Mike Reilly
Mike Reilly’s ROAD TO VICTORY has garnered several awards on the US film circuit. Having written and directed the film, Reilly also stars as Elliot, a star college athlete whose battle with a taboo medical condition throws his life into turmoil.
What training have you received?
I received my undergraduate education in theatre and pre-med at UC Davis, as well as graduating from the Vancouver Film School. However, the greatest influence over me, and my work, has been literature. I’ll mention a few specific books in a moment, but first I’d like to take a moment to address just how powerful books can be, as filmmakers should take note. In 1997, UCLA conducted a study with depressed patients divided into four groups, each receiving different types of therapies: group one received Prozac, group two received psychotherapy, group three received no treatment, and group four were asked to read a book about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, called Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns. The group that showed the greatest improvement both three months, and a year later, was the group that read the book. The researchers were forced to conclude that this was a new type of therapy, which they called Bibliotherapy. The books that have had the greatest influence for me as a filmmaker include The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, and Love’s Hidden Symmetry by Bert Hellinger. Both of these books not only changed me as a person, but describe for us with unwavering certainty why the elements of story truly are reflections of the human psyche. As such, when these elements of story are tapped, we are allowed to experience the film on a purely emotional level, which, as the great editor Walter Murch says, is every filmmaker’s ultimate goal. I personally feel that it is these sublime moments of humble insight that mark the greatest moments in a director’s career.
What kind of projects attract you?
Stories that unflinchingly examine the human condition in all its flaws and wonders: how we embody these characteristics differently as individuals as well as parts of a system. These are the stories that move people, stirring something within them that they could not look at before.
You’ll die happy when…
I’ll die happy when moviemaking returns to its roots, which is theatre. And I say that because the original intention of the theatre was to educate through entertainment. There have been movies over the years that have moved us to think and feel in new ways, offering us new perspectives and perhaps even changing the way we live our own lives. Sadly, it is not every year that we are lucky enough to experience such a film, but I’m hopeful that this will change. ■
