by Larry Richman
March 25, 2008 7:51 PM

The World Premiere of Explicit Ills took place this month at the 2008 SXSW Film Festival. Earlier, I posted my review. After seeing 20 films, I chose Explicit Ills as one of my 3 Top Picks of this year's festival. My interview with lead actors Frankie Shaw and Lou Taylor Pucci can be found several posts back.

Explicit Ills is simply a masterpiece. I sat with stunned silence as the film ended, both in wonderment at what director Mark Webber has been able to achieve as well as in deep thought about what my own role has been in the betterment of society. Explicit Ills will definitely make you think. Whether or not it will lead you to act on your thoughts is up to you.

I sat down with Webber to talk about his triumphant directorial debut as well as the festival experience and his plans for the future.

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Larry: I’m here with Mark Webber, the writer, producer, and director of Explicit Ills, which just had its World Premiere here at the SXSW Film Festival. This is your first film, right?

Mark: Yes, first film as a director.

Larry: Tell me, first of all, what the film is basically about.

Mark: The film is basically about love, drugs, and poverty in Philadelphia, as well as a socially conscious movement -- a real movement -- called the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign that exists in this country. My mother is a huge human rights activist.

Larry: How did the project come about?

Mark: It’s a very personal story for me. A lot of it is based on real life experiences, but I also incorporated that into a completely fictional narrative that I created for the sense of entertainment and to make a heightened sense of reality. But it’s really steeped in a lot of realism of kids that I know and have known throughout my life and also personal experiences that I’ve gone through.

Larry: I’ve seen the film and I loved it. I just thought it was really groundbreaking. There are so many words that are just too cliché but that’s one of the best ones I can come up with.

Mark: Thanks, man.

Larry: For the benefit of those who haven’t seen it, we won’t get into too much. But you were seeing it with an audience for the first time with actors who hadn’t seen the film. If you could remove yourself -- and I don’t know how much you can -- but, as an audience member, what did you think? What did you think of the film and what did you think of the reaction to it?

Mark: I loved it. I was so unbelievably nervous, and for me -- I’ve seen it like a gazillion times now -- but there’s so much in there for me. A lot of stuff -- just hidden meaning and symbolism to me -- that really only my mom knows, in a way, who was sitting right next to me. And to have my mom there and experience that with her was phenomenal. I was so nervous if Lou (Taylor Pucci) was going to like it, if Rosario (Dawson) was going to like it, and the kids. I wanted it to do everyone right and I was really touched up there on stage by everyone’s response and just the mutual appreciation that was going on. And the people who I don’t know who were there, I felt like they were right there with it. It was great to hear the laughs when they laughed. I think the movie did exactly what I wanted it to do to the audience.

Larry: I think it’ll surprise a lot of people. I know it will. I don’t want to throw the word unique out there -- actually the first thing I thought at the end of it was “masterpiece” -- that’s also kind of extreme -- but it’s hard to pull off a film like this with just the right tone. I don’t know how much agony you went through to get it to this point -- did it just flow out of you or was this years and years of hard work?

Mark: A combination of both. In the writing process there was a lot of flowing, and in the filmmaking of it, well, I have a tendency to be really hard on myself and I learned a lot through this process. The second time around I want to be not as hard on myself -- to pull back a little bit in terms of just perfectionism and just an obsession that comes with it. But it’s definitely what has fueled me and driven me. It was hard, but the kids -- they’d never really acted before, and I was really determined to teach them how to listen and act and be in the moment. And a lot of sleepless nights and personal drama. The world -- your life -- doesn’t stop when you’re making a movie. You try and have it stop. You learn that as an actor you want to shut everything out but then, lo and behold, you get a phone call about some bill you didn’t pay or some friend who’s mad at you because you haven’t talked to them or you haven’t called your mom back and then it kind of bums you out. You’re thinking about it on set. You’ve got to learn just how to use that and bring it back to the table, and a lot of that was going on during the making of it.

Larry: I understand there is some interest on the part of distributors and maybe by the time this gets out it’ll have been picked up. Are you booked at other festivals at this point?

Mark: No, not right now. We’re out to a couple of places right now and we’re waiting to hear back but we’re being really selective and playing our cards just right. I’ve been to a lot of festivals and this is my first time here at SXSW. I was really excited to come here and premiere the film here.

Larry: What did you think of the festival here?

Mark: I loved it, man. It’s kind of funny to say but it’s a younger, more artistic crowd than some other festivals that I’ve been to. I think people are definitely really into seeing films, and care about the films a lot more than they do about the afterparty. Whereas, I’ve been to festivals where people are just trying to get to the afterparty and don’t really want to see any films. It’s a film festival so films are important. It takes center stage here.

Larry: I guess the obvious question now that you’ve directed is, do you plan on continuing in that vein or are you going to go back to your actor roots?

Mark: I definitely want to continue directing. I would love to work with all the people I worked with again on this film. I’d love to work with Lou again and Paul (Dano) and Rosario and do something different. I really admire people like Paul Thomas Anderson who has a tendency to work with a lot of the same people in his films, at least for a few pictures. I really believe in the craft of acting so much, and I believe that there should be more opportunities for actors to do things that are really different from themselves and to create characters. I got to the point where I was really disenchanted with acting, and going through this, and working with everyone that I worked with has really reinvigorated me to act again. I feel like I have a much better understanding than I already thought I had and I’m dying to make another movie as an actor, but I’m writing right now.

Larry: We’ll be watching for more work from Mark Webber and for what happens with Explicit Ills --hopefully it’ll be playing soon at a theater near you. Thank you.

Mark: Thank you, I enjoyed it.