The Prophet and the Space Aliens | The Short List

[Music] it's a profound yet entertaining exploration of spirituality religion and what it means to take a leap of faith i want you to come to listen to my silence his silence itself is a teaching what is true what is false does it even matter only one rule love it's a lot of fun we have been created by scientists coming from another planet what if it's true directed by yop shamir here is the prophet and the space aliens [Music] you speak english uh a little a little you are the bodyguard yes yes do you specialize karate or what [Applause] you are karate artist or no no no no no no karate normal bodyguard and but you don't use violence you don't use yes we we don't always feminine this is spring in okinawa can you believe mid-january is the spring start in okinawa this one is for you [Applause] when i talk to him like what should i call him i will call him real or maitreya or my prophet or it depends on how i feel yes yes and for me what would be like i don't want to be disrespectful oh you can call him real yeah that's his name yeah oh everything is recorded yes so we will take the stairs i don't know if you want to feel me from behind or from downstairs when i go down we do both so right now rael is their only prophet on earth from what i understand yes okay yeah actions considering the amount of people we are now is probably the most successful prophet after just 40 years of practice you know how many followers ah so we're probably reaching a hundred and hundred thousand now pretty close yeah we are from dust the elohim come on earth and take a handful of sun where you have everything to make a human being if you have the technology and create synthetically artificially life and that's what we are we are infinitely taking consciousness of itself what is like a practicing rally no costume no rule only one rule love a non-violent absolute non-violence but accept that people are free [Music] just for you i just will do a short meditation and stop talking not for you and for me and and for all what is for me and for you and for human race yes for you and for me and the entire human race what he's saying is actually an explanation of what all the other prophets have been trying to you know convey and they were killed for that most of them he's not killed he's criticized i mean the killing of the prophet today is done through media and uh trying to discredit you know so that's a new way to do it it's better than an alliance or or being on a cross you know it's still alive a french cult leader known as rael was questioned today by members of the us congress as they grapple with the moral and ethical issues surrounding human cloning rael believes humans were created from the dna of aliens according to the raelian scriptures human cloning is the only way to achieve eternal life the controversial cult leader has been invited to testify because of his claims that he has the technology to clone a human being i'm very very pleased to know that the first baby cone is born is [Music] most people have heard about real because of the media blitz that followed the cloning announcement but i didn't set out to find the cloned baby myra alien affair started very differently [Music] this is me a documentary filmmaker from israel i've never heard about trial until i received a mysterious invitation for your controversial viewpoint of israeli policies in your various documentaries rael has awarded you the title of an honorary guide of the raelian movement this is an honor bestowed only upon a select few they told me that previous recipients of the award include people such as madonna ew hefner jimmy carter michelle welbeck and other people whose actions or politics were in line with rael's point of view obviously i was very flattered to be in such company so you have i would love to you to come with me and i will be very you are friendly later i found out that i was the only one who showed up to receive the award i want to declare myself as alien friendly i don't know if there's a category like this but i'm proud to do one [Applause] [Music] you have now 1.5 billion christian on earth there was only one jew named jesus at the beginning and and that starts only with one person always you have one billion buddhists start with buddha so it's it's beginning is little but doesn't need to have a an army at the beginning just somebody was thinking and teaching is right so everything is going well i'm very happy we came i'm very happy i'm so thrilled to meet you i hope we will meet more i hope so maybe you are in a big plan to help me succeed maybe who knows you are bored for that you never know but i feel you feel something may i also give you ugh to the camera woman i love you both thank you thank you i grew up in a place that has been messed up by religious conflicts for thousands of years and the last thing i thought the world needed is another religion [Music] i could say that when the invitation came to visit reality's home i wanted to use the opportunity to explore the big questions of faith and religion belief and disillusion but the truth is more than anything my curiosity got the best of me good morning good morning [Music] how are you i've wrote a synopsis to make a movie everything a scenario and synopsis it's ready i would love george lucas for the special effect not something cheap you know with little different plastic really something between star wars and and the bible is in commandments so you see well there's a kind of wow if not written that can be a very my dream that can be a very big boost of course because instead of going in every country and speaking for a thousand people in one room suddenly it's everywhere so my dream my dream because it make i i can retire after that [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] beautiful [Applause] every sunday you come to listen to my world today i wanted you to come to listen to my silence silence is the most important thing [Music] you wrote a lot about jesus and the time of early christianity if you had a chance to make a documentary about a prophet a new rising prophet what would you ask him what would he want to know the first thing i'd be interested in knowing is what he means by profit is he claiming to have actual messages that were dictated by god or perhaps claiming to have made trips to heaven and gotten information from angels is he claiming to be able to see the future you know i think maybe i need something more concrete what are you talking about who are you talking about i i don't i don't live in a world in which every monday and thursday somebody is claiming to be a prophet so i'm not sure i'm not sure what you mean [Music] [Music] we are one with lotus [Music] we are one with jabs and with tadao and with kumiko [Music] [Music] we are one we so you know i'm not religious yes and now i'm making this film about the guy that started the religion i'm not sure how to approach it old textbooks about religion most likely jews believe this and this and this the muslims to believe this and this and this i probably would not be interested in theology what do you believe would be probably the the least interesting thing to me so i'd be much more interested in practices i'd be much more interested in seeing how these people live their lives do you aim here a little less strong was too strong yes that's my best patent partner for now rael's entourage consists of sophie a ballet dancer who really married when she was 16. [Music] takaide a japanese follower who bought trial the beautiful house is living in you can say full day you follow the sun and it's a it's like a dream honey rael's assistant [Music] the philosopher who are you where are you the newest member in rael's entourage is lotus a 26 year old chinese musician even if he talks nothing he silence itself is a teaching even you just looking at his eyes you feel like love warm wow you trust me i trust you of course i trust you of course you gave them the point that's exactly what i say we must not do sorry the answer to the big question why am i alive what is the meaning of life like the wonderful movie of the monty python i love the meaning of life why are we alive this is a question many people ask me why why am i alive to be happy foreign me so [Applause] well [Music] foreign is the only prophet who encouraged africans to go back to their old tradition to their old religions have you ever heard of catholic priests tell the catholics to go back to the traditional religion they actually tell them that this is the devil but he tells us to go back to our roots to go back to our traditional religion to go back to find who we were and to connect to that these african people beautiful people they had a culture before the colonization and they had religions beautiful religions connected to nature connected to the sky and the colonizator came and forced them with guns to become christians [Applause] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] liberty some people are talking about us like the sex cult because we recommend that sexuality is important and that you should follow your rhythm and uh do you if you're homosexual that's fine it's part of you if you are um if you want to have lots of partners and you have consenting partners it's great you shouldn't have feel any guilt about them and so they transformed that that kind of statement into the do orgies they are like obsessed by sex and things like that which is not the case who are in favor of everything that is possible depending on what you feel like doing and it always with respect of your partners burkina faso home of the biggest australian community in africa is predominantly muslim female genital mutilation although illegal is still common practice sex i oh i did not know there was a excision and i went to africa to to promote the movement to to speak to to give seminars and some african women tell me about it and i said what like i had no idea it existed and then i said that's terrible and some member of the rallying movement say i have no clitoris i was excited when i was a little girl wow i don't like [Laughter] where for free we will operate make the surgery for repairing the clitoris and to make this affordable for the african women that's fantastic [Music] hey shall we give money to the club box for my orgasm i think so everybody deserves some pleasure the box that was the fundraising you know when you had an orgasm you would put the money inside the box and so it would promote pleasure you know and each time you thought of you know of having pleasure or just had pleasure then you have to think of somebody who can't have it yet and with the surgery of course they'll be able to have it you know whether it was in italy or in australia or in south america japan korea i mean everybody pitched in so yes it was uh it was it was popular please help us to help the victims of female genital mutilation thank you love you love you tuttle suturing is helping to elevate the clitoris and fix it into place vu clitoris means that our whole purpose and function as a human being is to be happy that's why we were made to be happy and pleasure is just a feeling that you have and sexual pleasure in particular has been taken away from these women for no particular reason and it's just an injustice to women [Music] i love you mercy [Music] do you think the way new religions today are established is significantly different than the way they were formed in the past i doubt it i doubt it i think it's probably always going to be the same kind of a powerful leader comes and uh attracts people i can't see whatever what other way that would be and what about all the cultish elements you know like the worshiping the fact that they are giving 10 of their income well okay first of all i wouldn't use the term cults you know i think cult is a misuse of of language for me as for scholars cult means that's cult and i don't like distinctions between cults and religions uh you know it's like dialects and languages where the definition of a language is a dialect with an army so as we use the term cult it's it's kind of denigrating [Music] when people refer to you as being part of a sect does it bother you no christians they were sick probably the jews were sick what is a sect a small amount of people and it becomes a religion when it's a big amount of people and when it's recognized by everybody it's way more fun to be part of a cult or a sect if it's the case than being part of a recognized religion it's it's it's a lot of fun we feel we are changing the world [Music] no if we if we cannot play all the ball we leave tell you translate if we don't play all our goal we leave not fair say don't fail say not fair let's go let's go hello we were created by a human being coming from space named and elohim means those who came from scotland to explain so what brings you guys here to japan i live here you live here yes so what's the these people are all the members ah this is a camera a camera crew from israel really they make a movie about me well i'm the leader of this organization really my name is ryan israel yes thank you so much everyone today you have pamphlet yes you can read everything here did i share something with you very happy it's a reaction i'll share this with you i don't have any english an answer here in the beginning i have our heavenly father yes yes here you can know okay thank you you promised me you will read you my book my paper you promise me i will read it and i if you read i read one specific promise which one that i will read a special page read this week this first paragraph but then i want you to do something you pray i know i we don't pray will you pray no you won't pray we don't pray if you meditate it's wrong but it's kind of funny we meditate for peace in the world which is very important and peace and love taught me the god all the war in the world are made by people who believe in god the jews and muslims are killing each other the christian kills so many people with god is creating violence on earth it's okay have a wonderful time and peace and love before all right thank you more important than anything yeah thank you goodbye have a good day mormon they are not lucky today they couldn't find somebody worse than me let's say i would make a documentary about jesus when he was alive what sins do you think he would have not wanted me to film what would be like uh if you were like his advisor what what parts would you suggest that like should be left out it's an interesting question i mean it's a very interesting question uh it raises so many it raises so many methodological or theoretical questions to start with i'm not one who thinks that we know a lot about the historical jesus [Music] how can i imagine what the secrets are that's a little bit of of a character who might only know through literature right so everything is there right there on the surface the texts tell us what they want us to know [Music] so the authors certainly wanted us to to know everything that is in the gospels good morning morning [Music] rael's given name is claude varilon with no father in the picture he was raised by three women his mother grandmother and his aunt they lived in a small french town called amber a very catholic place famous for manufacturing prayer bids [Music] i was very weak and tiny so i was always bullied by other children at school and in every sport i was worse one day i was about nine years old they organized a kind of a gokart racing [Music] and i win [Music] for the first time in my my child life suddenly i am better than others in one sport and that was it immediately i said okay i want to be a race car driver i reached i reached poverty where you start to look at girls and i was shy weak and they were always looking at other boys strong handsome and then i bought the guitar and i was able hiding behind my guitar to sing in front of girls and they love it i tried to go to some singing contest and i wonder [Music] when i was 16 years old i left my family with my guitar like that normally just to fold along my pocket and went to paris to become a singer and like that so when i do that i feel 16 years old again played on the streets of paris for a few years until a music scout discovered him he then became claude my song were on the radio and they were not famous but a little bit a little bit i could make a living with that for a few years [Music] at age 25 newlywed rael realized he would not be the next jack brel so it was time to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a race car driver so i say okay i will make a racecar magazine in a few months became the number one race car magazine in france it was called top [Music] why i became journalist is because i had no money and i wanted to race [Music] in exchange for some advertising in my magazine i said to some company you give me a race car and i put free advertising for you in exchange it worked exactly like i planned audi gave me a car for a full season [Music] my first race in albi south of france pole position my dream and then came the elohim a a trapdoor open below unfolding into a staircase what at first claude was a child stepped down and walked straight towards him at a loss what to do claude acted as a true journalist and asked france from very far away [Music] claude was invited into the craft and over the next six consecutive days the extraterrestrial dictated a series of messages which are both clear and revolutionary we created humanity we were the ones who started all the religions on earth and now that humanity is capable of understanding this we would like you to build an embassy where we can land officially in front of everyone but i thought okay nobody will believe and one week later when i am back to my home i received thousands of letters i mean the postman was carrying bags you know of people saying we want to help you i rent a big conference room in paris sal player the most famous paris theater and i go to speak there is a cure outside of 2000 people waiting to listen to me self published his first book about his meeting with extraterrestrials he called it the book that tells the truth i love the village where i was living is called [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] please tell me what that sign means that he's got on him infinity in uh space the star of david the star of david that sign was used by hitler eventually but the swastika is an old symbol of the elohim that we can find throughout many but who picked that symbol no no no no that's the symbol that's the symbol that was on a vessel and on the man's suit after that he moved to this southwest part of france that you have just mentioned and there one day there was another encounter another encounter how did that come about so he felt the same urge to go to a certain place and then it happened again how long does this one last well this one lasted a day actually because claude they took him to their planet we are very satisfied with you and with everything you have done for the past two years it is now time to pass on to the next stage since you have proven to us that we can trust you evo paradise [Music] there were birds with multi-coloured plumage and pink and blue squirrels with the heads of bear cubs climbing in the branches of trees i was constantly saying am i dreaming it's it's too much in africa we we like what can what can make love yes right what can funny funny stories [Music] one of the robots came towards me and with the help of a small device similar to a syringe pricked my forehead so lightly that i hardly felt it an entity was formed before my eyes as the skin covered the flesh i saw another me take shape unaffected [Music] it's essential i would say you know in the writing philosophy because it's part of uh scripture you know that one day we'll be able to clone ourselves and download the personality and become eternal that way we don't promise eternity like other religions apart from scientific eternity that we can reach in my first message i told you of a residence located on our planet where people from earth can continue to live thanks to the scientific secret of eternity that is based on a single cell among those people are jesus moses elijah and so on [Music] would you like some female companions ask the robot come you can make your own choice [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] um [Music] my father is one of the elohim yahweh and my mother so it's 70 years he's my brother you have the same father half brother why if you wear the elohim would you go to the south of france all right a second-rate journalist right producing a magazine for car drivers and give him a mission right an uneducated man and give him a mission why why uh 2 000 years before you go in palestine and you talk to a little man about jesus it's the same jesus is the son of god the second person of the blessed that's your interpretation who became a man out of his own will that's your entrepreneur only extraterrestrial beings [Music] you know i'm not religious but even i somehow find it easier to accept the stories of moses jesus muhammad than those of royal why is that the beliefs of someone are compelling because they are traditional this is what this is what my mother believed this is what my grandfather believed then someone comes and says no there are new things to believe that demands that i ratchet up the focus on my own beliefs in a in a kind of critical way right it becomes a a call on me to take my own so-called belief more seriously and i don't necessarily want to do that so it's easier to believe in kriyasyamsuf than to believe that little green spacemen came and talked to real [Music] [Music] [Music] we select the most beautiful raelian girls to be the one who welcome with flowers the welcome physical beauty is an important criterion because we the elohim though we have an infinite love for all human beings whatever their appearance we prefer to be surrounded by individuals of great beauty corresponding to the absolutely perfect original models of the different races that we had once created on earth they have their relationship like everyone and we do whoever they want and they can have a boyfriend normal sexual life some women they choose to be only exclusive for the prophets and the elohim but you know this is only our wish i think many nuns become nuns knowing that we probably will never see jesus but they hope that maybe when they die as they believe if they go to heaven they might see him there and since all nuns i guess are jesus wife then they will all meet him there so if the angel the pink fellow angels were oppressed and unhappy and uh the elohim come it doesn't really matter because the element wouldn't want to be around people who are unhappy and depressed is the opposite it's a complete opposite they have they're refining themselves to be the best version of themselves and then if the room comes and then they want their company then they can be of service the last prophet saying well i want to have mainly women around me and they will be my assistants and there will be my uh the peop the the women close to me and they will be the one and the embassy that was controversial in within the movement at least after that when it spread outside even more because then okay that was there were the sex slaves or things like that yeah right but what is the problem in having sex with women that's like well you know the you have um well our movement is in favor of freedom of sexuality okay if real wants to have sexuality with women who are willing to have sexuality with him what is the problem [Music] when they join the order they know about that it's not oh a surprise i have may i may sleep with rail you know my girlfriend was an angel once she left no one no no one tried to keep her inside of the order and she came back and she was welcome so to me it's just another way to grow another way to grow i traveled to raelian communities and got to know many of the inner circle like michio the mathematics professor from japan [Music] or dr brigitte who has two phds in chemistry and was a senior scientist before she became realian and launched the cloning initiative can you imagine ufo arriving like this and you're there exactly the same size daniel turcotte the planetary executive of the embassy project a successful businessman dr phyllis hattie a postdoctoral fellow at harvard studying stem cells i had to admit there was something comforting in the idea that we're not alone that among the infinite number of stars and galaxies there are some friendly aliens that love us and that one day we will meet them but this celestial story had to be protected there was always someone from the inner circle with us it was almost as if his followers were afraid that rael would say something he shouldn't be saying or that i would ask uncomfortable questions [Applause] is there anybody here who never had a hug with me come come here come i think here did before i did before some people are cheating only those who never never had a hug with me okay quickly so you have already some questions ready yeah always okay always in hebrew so yeah yeah yeah thank you for the book again huh yeah you like it i know great you're welcome if you need some ingredients we can send it to you it's good you give me a book about cooking i will give you next time i try to give you a book about fasting to lose weight sorry you're always surrounded with people i think that admire you or yes admire the message yes it's a message yes but it's hard to separate because eventually you are the message in a state of admiration and respect and love yes who do you like you consult or who do you talk to or you like get advice if you want to be in a position where you don't ask you know like someone who is also an admirer a follower but you just want okay i want an honest opinion who do you go to and how do you do that just reading the message meditation and that listen to me perfectly and there are people that you will talk to or that you have a chance to discuss things which are not raelians like that have an outsider look you have someone like that in your surrounding no not really no and i don't wish to because maybe someone from the outside you know they have different understanding different perception yes but i don't see the point what for [Music] [Applause] um [Music] [Applause] is [Music] i am not sure exactly when it started to bug me but i reached a point where i found the happiness surrounding me disturbing i couldn't help thinking that the award i was given was a trick and that rael had managed to manipulate me more than i was willing to admit i find myself i almost like them i really want to kind of like make him confess that like this encounter with extraterrestrial you know didn't happen that he was not taken to his blood i had this kind of like like deep kind of like will to to discredit his story yeah one is that wrong it's not interesting that's not interesting i mean it would be interesting if he were doing if he were leading his his people to commit mass suicide or to murder people or to do it's possible to just discredit almost everything that anybody thinks about anything truth of falsity is such a philosophically problematic notion [Music] [Applause] one of the reasons that i became religious because i wasn't when i was young i was standing in in the train station in new york and there was a kind of a platform above and then there's this very big ulam and i saw people running here and running there and running here and running there i said what what why are they running here and running there and running here somebody who's here needs to be there someone here wants to go you know it doesn't make any sense to me so why are we all running to go from one place to another and then when i felt that i had commitment when i transformed my life and i became religious somehow i felt okay now i know why i'm running this way you know but but it wasn't because i had a cognitive answer to that question it was because i had a coherent way of running you know because i found people who were running in the same direction [Music] holy [Music] we i will i'm on my way to amber can you please tell me the name of the street you were living in oh so me i was living on the 13th of ryubles who should we speak with over there or nobody i mean nobody and everybody i don't have any personal friend in this in this city you're probably the most famous person to come out of here yes but i doubt that people for now will see positive things about me you know [Music] rael demonstrated true prophetic skills predicting that the people of ambell wouldn't have positive things to say about him was an understatement nobody was willing to be interviewed [Music] one of real's neighbors told us that after the cloning initiative became public he was interviewed for a local tv program in which he said that rael told him he had invented his encounter with the aliens rael sued him and won the case we didn't manage to find rael's ex-wife at her last known address we found out that she had moved to the netherlands and changed her last name in clermont the last place rael lived before he became a prophet we had more luck i know i remember the place where he had his magazine auto pop usually i went to see him in his office to see what he's doing because i was interested in race in race in girls and i wanted to to know before the magazine was published what he was doing [Music] is [Music] [Music] contact [Music] [Music] [Music] very first followers but they left the movement right after rael wrote his second book space aliens took me to their planet religious [Music] [Music] do well [Applause] these are claims that are so flagrantly scientifically false that no responsible scientist would ever make them we know for we are absolutely certain that it is very difficult to imagine successfully making a human clone so you know forgive me for not taking uh professor basil yay with no proof no baby and no real science at her word when you look back now do you think it was was it good for the movement was it good for yourself until would you do it again as the communication director i'm telling you it was a success for the movement we are here to carry a message that is not comfortable the cloning message was one of the most uncomfortable and somehow the fact that it was not proven make it even more this uncomfortable for some what is the positive of it is that we have been all over the world claiming that we have been created by by scientists coming from another planet which is the main message the pleasure hospital found itself in trouble only 25 women were operated on before the government revoked their license the health minister said medical organizations should be focused on saving lives not advertising the religion in an attempt to convert vulnerable people there was a representative the catholic church on the bbc radio yesterday who said that indeed they don't see us fit to do any kind of uh humanitarian work because of our being rallying that's just surgery science who are they to give us lessons you know and they are doing the one you know denying signs and and having [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] i hope she filmed this one when we got back from burkina faso we were invited to rael's 69th birthday party which coincided nicely with the 40th anniversary of his trip to the planet of the extraterrestrials beside me [Music] you think he believes his story i don't know i hope so i don't know i don't know maybe his goal is not to make us believe in the aliens it is not his goal his goal is to have a family around him and make them happy i don't know anyway if the people stay around him they must be happy now [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] and if one day you will you know come out and say ah that's not really true i made a nice story you know because i don't know i hate religions or i grew up in like oppressive catholic and i just it's like a joke got out of control what what would be your response i would still say thank you my life would have never been the same without what you taught me my life would never be the same i probably wouldn't be a scientist today if i wasn't a raelian i feel like i'm a free person i have no limitation i have no barrier i have no complex of inferiority because of my color or because i'm a woman no and all that i've learned that here i learned that thanks to his teachings so how can i be upset true false i don't mind are you true or you're false what are your intention by interviewing me what you gonna do with what i'm telling you i don't know maybe you're gonna you're gonna change everything i'm telling you to do something else i don't know but if you do it's okay it will be your truth and i will just observe what you did without judging and i will still love you so if one day rael himself is telling me you know what all this is false i just invented that story there's nothing true i will thank him anyway [Music] happy birthday happy birthday dear you [Music] wow [Music] [Applause] [Music] is it good i want to see how i think is it empty made and good i want i think more it's better if we are just you and me at same level and talking like france no yeah this is what i'm doing this is not why because this is more so how do we do that i don't know you rather the director will be better than chair yeah okay more natural more yes yes i try to be creative for you man it was our last night in okinawa and rael invited us to say goodbye i'd been told that he is ill and this might be the last time i would meet him and if you can sit here this side yeah like if you are you have the zip rope [Laughter] and uh do you you sit here beside me oh i will sit here because i have to film so i will i will be like how do you like that this is good you don't ask any question it's better like if it's it's like like a statement to end the movie yes i think it's good if people watching this movie just for once ago just for once again people who are full of doubt and think oh this man is a liar he invented all these things if they could stop just a few seconds what if it's true that's just an exercise i want people to do people who are full of hatred and judgment just breathing one second and saying let's just give myself one minute to think what if it's [Music] true the contents practices emotions experiences beliefs that we call religion can be i'm not going to say they always have to be a a very very significant part of of having a sense that life is rich exciting worthwhile thoreau said the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation to me it's the quiet that's more of a problem than the desperation um and by the time i die i think i will feel i have lived i have lived a life not just survived you know not just made it through that's what i would wish for every human being there are over 7 000 recognized religions it is one of men's earliest and greatest inventions also one of its deadliest with millions of deaths caused by religious violence if we could only remember that religion is man-made invented to give meaning to our seemingly random chaotic existence certainly not worth killing each other over maybe we could appreciate it like mankind's other great inventions cartoons scrabble or ice cream sundaes [Music] so today joining me from tel aviv israel is the screenwriter and director of the prophet and the space aliens joab thanks for joining us today great to be here when you found out that you were the only person that actually showed up to accept the award of becoming an honorary guide did you feel like oh i just got like suckered into this and they're they're playing me here it's only later on during the process of the filmmaking that i thought i'm not sure like about this kind of like what's going on am i being manipulated am i manipulating them the batteries kept you know a little bit uh blaring at a certain point but that was much later on it wasn't at this stage i was just kind of like curious you know you see this room with i don't know like a thousand people clapping in my owner it's kind of like you know with documentaries it's you have to be always kind of like ready for everything in a way i came with the camera you know like a small film crew tanya the camera woman and myself so uh we knew we got a film actually riled when we went there but initially we thought it's going to be just kind of like a little maybe something that we might use we might not use at that time when i first met him that was quite long time ago like i think it was 2011. i wasn't kind of planning of doing this kind of like full-on movie and all of that kind of things so it was all kind of like a sort of exidential i mean the topic of of religion is very interesting to me and growing up in israel which is almost like the the ground zero of religions because you know so many prophets went through here you know all of the the biblical uh prophets and the jesus and muhammad and everyone was kind of like passing through and israel is like a heavy influence by religion so for me as as a young man as a young boy i was always curious about these things i didn't grow up in a religious home so it wasn't like part of my upbringing but it was something that i was curious about so when this opportunity came it didn't take a long time for me to realize maybe this is you know almost like my dream documentary but rael seems like he's a very very strategic and smart guy he's got a plan right like it wasn't calculated on his part to give this you know documentary filmmaker this award in the hope that you would make a film about him to help spread his message i don't know if he's the type of guy that sees so many moves ahead you know like a chess player mighty like a really good chess player mighty 12 moves ahead right like the excellent ones i think ryan is more like of a bad game on player you know uh more of a kind of like uh let's see what's going on and let's kind of like uh maybe the luck will play with us so i think whenever someone outside their movement is coming to recognize them even they're happy and because well had been bashed so many times in the media especially in the french and canadian media he was like always like the villain the bad guy the crook the cult leader the crazy guy he was in a way almost used to to being treated uh with very little respect from journalists and for me whenever i make a film it doesn't matter about whom i will treat my my subjects with respect i'm really really seriously interested in finding out what is their motivations also this way you get much more with people you know from people they feel that you respect them and i think pharrell that was at the beginning it was enough because he was so used to being treated badly by the media that when someone like me comes and just like just being nice to him just not like making fun of him and mocking him it will get you further you said that some people describe this as a mockumentary yeah yeah i actually enjoyed this uh this comment i i had in some of the reviews people saying we thought it was a mockumentary and then we went you know we googled it we thought it's it's it's uh it's real so i think it's funny i think i think we very i i mean i like to think of myself as a talented filmmaker but to make it as a recommender i think i would have to be super talented i don't think i'm that talented what do you think it was that happened to him that created this transformation from being a car journalist to a prophet with in starting a cult the the straight answer i'm going to get from rael or anybody's with his inner circle is that you know the story one day 73 december had his urge to go to this volcano he made this extraterrestrial you know this is the official story so if i would go back to any any prophets throughout history i mean there's always the official story right jesus was resurrected and muhammad you know he took this force from from jerusalem to saudi arabia moses he talked to the burning bush and he met god and you know and he gave him the ten commandments there are always the official stories these are the stories how can you like i wasn't there to disprove it nobody was there so i mean i can i can have my own assumptions i mean if you ask my opinion in my opinion i don't think he made the extraterrestrials i think it's a made-up story but i mean i i also this morning i was like uh rowing when i on my paddle board in the sea of galilee exactly where jesus was walking on the water if you'll ask me if i think that jesus walked the water also i don't think he walked in the water that's my opinion but what were your first impressions when you arrived and you met met these guys so actually we came during night time we came to this little resort in slovenia and the head is what they call like this arabian night theme and you had all this kind of like half-naked women dancing around rael and he was sitting with his white outfit and it was i was i remember was telling tanya what the hell is going on you know this is like this is a real cult we're in like what what do they want from us and it was all kind of like very strange because i was never in such kind of like environment so it was interesting then morning comes you know and then as things happen often you just start to see the people behind the image and we got to know rael and these followers and then actually the the trigger to make the film for us was the i mean after a day or so they told us about this hospital they're about to open in burkina faso a hospital that will reconstruct the clitoris of women who went to undergone fgm and i thought like this is insane so these guys this hedonistic type of like make love sex cult you know as you know it at first i was referring to them because you know it was also for me a process of how do i deal with this with this group what do i call them so they're going to go into the the poorest country in africa and muslim country and they're going to perform this surgery which i thought was like a total scam because i i never realized it was possible to reconstruct reconstruct clitoris of a woman that that had undergone the fgm it was like this is like this is too wild to be true i think australians believe he made expressvilles if they would to find out to find out that he didn't meet them how would that make them feel you know there we got some surprising answers in their heart of hearts though i wonder if they think we know he didn't meet them but it's okay for some people i think it's very true i think maybe other people maybe are more have a tendency to believe and they're more the believer types you know they would not question they'll take that leap of faith and just accept yeah exactly faith yeah i like this term the leap of faith you know because just think about it it's a leap of faith and in a way the bigger the leap the stronger the faith right it's almost this kind of like a fact that you're making uh with the between the leader and the followers i'm gonna tell you a crazy story i ask you to make the leap of faith to believe me once we we kind of like we're over this stage we're cool you can benefit all of these beautiful things i have to offer and you know and there's this kind of like give and take a relationship but you need this leap of faith so that's why you know i think this like we have a lot of like uh this type of like uh tony robbins filled with grace filled with gratitude filled with appreciation for the life you already have there's a lot of like these type of people right they a lot of the stuff they're telling you are very interesting you know for for the people who go there for me i mean okay been there done that heard that you know like you didn't rock my world with you with this kind of like uh with this uh talk but for some people you know it really works yeah it really works yeah i think a leap of faith is kind of essential for all religions in a way right but if you look at them like they're giving you a show i mean so this show uses a lot of stuff that maybe like prophets in the older times didn't have you know they didn't have this kind of like fireworks and going on the stage and giving the show and doing all this kind of like i don't know charisma and manipulation that all this stuff performance guys use in a way the leap of faith is kind of like it's almost in a way it's even a more fair way because we we we are we are agreeing on something ridiculous we're both going to agree on that it's a structure we're going to forget structure you know that's let's forget this stuff right you're going to the movie you know you're sitting and watching a movie but you're still immersing it you engage in it you paid i don't know seven dollars ten dollars to watch the movie and then you want to get a story you want to be told something you want to have an experience so in a way it's similar we love stories i'm a storyteller you're a storyteller ryan is a storyteller jesus was a storyteller tony robbins is a storyteller because stories make sense and you know they they give us meaning and purpose and we learn something about their lives and in this pact between the between the leader and the follower the leap of faith is kind of like let's agree on a crazy story and the crazier the story the the the bigger the belief the bigger the leap the bigger the leap yeah would you go to the south of france all right a second-rate journalist right producing a magazine for car drivers and give him a mission all right an uneducated man and give him a mission why why two 000 years before you go in palestine and you talk to a little man about jesus it's the same jesus is the son of god the second person of the blessed that's your interpretation who became a man out of his own will that's your interpretation it's not good only extraterrestrial beings i love this interview i think it's it's it's a great one because he demands real he demands us to treat jesus in a totally different way why i also ask why not that i believe well but i think if if they were both operating the same time i would be as skeptical about jesus as that would be about trial yeah so so what did he think of the film what did ryle think of the film i don't think it's the film he imagined but he was okay with that in a way he was more gracious about it than some other other characters that i made films about which were not so gracious in their response about how they're being portrayed in my films because it's it's difficult you know people when when you film there you know they're kind of like there are there are poems in your in your own game right and people don't like them uh you know they they have a certain image of themselves and then they're in the film and this image is very different maybe than what they thought about themselves about how they imagined themselves and how they see themselves how they would like the world to look at them so that that's real was more generous more gracious than many other people i filmed so how does your own experience you you spoke a little bit about it but you know growing up in israel where the three you know big religions kind of converge and growing up in that environment how did that kind of inform you your perspective coming into this so i always thought that people take religion maybe a little bit too seriously that was kind of like my impression and i look at it like almost like uh and you know and and like some some really terrible things are happening i mean when we were making the film it was like the the peak of isis and people like where like heads were chopped off for me i looked at it almost like a little bit as uh like a game that people made up how do you compare the raelians to you know traditional religions really i look at most of the religions and i study a lot of them you know like i'm i i i read a lot they're not that different and then people are surprised wow look this kind of like scriptures from judaism in this kind of it really reminds me of buddhism and you can find that also in the quran and you know people are surprised you know and for me it's not surprising it's all kind of like as humans we live it's it's a very difficult thing to be a human being right you're born you live your life you ask yourself if you're an intelligent man if you're a searcher what is the goal what what is the the game and what's like what's going on why am i here am i here to do this am i here to do that you know we we we're looking i think actually it's very comfortable to having like a spiritual guide whether it's a rabbi a priest a rael whatever someone that you can kind of like trust and you need some time this uh guidance guidance from someone who kind of like claims you know something more than you do and sometimes they do so it's nice to have a purpose it's nice to have some kind of like direction these people seem to be getting something from it they seemed happy the followers of realism and so what's wrong if they are living peacefully no one's being forced to do anything and they're gaining something from it well that's great then yeah that for those who remain in the movement and the do you know the remain religions i think is great and you know some other people because in the film also we're kind of like showing some people that are no longer aliens and for them maybe they might feel if they think that it's not for them maybe they they realize that rail did not meet the extraterrestrials and it is important to them right maybe they realize that like the rails angels it's not it's not a great thing you know maybe they they become this solution at a certain point and then they already been there you know like some of them 40 years and they're now they're 60 or maybe a little bit over 60 and they might feel very bad for wasting their lives you know and we we hear it i mean if if if in general if you look at all these like uh cult films you know there are many cult films i i don't think there's a month going by without any like new cult film or series coming out and it's almost always like a formula they're all the same so people who used to be followers got disillusioned and then oh how could i be so stupid how could i let this man kind of like lead me on and and what's going on and i was manipulated so this is life you know sometimes you you get like the the bad job sometimes you you you choose the wrong wife sometimes uh your kids they don't like you anymore it's part of life life can't be always great they wanted life to be great that's why they joined the cult or religion or something they want they wanted to have like a meaningful life they wanted to they wanted life to be more than it is they wanted life to be spectacular sure you have kids and that's it you know you kind of like fulfilled your duties to nature the species remain that's it there's not much more than that and and for many people it's very difficult to accept the other you know films that have come out or tv shows about other calls like the nexium one that everyone's talking about and watching right now in that you see people that were hurt you see people that were extremely disillusioned and saying i did waste years of my life in that in your film there weren't that many characters that spoke to that at all there was a couple the original couple in france that were number two and three you know we're like oh it's all because he got this from my comic book that was in my house and and the second book it's it's all a fallacy i didn't see that many people that seemed disillusioned for having been part of rael's cult and religion they seemed like pretty happy for the most part or did you come across a lot of people that were like you know what he it was all a scam and he was just after our money you know i was not looking for this angle there are a lot of aspects which i find strange within the raelian belief system but i mean to their credit what what was confusing in a way was this kind of like uh this work they're doing in burkina faso so if you're after money if you're kind of like uh and well many times been portrayed as someone who was kind of like doing it only for the money you don't go to burkina faso and you know for people who make i don't know like a dollar a day or something like that and and i couldn't find anything wrong with the hospital you know like i think it's very you have to be very cynical to to kind of like to to look at this hospital and thinking it's a scam you know they're doing it like for the wrong for the wrong reasons or something like that especially when when dealing with the with cult it's it's easier to live in a world of black and whites even in the most more notorious scouts right which we kind of like we expose them i'm sure that a lot of these people you know if you kind of like us they benefited a lot they had a sense of community they really lived life for for for a while yeah and then they found out it was wrong i thought at first when i when i met real i thought it was kind of like like almost like an art installation that he's doing it was a joke an anti-religious joke i'm going to come up with the most absurd story and uh die that is you know like being taken to the to the planet of the extraterrestrials and the title of the book you know like his second book space aliens took me to the planet you know it almost sounds like something from really from a comic book or something right and and my kind of like uh interpretation was okay this guy grew up in this like very oppressive catholic home environment he hated it he hated how he was maybe treated as the boy uh growing up in a catholic school and maybe that was his revenge you know so i'm i'm gonna make some kind of like crazy story fantastic story and then let's see what happens i think you know for me this was my interpretation i don't think that anymore you know maybe it's what you know it's really difficult also i mean you know it's a young man he's an adventurous guy a clever guy i don't think he had like a master plan i don't think he thought okay ten years from now i'm gonna have uh ten thousand followers and then forty and actually i don't think that any religious leaders start off like that i don't think there is kind of like any prophet in history that from day one had like a master plan and he knew where he was going and i think it's true for any prophet uh any religious leader any cult leader whatever i think these things just happen and then you kind of like you see how far can you take it right so you think it was more of an organic thing that just happened he he had this kind of fantastical idea and and it took off and he's like you know what this is fun people are giving me money and i'm having lots of sex with all these different women like this is like what's wrong with this right you know and he just went with it i asked ray like i mean whenever people talk you know like people want to know about sex and money right so right it's also something that like changes throughout the years you know so maybe maybe money and sex were imported at certain points and they became less important you know later on you know if you look at like it's people like him you know even like this like next you may have the comment you mentioned yeah so like mostly they have like like a shorter spell of life that is there for 45 years you know it's it's a it's a long career it's a profit a lot can happen you know it's almost like a retired prophet as he says right what happens after he dies who's gonna take take it over who's gonna be the you know the apostle or the you know the leader of the movement after he dies very difficult to predict after ron harper died i mean it was very difficult to assess if the scientologists were going to carry on i mean it took christianity 300 years after jesus died to get things really rolling my personal assessment it's i mean they're gonna disappear i don't think they're gonna outlive you and especially because of this like very good thing about iran that they don't they don't kind of like nurture the next generation right they're no real aliens you know there's no education system so i think it's very difficult to establish a big religion without you know like having school systems was there a dark side there are and it's also kind of like being portrayed in the film you know there are there are elements which are dubious if you want to call it or i don't know whatever like uh questionable so there's this order of angels there is you know real basically having this position of uh of someone who is very powerful very influential people follow him it's a lot of responsibility i i can't say that i know 100 of everything that is going on right maybe there are some things that i'm not aware of maybe there are some secrets he likes to control he likes to manipulate he likes to kind of like uh to be to be in charge of things the the most difficult thing for me throughout the filmmaking because i was i was also coming to this topic with preconceived notions calls are bad you know they're out to to to exploit people there it's all about manipulation they're after sex and money and so so for me that was you know it took me a long time to get over that even in in the editing room in a similar way filmmakers are very much like calculators because we are kind of like the masters of manipulations i can make real look good i can make him look bad i can make him look likeable uh you know i i have this capacity and we tried different versions in this film and we had like versions where you know we started off with rail kind of like uh not being likable and it didn't work so well and then i i thought okay let's kind of like let's start maybe a little bit differently it almost i i had some flips this sleepless night when i thought okay i should bash him you know i should like it how can i make a a a cult film without kind of like making him look like like the villain or or where is the dark secrets you know what kind of like dark secrets are hiding out there so it took me a long time also as a filmmaker to kind of like to uh almost to get over it my girlfriend was an angel once she left no one no no one tried to keep her inside of the order and she came back and she was welcome so to me it's just another way to grow just another way to grow and is that true people can just leave when they want come back nothing's stopping them they have that freedom it's as far as i know yes i mean we we talked to many rallies too many women and they could switch between being a white uh angle and the pink angle and i think they can even do it the same day you know they can decide in the morning to be white and then they even to go pink and vice versa so it's kind of like it's quite fluid you know and i again it's very tempting to to look for the this kind of like the more notorious aspects of it and then it's kind of like got me thinking about religions in general you know because we we accept that the the big religions the monotheistic religions what we call the abrahamic religions christianity and islam so these religions you know they're like actually when you when you think about them they're like corporations like they want everybody to belong to to think like them they're like the walmart of religions there's like something more liberal i think in like in having a lot of like small small sex sex girls religions whatever movements whatever you want to call them rather than having this kind of like one big religion that wants to control the world right i talked to this french specialist institution of like to study in cults and i don't understand if you're going to look at judaism uh checklist all of these things that you're looking at cult judaism is a cult i mean there are very little toleration for gay people you know we supposed to spawn them and you know all this kind of like but i just you know it's acceptable because it's been there long enough so people take it what counts they're new and also what's going on with cults is that kind of like a lot of religious people find them very threatening because it makes them questions their own beliefs i mean it's it's we talk about it in the film like how come it's easier for people even when i was even for myself to accept the story of the of the party of the red sea or this kind of like biblical stories so for me it's the same [Music] we are one with the sky [Music] and every animal hey i think it's a very catchy song that he's singing but it's like a nursery rhyme for you know that my my three-year-old son would sing at school you think about it you're like well what's wrong with what he's saying if you take out the aliens and the spaceships and that it's just like good vibes preaching harmony and peace right that's what i was taking from it it's very easy to demonize it because it's a cult and it doesn't fit with our kind of traditions and you know the the main three religions and you're right there's so many miracles that are talked about in all the religions you're like really did that really happen but we accept it on the subject of demonizing smaller you know religions and cults how do you feel about the the label of cult because we use it all the time is it derogatory for me it is you know like uh because i grew up with this you know it's hard to kind of like uh to uh get words which you know culturally we kind of like uh accept them to to signify something which maybe they shouldn't and i i talked a lot about trell about this word cult sex how does it feel about it and you know for him it's it's not a big deal i was very surprised through the professors saying the same thing cult is a misuse of language for me as for scholars cult means that's cult and i don't like distinctions between cults and religions it's kind of like ancient hebrew for uh work doing some work in the temple i didn't know that actually it wasn't it was new to me we like these stories you know like it's it's easy it's easy to have this kind of like black and white stories it's easy to portray someone is bad and someone is good and uh it's very convenient and a lot of the times as filmmakers we are lazy and it's it's just more convenient for us to kind of like to to to have this kind of like um anchor point and just like stick to it and kind of like get rid of the of the all the greys right i love human weaknesses i find it gorgeous i think it's like nothing life you know i love curb your enthusiasm i think for me it's one of like the it's my favorite tv series because you know all these like small weaknesses you know which are charming which we all have them see what's going on over here no yeah i'm sorry i didn't recognize she's doing a chat and cut yeah there she goes yeah excuse me excuse me hi hi first of all congratulations on a great attempt at a chat and cut really good 99 times out of 100 that's gonna work so you can find like the the the bad good people if you look for it you can find the good in like bad people i i i just enjoy searching and not being lazy and kind of like making my life easy with kind of like just like sticking to a label and sticking to a theme because i know that life is so much more complicated than this they've been very negative films you know you're you're coming from montreal i'm sure you've seen plenty of really bad reports about israel and iranians yeah maybe you made some no never really made anybody we wrote articles about it over the years yeah in the magazines yeah yeah but we also did a great fashion story about rayleigh and fashion which i think was just like really positive and cool you know so there's i'm not saying well is a saint you know i'm not raelian i don't i don't think people should finish the film and go and convert and become raelians you know that's like totally you know not you know not that's the point of this film it's just kind of like an attempt to make people look uh differently at a certain given situation that's all and there are people that you will talk to or that you have a chance to discuss things which are not rallies like that have an outsider look you have someone like that in your surrounding no don't really know and i don't wish to because maybe someone from the outside you know they have a different understanding different perception yes but i don't see the point what for any tropes that you were trying to avoid while making this film things that people do when making films that would separate your film from what's out there from verdier very early on it wasn't set up to be an exposed film you know it wasn't my goal to get to the incredible fact the trial did not meet the extraterrestrials that was not my goal it wasn't kind of like one of their goals of of me as a filmmaker i was kind of like just trying to to sit a little bit from a broader a more philosophical approach can there be a a religion a new religion being born in our lifetime i think that the last like big religion if you want to call it big are the mormons which have like a great scene in our film i will read it and i if you read i read one specific promise which one that i will read a special page read this week this first paragraph but then i want you to do something you pray i know i we don't pray will you pray no you won't pray we don't pray if you meditate it's wrong but it's kind of funny we meditate for peace in the world which is very important and peace and love taught me the god so i think this is like maybe the last kind of like big religion i tried to avoid being hypocritic i tried to avoid being self-righteous i didn't feel like ridiculing them you know it's uh as the documentary filmmaker kind of like my motto is even when i want to expose someone i would give them a long enough rope for them to hang themself you know that's my style so i guess the last question is in making this film did it change any of your own views towards religion yeah i mean definitely i mean i look i look at the whole kind of like cult person's religions very differently uh i don't think all cults are bad uh i don't think all religions are bad i think eventually you know you you there are great things that came out of almost any religion out there even like the most notorious ones even like the hands i'm sure even these people in this some of these kind of like uh documentaries we talked about they benefited quite a lot from being part of it i mean it's easy to say someone who's in a religion or a cult now you know maybe they they you know they're kind of in it so they're not they don't have this kind of like maybe uh outer view a more uh reflexive view but even people who are being part of it if you ask them any cult any religion there are also some like things they learned they've been part of something they rock the boat a little bit you know and i i really like it when the professor boyability says he refers to thoreau saying i don't you know i don't want to live like a quiet desperate life thoreau said the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation to me it's the quiet that's more of a problem than the desperation and by the time i die i think i will feel i have lived i have lived a life not just survived you know not just made it through that's what i would wish for every human being and he's saying i was more troubled by the quiet and the desperate so i mean religions cults you know they give you an opportunity to to experience life in a not on another level sometimes i wish i had this ability to be a follower to really immerse myself in in something a cult a religion a group something like that my my my religion is uh my religion is filmmaking you know i i take it seriously i enjoy it you know it's my passion i find my uh my voice there i find the meaning in doing it so maybe if i was doing something else maybe more mundane more boring land fork maybe i would i would need this type of spirituality i would need to go to a certain group so i i value it you know i i sometimes i envy people in these type of groups sometimes i feel sorry for them it's kind of like mixed emotions yeah so i mean i i got a lot out of this film and if my daughter would tell me i'm going to join a cult i'm not going to be happy but also she's going to be telling me i'm going to become religious i'm not going to be happy do you do you believe in god no yeah i think it's just interesting there are so many like films and documentaries that have come out about cults and there's so many cults that exist right now i think there there is a vacuum out there in the world and people fill it with you know god and religion and other things and i found your answer to be really refreshing because it's not what you'd expect like oh a filmmaker in israel to say actually you know my my religion is filmmaking it's what gives me purpose and direction thank you for making this film thank you it was like great talking to you [Music] [Laughter] [Music] do [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] you

Channel: VICE News

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Keywords: VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, VICE on SHOWTIME, vice news 2020

Id: quUhHrY2hUY

Length: 127min 27sec (7647 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/tonybotz]

Realians are wild. They seem like a fun time