What of Steve McQueen riding a motorcycle across a green field with the Nazis in pursuit in The Great Escape?
Do you remember the first time when you saw E.T and Elliott on a bicycle, propelled before the full moon in E.T? Or the moment when Clark Kent become Superman and rescued Lois Lane falling from a helicopter several meters high; And in Planet Of The Apes where Taylor falls to his knees in despair having discovered the Statue of Liberty buried to its bosom in sand, and he screams: Damn you! Damn you all to hell!
The dominion of storytelling is as vast as the universe itself. The rubric of narrative is as stratified as the seven heavens. Epics and fables are conspicuously threaded with wisdom, mystery and suspense. Myths and legends have outlived civilizations and withstood millenia. And after we are long dead, our tombstones become rubble and our bodies dust, it is only our stories etched in Thought and Memory that survives the ages.
For years, Ali had tapped on the front door of the film industry. His knockings had gone unanswered. His cries of let me in went unheard. Nobody was keen on utilizing his ideas. No one was interested in funding his projects. Roadblocks were commonplace. Opportunities were scarce. Wardens stonewalled him. Associates doubted him. Funding entities declined him. Decision makers said NO for the hundredth time. As he was chronically accustomed to rejection his entire life anyway, he responded as always whenever faced with a negative imperative. He did it his way. Hermit Pictures came into existence with his own money.
Hermit Pictures aim to produce quality filmmaking, fictional narratives that are overwrought, surreal, subversive and transgressive. Cinema that speaks to social realism and kitchen-sink drama inhabit its filmmaking consciousness. Epics and fantasies that appeal to our childlike sensibilities.
Hermit Pictures is less than six months old and they already have a cache of films on their production line. Kevin & Cassandra is in postproduction. Three films Itchy Eyeball, Elixir and Aquarius Sims and a television series Brendan Baker are in preproduction. Several more are being incubated.