John Gulliver: Is there a mysterious force that connects us all?
Movie-maker interviews Camden's abductees, psychonauts, time travellers, tantric goddesses
Friday, 18th August 2023 — By John Gulliver
Mark Silcox from Man Like Mobeen TV show and Jazz Sagar
AGAINST my best instincts, perhaps even in a moment of weakness, I went to meet a man in a greasy spoon this week on the promise of “the biggest story you’ve ever reported on”.
Not willing to divulge too much on the phone, he had said it was a matter of police surveillance.
A few sips of tea in it became clear my deep-throat was most likely in the grip of some form of paranoia or delusions.
He told me how he was persistently followed by police drones and helicopters whenever he went.
Why? He needed an investigative reporter to find out.
But while his story did not stand up to any scrutiny, I did feel connected with him and the impulses behind what he was saying.
We are in this age of algorithms, artificial intelligence and facial recognition software all living with a sense that we are being unfairly zeroed- in-on by something.
It felt serendipitous, or perhaps greater powers were at work, but the very same day I spoke to Kentish Town filmmaker Jasdip Sagar, who is putting the finishing touches to Reel Encounters, a philosophical movie questioning whether there is a “mysterious force that connects us all”.
All shot in Camden – it stars Bhasker Patel (Emmerdale), Lucy Speed (EastEnders), Andrew Lancel (Coronation Street), Jon Campling (who was in a famous Death Eater scene in Harry Potter movies), and Mark Silcox (Man Like Mobeen TV show).
It includes interviews with some wonderful characters of Camden, including UFO abductees, a “time-traveller”, psychonauts, remote viewers, tantric goddesses, cyber punks and a psychic spy.
Jon Campling talks time travel
“I framed the movie in a way that starts out mocking the UFO believers, but then I start believing a bit.
“These people may sound crazy but they believe what they think. Some are quoting from studies and.
“In the case of the psychonauts who experiment with drugs like DMT, they are actually things.
“One guy told me how he saw a huge creature with four legs jump over his car: it was the size of a horse.”
Mr Sagar told how he was given by one interviewee a “UFO detector” that works with infrared beams.
Another claimed to be speaking to him from a few hundred years in the future, explaining how advanced societies had solved a key puzzle at the heart of quantum physics, enabling time travel.
A scene from the film
Mr Sagar, whose last film Made to Reel won a string of awards and was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, works with special effects on high- level TV series and Hollywood blockbusters.
He said: “I am trying to get to a point with the movie where we think about how we are all connected. I mean we are all essentially made of stardust, we were once all entangled.
“You know the idea that when one person learns a skill, the whole species learns it?
“People say that if a rat learns a trick in London, do all rats around the world learn it?
“Or that a crossword puzzle is harder in the morning than it is in the afternoon, because so many people have completed it?
“I used to believe that consciousness was an imagined property in the brain. But after making the movie, I’m leaning more towards it being something that exists outside the brain.
“Something at the end changed my whole paradigm. I can’t say too much about it, but it will be a shock for the viewers. They are among us …”