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Your project has entered in our festival. What is your project about?
Anza Borrego - Sunrise To Sunset is about something my friend Robert Silk seems to have invented, called Desert Sitting, or Extreme Sitting, although we're still debating what the difference is and where the two things merge. Not all Desert Sitting is Extreme Sitting and not all Extreme Sitting is Desert Sitting, but in the end it's about sitting in the Desert for a full day, as the sun moves across the sky. On a humorous note, another friend of mine, after watching it, called the film, "Sitting For Godot," which I think is a pretty good nickname for the film.
What are your ambitions with your project?
As an Indie Artist, I try to keep my ambitions grounded and simple for any project I do, whether it's a film or a book I've written. I just want it to find its audience. If you can find the right audience and build that artist-audience relationship, you're on the right track.
Tell us somethng about your shooting? What pleasantly surprised you?
Well, you're out in nature, surrounded by natural beauty, mountains, etc. In some ways it's not a surprise, but nature always finds a way to surprise you with its beauty. I found it very satisfying to just turn on the camera and shoot the beauty we were surrounded by.
For what group of spectators is your film targeted?
I know that in the marketing world you have to analyze and define every little niche of every audience, but as an artist I try not to do that. I feel that if you calculate your potential audience too much you end up with a calculated work of art, rather than something natural and organic. I think I've tapped into different audiences with different things I've done. My Key West book series probably has a different audience than, for example, those watching my film Rock Paper Scissors on Prime Video. And both of those might be different from the people who have listened to the audiobook of my satirical Sci-Fi, How To Confuse A.I. But different as they probably are, I think there is some cross-over between them. You have to be humble and realize, you don't tell the audience what to respond to. Audiences will tell you what they respond to. So, I just made Anza Borrego because I felt it was compelling and beautiful and fun, and I trust that the right audience will find it and connect with it on some level.
Why should distributors buy your film?
Because it's interesting. It's beautiful. It's sometimes funny, and the viewer can join us on the sit by watching, and just slow down for an hour. This is a much needed reminder in our hyper-active world, to slow down and take a moment in life. Unplug and just sit and breathe.
How would you specify your work? What characterizes your film?
I approached the opening as sort of a 'video essay." It's a documentary, but of course there are as many different kinds of documentaries as there are different kinds of fiction films. We use the video essay approach to set up the idea and the story, and then it settles into a captured experience.
Why did you decide to become a filmmaker?
I always say that in the end, I didn't choose filmmaking. It chose me. It's a very expensive art form to fall in love with, but from the age of maybe 13 I was hooked. I have to be fair to the writer in me, though. I'm a story teller. I tell stories, sometimes fiction, sometimes non-fiction, and I tell them through film, books, any story telling medium that gives that satisfaction of a story well told.
Who is your role model?
It's impossible to list just one person. There are so many role models. People in my family who were the first influences on me. Of course, I love Stanley Kubrick and Francis Ford Coppola. I find role models in music (Bob Dylan, Miles Davis), the visual arts, painters, I've done a lot of stand-up comedy in my life and I list comedians as role models, writers, directors, actors, friends, family.
Which movies are your favorites? Why?
For being a comedian, some of my favorite films ar every dark, Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, but also comedies like Dr. Stranglove, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Woody Allen's Annie Hall and Stardust Memories. I love the Coen Brothers. I've been rediscovering my love for Charlie Kaufman recently; Being John Malkovic and Eternal Sunshine. Terry Gilliam has made some great films. 12 Monkeys might be my favorite of his. The list goes on...
Where do you look for inspiration for your films?
Inspiration can come from anywhere. Of course it can come from a book you read or a movie you watch. It can come from an experience in your life. It can come from a memory, something from your childhood or something from five years ago. The key is just to be open to ideas, to how you as an artist can relate to the world around you, and how you might be able to use your creativity to reflect on the world around you, to interpret it in a unique way, to comment on it, or simply to revel in some aspect of this life.
Which topics interest you the most?
You're going to start seeing a theme here. I try to be open to as wide a variety of topics as possible. Human relationships, wants, needs, desires, culture, society, the decisions people find themselves forced to make in life, history, the future. Interesting things can be found in all these topics, and in many others that you don't expect to be as interesting as they are.
What do you consider your greatest achievement in your career?
As an 'Indie' artist, I think the best thing you can accomplish is just to beat the odds and get your ideas out there. I might not have done as many things as some very successful artists, but five films - two of them documataries - eight books, more on the way. Reaching some kind of audience. Sometimes your job is just to find a way to get something done, regardless of the challenges facing you.
What do you consider most important about filming?
Whether it's making a film, writing a book, recording a song or an album (I also have good friends in the music business), painting an oil painting, acting on stage in a theater producton, taking a series of amazing photographs, all of it is a way of putting this crazy chaotic life on Earth into some sort of manageable context.
Which film technique of shooting do you consider the best?
It depends on the nature of the story you're telling. different techniques are right for different approaches to story telling. I love classic Hollywood Film Noir - Humphrey Bogart films from the 1940's. But I also love the French New Wave. I love the 'New Hollywood' of the 1970's which was more or less the American generation influenced by the French New Wave. Then you have innovations evolving beyond that in the 80s and 90s with the Coen Brothers, Spike Lee, and Terry Gilliam. They all have different approaches and techniques, but each can be right in the right context.
How would you rate/What is your opinion about current filmmaking?
I'm going to try to be fair and not go off on a rant here. There are great films being made these days, but sometimes they get buried by the big blockbusters. I live in Los Angeles and have experienced first hand how fickle and unpredictable production companies can be. If you read the recent stories about Netflix telling Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, basically, to intentionally dumb down their film, The Rip, you see what we're up against. But despite all the doomsaying about the marketing guys taking over story-telling (which has ALWAYS been a problem in Hollywood) great films still break through. Sometimes they bubble to the surface during awards season. Sometimes you have to go search for them, but they are still finding ways to get made.
What can disappoint you in a movie?
Cynicism on the part of the filmmakers or the studio. This is why most blockbuster or action films hold little interest for me. They feel like they were written by data points. Let's have a big action scene here and a fight here, and some villain who is pure evil so our hero can save the day. It's not an original idea, and none of the people involved really love the job. It's just a way to bet on big box office.
Who supports you in your film career?
Friends, family, all those people out there who have watched or read anything I've put out. When I think about someone I don't know, watching a film of mine on Prime Video, I think, that is a fine upstanding citizen! May you have great luck in life!
Peter Wick
March 12, 2026
