By Aníse Meccouri

Luis Dechtiar, 21, just wrapped a month-long principle shoot of his college roommate’s first feature-length film, The Olympians. He was originally asked to document the production and turn it into a "making-of" feature. Three weeks before the shoot, however, he became the production manager, a full-time job that involves attention to scheduling, communication with crew and actors, contracts, funding, and a lot of driving.

Today, the set in New Jersey was closing and it was a well-earned day off for Luis—a perfect day to coax him into meeting me in New York City to hang out for a while and chat. It was a beautiful summer day in the city: low humidity, warm, breezy. What better place to chill out than Soy Luck Club in the West Village?

We entered the little café to hear Astrud Gilberto singing in Portuguese on the Stan Getz album that was always playing in this place. "This is Brazilian," Luis said. He grew up, with his parents and two younger sisters, in Porto Velho in Rondônia, in the northwestern Amazon region of Brazil, near the border of Bolivia.

Luis's mother is American, of English descent, and his father is Brazilian, of Turkish and Jewish descent. The Dechtiar family moved back to the United States just in time for Luis to enter high school in Burlington, Vermont. Needless to say, adjustments were nothing short of enormous.

"[The change was] really challenging for me, especially having grown up in a different culture, and not being the most extroverted person." It can be deduced that Luis’s artistic inclinations were a helpful tool in his gradual assimilation. 

"When I was little, I used to make comic books and drawings. A lot of my story-telling eventually turned into video because I started working with someone who video-taped weddings. I didn’t really think of going to film school until sophomore year in high school, when my mom’s friend saw a video I made and was like, 'This is cool, next step film school.' I slowly arrived at a visual medium that combined everything I wanted to do, from stories to comic books to photography, acting and even magic."

"Who is the friend of your mother’s?" I asked. I vaguely remembered this story.

"She was a childhood friend of my mother's, and for some time, a mentor for myself. Her name was Luisa. She sent me a couple of sketchbooks that I used for years. Then I wrote a 76-page comic book called One Step to Fantasy and sent it to her. She photocopied the entire thing and sent me the copy, saying I would treasure it in a few years. This was the kind of audience appreciation that inspired me, even if it was only one person affected by something I created."

Luis’s parents are both professional educators and the most influential people to him personally. His mother went to art school as a young person of a different generation, and was told by her instructors that she would need to find a "real job," because artists don’t get paid for what they do. It angered his mother so much that she was determined not to let that restrictive mind-set limit her own children. Thus, Helen Dechtiar has been a strong supporter of Luis and his sisters, encouraging them all to learn as much as possible about what they love to do.

After making sure Luis tried something with soy in it, we sat down. I got a huge iced coffee and he decided that a vibrant chocolate-mint soy steamer would be a fine bet. That ought to be enough to cover the taste of soy!

Luis has been attending Emerson College in Boston since 2002. He is preparing for a senior year in the film program. Emerson is a small school with a big reputation in the industry of communications—particularly film, publishing, and theater.

"What do you think of film school?" I asked.

"The best thing about it is the people you meet, and the practice." He explained, "I’ve been exposed to a lot of cool films in school, but after a while, it’s not so important to read about all the technical, artistic or theoretical analysis of things. It’s more that you practice the craft."

"That’s kind of your school’s whole philosophy."

"Yeah, yeah. And your school as well." He smiled knowingly. I will be entering Emerson’s writing, literature and publishing program in the fall.

Talking about film is nothing new for Luis and me. We’ve had a pretty solid five-year dialogue talking about movies and film-making, as high-school critics, and as serious-minded creative young adults. When you talk about the same thing for so long, assumptions are made of each other to the point where I wasn’t if sure if I had questions to ask Luis! People are always growing up. And the right now is way more important than the back then.

"So who inspires you as a filmmaker, or who inspired you growing up, and how did that change?" I blurted. 

"Steven Spielberg." He answered quickly. That got a good laugh from both of us, both because of his rapid reply and what sounded like a stock interview response. "I’m not totally serious, but the first movie I saw was E.T. I was fascinated with how parts of movies would stick to you. I remember one scary moment when E.T. had fallen in a ditch. It stuck to me for all these years."

"The part when he was all white and emaciated and stuff?"

"Yeah, right."

"Yeah, that’s I all I remember too."

"I really admire artists who can stick to what they love doing even when it’s not bringing them a lot of renown or fame, especially when it has to do with wanting to work for the Bahá'í Faith," Luis continued. "For example, Mark Perry's plays are about the history of the Bahá'í Faith, or characters in its history. It's admirable to me that he can be so motivated to do that, not afraid of limiting himself. My cousin does some small plays, like the one you saw." 

"Oh, right." I remembered. In the fall, we had seen a New York production of Adriano Shaplin's short and haunting play, Pugilist Specialist.

"Even though [Adriano] could write mainstream material and make lots of money, he chooses to concentrate on what he loves doing. It’s always a struggle for me. I know what would make money, but I wouldn’t be happy doing it."

I sipped my iced coffee, trying to think of another question. I should have written something down. "Have you seen a movie recently that you really liked—that wasn’t War of the Worlds?"

He laughed at my futile instruction. "Um, recently…I’ll talk about Salaam Bombay! I watched it right after I got back from India [in 2003], so maybe I had more of a special connection with it for that reason. It was a really good movie. First there were child actors, non-professionals, amazing performances. Secondly it drew attention to important social problems in India: over-population, homelessness, child-abandonment. I thought it did so in a really tactful way. The movie is filmed with a lot of naturalism."

Luis spun off into a tangent. "The movie is interested in showing things as realistically as possible. To me, that is the best thing that has happened in film. You could easily go to a movie and be wrapped in fantasy, and then leave and forget about it completely, separating it from reality. But when a movie brings up social commentary in a way that affects you days after you see the movie—that’s what I try to do."

"You value a more authentic reflection with realism, because it’s not fashionable—well, some version of realism is fashionable now, but you're not concerned with reflecting fashion," I tried to clarify. "I’m thinking about Douglas Sirk movies in the '50s, or even Rebel Without a Cause. They reflected the current fashion, and less spiritual content."

"It’s hard to do," Luis offered. "I guess you could relate this to a movie on my DVD, Suite Talk. In the span of an hour and half, I filmed my roommates talking. I didn’t tell them what to say, but I directed the conversation in certain directions." Suite Talk is a passive observation of young, middle-class American perception that Luis filmed about two years ago, and it is as disturbing as it is humorous. "Even though I didn’t always agree with what they were saying, it was a great exercise in bringing out authentic thoughts. It represented real opinions in this country, even though they’re totally opposite to my own opinions. It is interesting to represent that as naturally as possible."

"That video showed how people run on auto," I recollected, "and if they took a step back to reflect on what they’re saying, and watch that scene of their life replay, you can observe how surreal, how automatic we are with everything."

"Yeah…" Luis said, obviously pondering how all this is coming off. "I personally don’t like movies that purposefully bother people, or try to poke at people, but I think there is a happy medium between offending someone and not challenging their way of thinking, I guess."

Another on-going discussion between Luis and me—and among all of my friends—has to do with finding spiritual purpose as artists. We can rattle off what movies or novels we like and don’t like, and we can easily imagine ourselves doing fun jobs in which we feel fulfilled, but it seems the big questions elude us. How are we serving to advance the progress of civilization; how do we aid the development of a just and peaceful order in the world?

"What are your future plans, what do you hope to contribute… absolutely?"

Luis chuckled. "When I was in ninth grade, my last year in Brazil before I moved to the US, I wrote a short story about seeing a homeless man on the street. I didn't think much of it, but the teacher ended up reading it in front of the class. I guess it was the first time I saw art as a way to affect social change. I realized the power of an audience, and how different your work sounds when you know other people are listening to it."

"I’ve been trying to figure out," he continued, "how does one serve through art? I was on a Costa Rica service trip where we went and built benches. That served a direct purpose, right? It’s just harder to make artwork serve a purpose to society. Even if you do something on a spiritual theme, how do you know that is affecting anything?" Well, from that vantage point, things do indeed look bleak and uncertain.

"So much of that is faith," Luis recovered. "You have faith that what you’re working on is meaningful. That’s been a lesson in humility for me. Sometimes I’ll work on something and I don’t know who’s watching it. Months later I’ll get an email saying, 'I saw this video about the Costa Rica trip and it made me want to contact people to go on the trip.'"

"But how is that a lesson in humility?"

"Because I don’t expect something right away; I don’t expect to be recognized as an artist. I just make it. If nobody sees it, fine. At the same time, I want to make sure that I'm in a state where I can be sensitive to what needs to be done. Part of humility is saying, 'I should do something about this and not about that other thing.'" After a pause, Luis said, "I don’t really feel coherent anymore. Can we take a walk? I think that will help."

We left Soy Luck Club and stepped out onto the warm sidewalk, the light and heat breaking up our thought-blockages. We walked down Greenwich Avenue past the little restaurants with packed sidewalk seating, and the thirsty flowers in the storefronts.

"It’s good to walk," Luis affirmed. "I’ve been driving here so much, driving actors home at like, three or four in the morning, but never just walking around."

"Ok, I have my whopper question," I warned. "So harness your chi."

"My chai?" He mocked. "My chai tea?"

"Your chi," I repeated. "Okay, ready? Luis—there have been comparisons between our generation, Generation Y or whatever we’re called, post-Generation X, and the generation of kids who were drafted for World War II. The comparison is heroic tendencies and attitudes, a readiness to turn everything upside down, change it, tilt life on an axis. I want to know what you think about that, and if you recognize those heroic and forward-looking tendencies in our generation. And give specific examples."

There was a long pause. I was afraid my question didn’t make any sense, until—

"I think the type of heroism today is different. Our generation is at a very comfortable level," Luis decided. "Our heroism will be rising from that level of comfort and realizing the injustices that still exist in the world, even though we’re told that everything is okay and we should just go on with our lives. It’s a spiritual struggle."

We turned onto tree-lined Eleventh Street and began walking east, passing gorgeous and ornate brownstones on each side.

"The new heroes are not people who go and stand in front of a tank," Luis went on. "That was maybe necessary decades ago, but now something new needs to happen, you know? I think it is very related to the Bahá'í Faith. We can't keep looking back towards the Dawnbreakers as inspiration; we have to become Dawnbreakers ourselves."

"Yeah," I agreed. "The Dawnbreakers didn’t actually do what they did to be inspiring, there were just… not of this world anymore. The connection is that same impulse to stand in front of a tank."

Luis pondered, "The thing is, how do you translate that into your art in a way that is powerful enough to make other people change the way they think?"

"Do you think it’s a manipulation tactic?" I posed, "Or maybe if we were truly different, if we were truly unhinged in the way we aspire to be, that our art would just be different?"

"Yeah. That’s the difference between something audacious and something truly, sincerely, coming from such a deeply-rooted source of love and power that people will want to follow it, and not just be shocked by it, you know?"

We were meeting some friends for dinner at the way-too-popular Café Habana downtown, but we were still on the west side, at least a 20-minute walk away.

"Juliet Thompson’s house is on the next block, we should have taken it," I remembered.

"Juliet Thompson?"

"Yeah, the Bahá'í lady 'Abdu'l-Bahá stayed with when He was here."

"Oh, yeah. Cool. It’s not out of our way?" Well, it was only a block away.

"No, we can go. It’s actually on the same block that Meryl Streep lived in, in The Hours. They’re a few houses apart.” I was such a film-geek.

"Oh, wow." But I wouldn’t think twice about it with Luis around.

We walked briskly onto West Tenth Street. I started scanning the south side of the block, looking for the house with wood-paneled doors. A cutesy couple walked by us, holding hands.

"You know, you can easily just write a movie about diversity or a multi-racial family—this generation is sharper, and they may be slightly amused, but it’s not anything that’s new, you know? I feel like our generation has already incubated into their lives the basic Bahá'í principles and teachings."

"Yeah, it’s so true." I am always discovering that unity is actually not an original concept, and it won’t really knock anyone’s socks off with its ingenuity.

"At the same time, they’re bogged down with their parents’ generations, subtle prejudices and things that."

"Like the principles are intellectually accepted, but not totally internalized," I suggested. "When it comes to sheer responses to things, it’s actually pretty archaic."

"Yeah, they’re convinced that they should act a certain way, but they're not emotionally drawn to it," he concluded.

"That’s it, by the way." I gestured to the large carriage house across the street that belonged to Juliet Thompson in 1912. It was for sale.

"Wow."

We kept walking east into the East Village, and the scene got younger and grittier. We had to get to Prince Street, so we walked down Second Avenue, pass the Jewish delis and vintage bookstores, until we hit the Anthology Film Archives on Second Street. I was reminded of the night I saw the film Messenger.

"Hey Luis, remember that bicycle film festival I went to?" I said, pointing to the building. "It was here." We looked up at the monster of a building on the corner. There was a big, pewter plaque on the dark brown front of the building that read Anthology Film Archives. It reminded me of a prison; a life sentence for filmmakers. Luis began to talk about how he’d seen an early screening of one the films that was now showing here. We continued to walk down Second Avenue.

"I’ve been thinking about how collaborative film is compared to other arts. It involves so many different crafts; you need a lot of people working on film," Luis said. There was something of a crescendo in his voice. "And that has been really challenging for me, but the great part is that the whole process of collaboration has really taught me humility. The leader of toda is not the person who can yell the loudest and be the most intimidating, and make people do exactly what he wants. The leader is the person who can gain trust through his honesty and purity of motive."

Luis continued, "In today’s society, in modern forms of art and other types that are yet to come, how are leaders gonna be? That’s what I aspire toward, even though it’s difficult and I’m far from being a leader in the way I think Bahá’u’lláh wants us to be in the art world. So far working on these projects has helped me figure that out."

We reached Elizabeth Street and could already see the line of people flooding the front of the little Cuban joint where we were meeting our friends. They weren’t there yet. I was about to excuse myself so I could call them and find out where they were, when I turned to Luis to find him smirking. "We’ll see what happens!" he said in an I’m-ending-the-interview voice.

I laughed. "I told you not to end on that line."

Read more about Luis Dechtiar and see samples of his work in our Off the Wall: Moving Pictures feature.