“And I don’t know why they do that. I have no idea.”
Wes Llewellyn is a director. He made a film about UFOs and the story at the center of it is his wife’s.
It started with an email. An old friend asked if he wanted to throw his hat in to direct a documentary. Wes says he loves to watch documentaries but doesn’t like making them. Then he read what this one was about. “I called my wife immediately and said you gotta read this email because we have to make this film.” Up against five other directors but he and Amanda had a personal story “with beings we call aliens, I’ll put it that way.” And he says “It was time for us to tell our story.”
On the road, Wes says, more than half the time it was just the two of them. He set up the cameras and the lights and kept a slider moving. Amanda sat across from the people and asked the questions. Some of the interviewees cried. He realized she was the one guiding the film, so he asked her to come on as co-director. I asked him which of their interviews made the biggest impact. His wife. He says she told him things on camera he had never heard before. What things? You’ll have to listen.
I asked him what Amanda does that fixes a rough day. A simple hug. Wes was the chief lighting technician on a set in New Orleans, soaked through from a storm. Amanda saw him across the set and came over. “I put my head up against her chest and I heard her heart go thump thump.” Months later he told her “that’s when we fell in love was right at that moment.” He says the hugs still feel the same.
He did not want his film frightening anyone. “I did not want to make a film that scared people, I wanted to make a film that informed people.” So he put humor in on purpose. Chuckles and grins, he says. Not big laughs. He also cut some of the people they filmed. He’ll tell you why.
On the Rockin’ 8 I asked him for his best memory as a Troy Trojan and the best Star Wars film.
What question the film still leaves him with?
He has theories. He says people have come up to them since with the same story as his wife’s. He still doesn’t know why.
UFOs and God is on Gaia, Amazon, iTunes and Vimeo. Hear Wes Llewellyn go Beyond the Mic.
