Ramfis Myrthil, Film Producer, Film Consultant and Speaker: Now I'm going to get really
spiritual with you I have to speak with like my guides my angels my spirit guides
just to make sure that it aligns I asked for
Film Courage: How do you find a good story?
Ramfis: I get pitched every day, all day, everywhere. Everyone has a story. I get
submissions through talent management companies, talent agents, while I'm at a film festival.
People that are not in the business as well and it's just comes to me all the time. I want to say
if I'm at a film festival or event I'm constantly hearing pitches and I mean I'm doing the same too
pitching as well I feel that for mainly industry events probably for the most part that's probably
what I pay attention to like if it comes out of like a project I found was out of focus London
during the end of 2020 on zoom where I met this filmmaker and he shared this incredible story
and I was like wow that's really interesting like let me learn more and I meet with a lot of reps so
they tell me about their talent they ask me what I'm looking to make what I'm looking to do so
I look at who they work with and look at their work or if I go to a film festival
and I see a film that I really enjoy then i'll approach the filmmaker and maybe networking
events sometimes when I attend them it's been a mixed bag how I'd found material or
come on to projects sure and you've written one at least one yourself right a short film
I wrote a short that I never made I have maybe collaborated in terms of story with the shorts
that I'd made in the past feature-wise I haven't done any of that and I'm actually
writing something with a writing partner now on a project but traditionally I'm not
a writer that's not my my lane how much does your intuition factor into choosing whether to
say yes to a story not the project or the people attached I know you said that's important but what
if they're amazing people and you'd work great with them but you're not sure about the story
I mean my intuition is very important it definitely is a major decision maker on that
and i'll have to sit with it with myself i'll have to meditate to it and now I'm going to get really
spiritual with you I have to speak with like my guides my angels my spirit guides just to make
sure that it aligns I ask for a sign whatever that is that sign can be someone saying something or me
reading something or me reading a license plate or I ask for signs for alignment for it to make sense
for it to be proper in my trajectory and what I'm looking to make and do
when did that your intuition would never let you down how old were you probably recently
I want to say within the past maybe six years or so it got really stronger like
I'd always worked in my intuition but say since 2016 is it got really strong I was in
I went to Istanbul besides everyone telling me not to go because it got a little
dangerous around that time period I was in between two bombings while was in Istanbul and even
though this happened I was in a place of bliss and happiness and I felt like I had a strong awakening
while I was out there there's nothing that I did specifically it was just the sense of the
vibration and the energy and the frequency that I was at and I just fine-tuned it over the years
and just really believing in myself and doing work on myself and having the confidence
in myself so I'd say from 2016 from that moment from that trip maybe even earlier in the year but
that trip it became very strong and then it just got stronger and stronger where I just knew myself
were you working on a film in Turkey no I just had gone my I had this my soul was telling me to
go like I was actually going to cancel and not go because of everything that was going on but it was
I just had to go if I didn't go I feel felt like I'd be miserable and just upset with myself and
I trusted myself and nothing happened and I was safe can you share one of these signs that you've
received one of these guides or something that's signaled to you something on set so
this was all in alignment which with alignment to me my definition of alignment is that I'm at the
right place at the right time I'm doing exactly what I should be doing and it works creatively
and it hits the goals of what I'm looking to do is which is leave people touch moved and inspired and
tell very important stories so this was during the pandemic I was in la and it was a series of things
that happened that led me there to this particular project that I'm in post-production on now
of the screenwriter of the hearts of men the project I mentioned said that there was a
buddy of his that I need to meet and his name is Ron McCant awesome writer out of orange county
and he was running this these town hall meetings on zoom with everything that was happening after
what happened with George Floyd and his goal is to just empower people of color and educate
and he was already doing this and when we talked we're trying to figure out
what how what what can I bring to the table how can I help and after brainstorming we
basically came up with this HBCU tour because what we realize is that you can see people of
color in front of the screen but what's really important is people of color behind the screen
and changing that and it starts at the college level I feel that it starts at the college level
and mentoring and sharing those tools so for a period of several months we had these zooms where
we'd have either it would be all female group or it would be a panel of brown and black people
sharing their experiences and us inviting the Howards, the Spelmans, the Tuskegee schools and
just educating what we do and how to be successful internship programs I felt like we built a really
good dynamic information hub but also an execute hub because we can give all the information in the
world but people need something to execute with so we had built a program for people to learn
visual effects through a company called Chicken Bone Dylan Darren in El Segundo but they're
worldwide the head of the company is El Segundo and he's become a great friend and he developed a
a program where people can intern or learn about vfx because most people don't know about vfx
and we found other individuals that were showing how to be able to get a project
to produce a project that's coming out of AFI just really high level things so one of the people I
worked with was a young lady that had went to USC she had graduated and she was president of a
film club and one day she mentioned to me like hey there's a young man in New York that wants to tell
this story he's been trying to get it done before pandemic happened and this was I want to say
we're in 2022 so this was in early 2021 I want to say late 2020 maybe early 2021 and I said
yeah I'd love to hear more about it because the kind of work that I'm making and she mentioned
it was a short would you be open to it and I said well it just really depends on the message
and when I got the script I recognized the writer's name the writer director's name and this
gentleman I had met two years ago because there was another young man from NYU so the young lady
that had introduced me went to USC but this young man that wrote the script went to NYU grad and I
had met him two years ago because a friend of mine had done a film called My Nephew Emmett that won
I think it was the it was either the student oscars or he won the oscars as a short and it was
a very impressive short around Emmett Till and it was playing at in somewhere in Williamsburg and I
went to the screening and there were other films that were playing and he introduced me to this
young man and he was West Indian and he had this amazing short that he did and I was blown away I
was like wow and I from that point I just kind of tracked him and what he was up to his career
and then I had saw that he was had a fellowship at Sundance through Black House very dear friends
with the founder of black house and I always go there when I'm at the Sundance Film Festival
and I was like wow I'm following his journey I'm so happy for him and then he ended up working
well he didn't end up working he ended up getting like I think Jack Daniels award I don't remember
how much money he received but Omari Hardwick had given him the check he was the presenter and I had
worked with Omari on a film that had gone to Sundance so all these things that kind of happened
and when I saw his name on the script I'm like oh my god like this is an opportunity to work with
him and I'd been tracking him for so long just part of it is strategy and part of it is just if
I see something and I see his name somewhere like then I look a little bit more so it was
organically two and when that came to me and the pieces were kind of together I'm like wow like I'd
love to work with him and after reading the story the story was based off a documentary
a PBS documentary that was made it was inspired it wasn't based off the document it was inspired
off the documentary and the documentary had done really well and it dealt with a young a young 16
year old man that was incarcerated as an adult for a crime that he he was I want to say he did
he was going to commit but he didn't commit it and he was forced by the abuser to do this crime
it wasn't his choice and it was very hard to watch that documentary it makes you want to cry
and you get upset with the system and I felt it was my responsibility to help tell the story
and get behind the writer director and the story and it just aligned with my vision
my goals and the fact that I'd been is tracking this young man so it just made sense I had
read the script I had some notes on it I had shared it with the team they had notes on it so
I knew it still needed work but I knew I wanted to work with him and I liked the premise of the
story which is why I got behind it and this was like the end of 2020 beginning of 2021
I want to say and we shot it November of 2021 so now it's in post and probably the end of
this year or late or fall of this year we'll begin our festival submission with this project.
How does intuition guide you with your creative work?