Fresh from a very successful world premiere for “The Unbelievers” at the prestigious Hot Docs International Documentary Film festival in Toronto director/producer Gus Holwerda, cinematographer producer Luke Holwerda and producer Jason Spizak sat down with us to explain why reason is relevant, road movies are a great way for scientists to get the message out and the genius of Ricky Gervais.
I want to start our conversation with a basic question: Why this documentary? Why now? Why do you believe “The Unbelievers” is important?
GH: You would be surprised to hear this but no one has asked that yet. Ummm I have personally been reading the work of Lawrence Krauss, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and the rest of that “new” atheist group to give them a name. For a couple of years I been trying to convince these guys that it was pretty cool and that they should watch all these videos and read all these books. I attended a seminar Lawrence (Krauss) was putting on in Phoenix, at their state university where the biggest names in science fill up this gigantic auditorium, 3000 people there to watch Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Stephen Hawkins was supposed to be there but cancelled last minute. It truly was eye opening to see how many people would come out for an all day event for science, how inspired they were and how the scientists were treated almost like rock stars. When I say that, personally coming from a music background, making music videos and playing in bands all our lives, it made sense to make it in the style of a rock & roll tour movie.
LH: Think of it as Coachella but with people talking about science.
GH: We threw the idea around and both Richard and Lawrence liked it. But why do it? I agree with them that now is the time. We live in a time where science can explain so much of what we used to need bronze-age myths and 2000 year old books to make sense of it all. But now we don’t need that anymore and it is time to show this to people to get them to think for themselves.
You just mentioned you all come from a musical background. The movie has that “road” movie feel to it. Is that done because of your love of music and maybe also a way to reach a younger demographic?
LH: I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision to approach a certain demographic, we just simply liked that format. One of our favorite films is “Meeting People is Easy“, a film about Radiohead, who incidentally have a couple of songs in our film. We had watched that movie a lot while we were in our band, and that kind of depressed us because of how truly bleak it can be on the road. When we were touring with Richard and Lawrence you get a similar feeling, In Australia or England we were getting that feeling, you drive or you fly to one city, you put down your bags, you go on stage, shake hands, sign autographs, look at kangaroos and then back on the plane. That was the experience we had as a band and we saw they had the same and it made sense to format the film this way.
How did the celebrity appearances come about? Some are well known atheists, but I must admit a couple surprised me?
GH: Some are well known, some aren’t. Not everyone that appears is an atheist. Cameron Diaz, she is definitely not an atheist, she is a little more…
LH: I describe her as having kind of “Einstein’s God”…
GH: I mean she would definitely say she believes in God, where Einstein did’t, but her view of God is very kinda broad and universal.
LH: Spiritual…
GH: Cormac McCarthy is kinda undecided, Sarah Silverman considers herself an agnostic. The rest of them are mostly quite outspoken, Ricky Gervais and Woody Allen are known for their positions.
LH: The biggest connection between these celebrities is that they are fans of the authors or fans of science and popularizing fact over fiction. That is why they wanted to be part of this.
GH: It was more important to just show that people that might be looked up to by others are willing to embrace what these guys are talking about. It doesn’t mean they all agree with what they say, but they are willing to embrace it. The way it came about was really that we shot the whole film and we only had the ones that appear on the film as clips ( like Stephen Colbert) that is until Woody Allen agreed to do an interview with us and then a lot more wanted to be part of it.
LH: The way we used them in the movie is more like a preface to a book. They are setting up what this movie is going to be about “These guys are important, we look up to them, you should too”. Then you watch the movie you see them and what they are doing and at the end of the movie they start this conversation and what we hope that this will be open ended enough that whoever watches the film will continue the conversation with their friends.
Here is a question for the producer: There is a point in the movie that draws a harsh parallel when comparing the current popularity of atheists being similar to that of rapists in the US. When it comes to financing this type of film how difficult was this for you?
JS: Well the story of financing this is a bit of a remarkable one. The germ of this idea was a very small idea at first, we were thinking we would simply just film one event, so Gus and Luke went ahead filmed it for the “Origins Project” but it turned out so well that these conversations between Lawrence and Richard were already scheduled in Australia and they were going to happen anyway. So this spark went off in Lawrence’s brains and he said that he knew a lot of people that have financial connections, and that we could turn this project into something of a bigger vision. Of course Gus and Luke brought their incredible talent to tell this story in a way we just described. We had only 3 weeks to get the funding to bring a full film crew to Australia to make this whole thing happen. I think it is the opposite effect where this subject matter is something people might be afraid to touch it, it also galvanizes people to want to be part of it. When Lawrence mentioned this to his friends the money materialized incredibly quick because they believed this is a story that needs to be told, that these questions need to be answered in an environment of open questioning. It is essential to public policy, it is essential for the furthering of not only science, but of mankind and that we didn’t just get here by taking somebody’s word for it.
I am thinking down the road and possible opposition towards the film. Is this a film that you want people of faith to see? Has anyone from a church or other religious group approached you to talk about it?
GH: Of course we want everyone to see this. We have been approached by film festivals from all over the world including the “Spirit Film Festival” in Tel Aviv. All their films are religious except for ours if they get it. It is interesting Richard and Lawrence have a very different view than us. They don’t particularly care if religious people see it or not. They are more interested in the fence sitters, the people who are not totally ardent atheists but aren’t so dyed in the wool that they can’t change their minds. They want people in the middle to see the film. I personally want religious people to see it as well.
LH: I think there is a lot of them that haven’t heard many of these arguments.
GH: I think that if this is the first thing they see in this genre that is good. I know that many religious people have a knee-jerk reaction to the word “atheist” and their brains fills up with hate. There is a part in the film where Lawrence talks about a study done between the US and Canada that said that atheists were considered the most hated group of people in America on par with rapists. Ricky Gervais, who is also very funny,sharp and worth the prize of admission, describes this irrational hatred best ” An atheist is a person who believes in one less god than you”. Atheists aren’t demons, they simply don’t have a god.
So for you secularism means progress?
LH: I think it just means open mindedness.
GH: Yeah, I think secularism tends to follow in the way of continuous education and I equate that with progress.
JS: You can show this movie to people who are ardently religious, with no hope of them taking your side, but an idea is never taken in isolation. Sometimes you are having a conversation and people might be listening in. Maybe in a home a parent is very religious, another is on the fence, but maybe their child will have a more open mind.
GH: Our film is a conversation starter. It is there to give you some ideas and to start talking about it. That’s it, if you want to go further you can.