Last summer, you may remember hearing that Guillermo Arriaga, Bahman Ghobadi, Emir Kusturica and Hideo Nakata were teaming up for the religious-themed anthology film “Words With Gods.” Well, a year has nearly passed and the project is now in post-production, with the first trailer dropping today.
Hector Babenco, Mira Nair, Warwick Thornton and Alex de la Iglesia round out the contributing filmmakers to the omnibus, with Maribel Martinez contributing animated sequences between each segment. The project finds each director delivering a narrative centered around human fragility, as well as environmental and cultural crises involving specific religions with which each has a personal relationship with early Aboriginal Spirituality, Umbanda, Buddhism, the Abrahamic faiths, Hinduism, and Atheism all in the mix. And oh yeah, Peter Gabriel scored the whole thing.
Even more, this is just the first part of a massive project for Arriaga in what he calls his “Heartbeat Of The World” series, based on different subjects. Subsequent films “Encounters” (in pre-production), “Into The Bloodstream” and “Polis” will look at sexual identity, drugs and politics, respectively.
As for “Words With Gods,” it will be released both as a feature and as individual shorts. No release date yet but sneak peeks are planned for next month “at various cinematic events in the U.S. and Europe.” So perhaps something at Cannes? Watch below.
